Kaboom! was one of
those games that played better than it led you to believe. It had lackluster box cover art of a
stereotypical criminal type dropping bombs off the roof of a building. There was truth in advertising there, too, as
that is what the game consisted of – a criminal dropping bombs that you had to catch
in one of your three buckets. As the
game progressives the bombs drop faster and more erratically. It was a scenario lifted directly from real
life … or a cartoon.
My neighbor had this game, and I avoided playing it for
quite some time despite his insistence that I would “love” it. The game’s box turned me off that much, and even
the act of watching him play it made me want to avert my eyes. Finally, after much convincing, I gave it a
reluctant whirl. I sucked horribly at it,
as to be expected, but I soon found my skill progressing. Catching bombs became, like the activities of
most Activision games of that time period (early 1980s), strangely addictive.
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The game also had a bit of subtlety which caught my
attention: When you missed a bomb, the criminal’s
face changed. That is a standard type of
touch in today’s games, but back then it was not, and it was that little thing
that made this game stick out in my mind.
Well, that and the fact that you weren’t doing anything to the criminal,
as you would in most games. You weren’t
shooting at him. You weren’t trying to
catch him. You were merely trying to
survive the onslaught of bombs, and he had
personality.
Kaboom! was a
simple game with simple graphics, a simple title and a simple idea. Sometimes simplicity is all you need to make
a fun game, though. Compare this to Desert Falcon and you’ll know what I
mean.
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