Kangaroo

The Good
Like many 2600 games, Kangaroo has some really fun, involving cover art. When my sister got this game for her birthday, I remember looking at the box and thinking, "This game has got to be the coolest thing ever--you get to be a kangaroo who boxes monkeys. Thank you, jesus." My little sister was even further stoked because she was at the age in her gaming career where box-art still misled her on in-game graphics. So the box-art gets a big thumbs up for doing it's job: it tricks you into buying the game.

The Bad
You hop from platform to platform to rescue your baby kangaroo. This wouldn't be so bad if the controls for the game didn't completely suck, but they did. In order to jump to the next platform, you had to push up and right simultaneously, and on the 2600 stick, this didn't always work quite right. As a result, the part of the game that mattered the most, getting from platform to platform, was ruined by poor control.

You just cannot expect people to want to play a game in which the most necessary task is rendered into a happy accident by bad game control. Expecting this of them is cruel and unusual.

The Bottom Line
A "Donkey Kong with a twist" game that had much better box-art than game control. Belongs in that big hole in Nevada with all the ET carts.