Pong and Beyond

559th played so far

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1990
Developer: Atari Games
Publisher: Atari Games

Welcome to my Atari/Midway arcade-a-thon! Some time ago, we picked up a PSP collection, Midway Arcade Treasures for a decent price, which contained several games on the list. We have used it for a few games already, but it now made for a good companion for watching TV – playing some simpler games while doing other things.

First on the list is Klax, one of the block-stacking puzzle games that has always been popular.

Our Thoughts

Klax is a pretty straightforward puzzle game. It’s about stacking blocks, and if you get three of the same colour in a row, in any direction, they disappear. It works as a pretty standard set up. The conveyer belt setup, requiring you to catch the blocks and move them, adds more of an action element, with timing even more important (drop too many blocks and you’re dead) and moves it far enough away to make it its own game. It works especially well as an additional theme for the game.

What adds the extra dimension is that the game isn’t just about forming lines. You need to meet certain goals to advance that differ between levels – completing a certain number of lines, getting certain numbers of points or using a certain number of tiles. Of course they go up and get more difficult as you go along, but it means switching up your tactics to meet different goals all the time. There are a few additional power ups that unlock, adding some additional distractions, but the formula develops quite nicely based on this.

Final Thoughts

Klax is not a very complex game, but its goals are far more interesting and diverse than most other puzzle games like it. There are some more action elements, which are nice, but it’s the variation of what you do that’s far more interesting.