Kaboom

 

Kaboom, one of the best games in the 2600's library of games, was a big seller for Activision - over one million cartridges were sold by 1983. Kaboom's main character is The Mad Bomber. He's on the loose, dropping bombs at the top of the screen.

The object of the Kaboom is very simple: catch the bombs using the paddle controller. It sounds easy, and starts off at a slow speed, but your reflexes and hand-eye coordination will be tested in higher levels as bombs get dropped at a fast and frantic pace. Programmer Larry Kaplan was known for having great hand-eye coordination. Kaplan compared programming games - then and now: "You can't just go out and just do a game anymore. We used to spend so much of our time on game play and today's games seem to put too much emphasis on graphics and sound. It's the game play that makes a game fun - sometimes they [programmers, game players] forget that."

Other companies tried to cash in by releasing similar games - Eggomania (by US Games) and Music Machine (by Sparrow) to name a few. But none of them have the same charisma as Kaboom.

Activision would have been foolish not to include this game on their Action Pack Volumes for Macintosh and Windows PCs. They even re-worked the controls of the games so it could be played with a PC mouse. But it's not the same. You have to play Kaboom on a real Atari 2600 to experience the full effect and charm of this game. Emulators come very close to displaying the game, but the controls are where they come up short. There's nothing like playing the game with a set of paddle controllers. Ain’t nothing like the real thing.

Kaboom was actually based on an arcade coin-op by Atari called Avalanche. When Activision released the game and distributed the cartridge to magazine publishers, they sent a person dressed up as the Mad Bomber to deliver the game to the offices of the magazine publishers.

Activision expanded on Kaboom in the Atari 5200 / 8-bit Computer version. A player can choose to play the role of the Mad Bomber while the other player can try to catch the falling bombs. It also includes the 1812 Overture as a musical background. These additions to gameplay probably could have been achieved on the 2600 had it been released later on (1983 or 1984).

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