Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em (Atari 2600) review "You know, I was trying to come up with a good intro for this. Something interesting, like a little descriptive scene or narrative. The usual. But I can’t. Not for a game like this, anyway. One can only stare slack-jawed at that blank page and that ever-blinking cursor for so long. Besides, the box sums it up better than anything I could have come with: "

You know, I was trying to come up with a good intro for this. Something interesting, like a little descriptive scene or narrative. The usual. But I can’t. Not for a game like this, anyway. One can only stare slack-jawed at that blank page and that ever-blinking cursor for so long. Besides, the box sums it up better than anything I could have come with:

You are the local leading-lady and all the uptown boys are standing in line for a date, but a savvy soda-slinger just around the corner is more down your alley and you just can’t seem to get enough of his famous fountain treats. Most evenings the joint’s a jumpin’, the city’s clamoring for that counter-Casanova’s premium hand-packed ice cream, and to prove you are the only girl in town who can make his soda pop, you will have to apply yourself to matters at hand and stay one jump ahead of the crowd. Demonstrate your heart is in the right place (at the right time), and you will be certain to get all that’s comin’ to you.

OH GOD THE INNUENDO.

I’m not sure whether to cringe or laugh. Maybe both. The premise is bad enough as it is, but that tidal wave of cheesy porno lines is just staggering. There’s no soda or ice cream here. Oh, there’s a guy slinging something, but it’s not dairy. It’s his semen. Whole buckets of the stuff, bursting forth one mouthful at a time. The man is standing on the roof of a building, pixilated lips trembling, fists stroking his ridiculously endowed privates - this ‘famous fountain’ is apparently hand-operated - and spraying his gunk all over the streets below. The women are lined up, gazing eagerly - hungrily - at the spatters of white creamy stuff…and it’s your job to make sure they get fed. He beats himself off, and they get to eat every last drop.

Honestly. A bukkakke game? Of all the things Mystique could have done, they go with a naked man shooting his sticky loads off a rooftop? It’s like a porno version of Kaboom!, and its basic gameplay mechanics work accordingly. The Cumslinger launches his stuff with a few shots at a time, and you use the Atari paddle to get the women close enough to catch everything. The first few rounds are pretty easy; the spurts are close together, offering little more than an appetizer to the oncoming torrents of slime. If they swallow 69 drops (oh Mystique, you just had to do to something like that, didn’t you?), the women get an extra turn. They’ll even lick their lips - which is quite possibly the most hilariously disturbing animation in retro gaming - for each successful round. Getting that far isn’t easy, though. The paddle controls are unresponsive, making this naughty little game almost unplayable. Considering how you lose a life for each round you miss a drop, the difficulty level is beyond broken. The women will quickly starve, and you’ll be left staring a Game Over screen, feeling dirty and ashamed.

But hey, at least the Cumslinger will enjoy himself. You can tell by that huge, quivering grin he has plastered across his pixilated mug. It’s a decent distraction from that monstrosity he has pointing over the rim of the roof. The Atari 2600 was never capable of showing off much detail, and this is one of the rare instances where such limitations are a benefit. But the movement, that horrible, jerky, jackhammer-like motion he makes…ugh. Not to mention the women. They’re supposed to be a pair of naked blondes, but they strut around like giant, molted birds. Their necks are craned up at a sickening angle, and their mouths are gaping as they mindlessly search the sky for their next treat. The worst part is how the game swiped the sound effects from Pac-Man; now I can’t go back to playing that old standby without the image of the Cumslinger and his stupid smile, serving up another round of his poorly rendered juices.

You know what the scary thing is? This could have worked. With just a little tweaking, this could have been a solid (albeit unoriginal) spin on an established gameplay concept. The crappy controls are what ruin it; even the simplest, most perverted game of catch can’t be done if nothing can move properly. That’s assuming that you can even get past the opening image without cringing in disbelief. The smile, the massive penis, and the female bird monstrosities definitely aren’t standard fare for an Atari title. For any system, for that matter. Why, Mystique? Why did you make this pathetic excuse for adult entertainment? Who the Hell plays a bukkakke game, anyway? Don’t get this game. Don’t even bother looking for it. It’ll just leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Community review by disco (June 07, 2009) Disco is a San Francisco Bay Area native, whose gaming repertoire spans nearly three decades and hundreds of titles. He loves fighting games, traveling the world, learning new things, writing, photography, and tea. Not necessarily in that order.