In 1982, Gottlieb released a game that took gamers by storm. That game was Q*Bert and it was such a success that it was converted to just about every home system of the time except the Atari 7800. Fear not for Ken Siders did not like to see this gap in the 7800’s library and he created a faithful port of the arcade classic under the name B*nQ.
As in the arcade game, you play the role of an orange character (I guess his name here is B*nQ) who is on a pyramid jumping to change the colours of the cubes on it. Of course, life is never that simple and there are various enemies that will stop at nothing to prevent B*nQ from completing his task. These enemies are purple in colour and they come in the shape of a snake and some hideous looking characters that jump on the pyramid in the wrong way. These kill B*nQ on contact. There are also red balls that fall down the pyramid that are deadly to the touch. Green characters don’t harm B*nQ but they change the cubes back to their original colours, making B*nQ’s task more difficult. B*nQ can jump on them to kill them. A green ball freezes all enemies in place for several seconds giving B*nQ a chance to change more cubes without fear of enemies killing him. The graphics on B*nQ are excellent and very close to their arcade counterpart. Sound is as good as it can be using a TIA chip and game control is responsive. B*nQ has four different levels to choose from and offers one or two-player action.
