Q-bert is a puzzle game that takes place entirely on a series of steps which you can jump on to change the color. The object is to change the entire field to one color and once a tile has been changed to the correct color it will stay that way. On the first levels the tiles will change color when you jump on them only once but later on you must jump on them several times to change them. You will be obstructed by balls that fall from the ceiling and go down the steps and later levels brings other enemies that can follow you around the screen. You can evade them by jumping on floating platforms that are on the edge of the screens, you will be transported to the top of the steps and if you time it right your persuers will fall to their doom. Be carefull though you can also fall of and die or if you touch an enemy you will also lose a life.
Q-bert was at the time of release in 1983 a fun little puzzle game, I wouldn’t really describe the game as an action game because it’s not a matter of moving as fast as you can. It’s actually better to take it slow and time your jumps to avoid any enemies. The levels don’t have a lot of variety because the tiles remains the same and gameplay doesn’t change much.
I can’t believe the NES version was released in 1989 by which the game was really dated and it did not add anything extra to the game. I added this mainly for nostalgic reasons but the game doesn’t really stood the test of time like some other classic games.
Overal rating: 5/10
This game was released for many different systems here are some notes:
| Atari 2600 | Released in 1983. Game has been tested but not completed with Stella v1.4.1. Despite the lack of hardware power it still has the entire game. |
| Atari 5200 | Released in 1983. The extra power makes this version compareable to the colecovision. |
| BBC Micro | Released in 1983. A strange version that has no animation, you actually start in the middle of the playing field which can sometimes kill you quickly if you don’t move right after starting. |
| C64 | Released in 1983. Game has been tested but not completed with CCS64 v2.0 win. |
| Colecovision | Released in 1983. Game has been tested but not completed with Koleko v1.31. |
| Intellivision | Released in 1983. Game has been tested but not completed with Bliss Java v1.61. |
| NES | Released in 1989. Game has been tested but not completed with FCE ultra v0.98.12. Released 6 years after the original and it added nothing extra to boot! |
| SMS – Sega Master system | Released in 1983. Actually this was only released for the SG-1000 in Japan, a predecessor of the SMS. It does not work with the DEGA emulator but it does work with MEKA which you can find in the utils section. |
| VIC-20 | Released in 1983. Game has been tested but not completed with WinVICE v1.14. There is no animation, you don’t actually jump from tile to tile but you simply appear on the next tile. To get it to run properly in winVICE you should select “attach cartridge image”, “4/8 K image at $a000” and from options select NTSC as the videomode. |
| Others | This version was not available. Gameboy released in 1992. |
| Date added | Dec-09-2004 19:05 |
| Name | Q-bert |
| Developer | D. Gottlieb & Co. |
| Publisher | Parker Brothers |
| First released | 1983 |
| Genre | Puzzle |
