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Review by aschultz
January 23, 2010
TA's levels follow a set pattern. First, three letter waves. Push a key, and your ground "guns," alternating orange and blue circles, fire at the leftmost of that key at the bottom of a column. Fail, and you lose an energy point. You start with a hundred, losing thirty-five if enemies reach the ground as they zigzag off the edges and drop. This is easy in the first wave, where unscrambled letters allow you to cycle between keys early on. ASDF times sixteen, or EDUJ, may even temporarily bust the Words Per Minute gauge on the side. The second and third waves scramble things, with some strategy is needed especially with the letters starting lower.
Survive those, and you get a WORD ATTACK. Here twenty words fly across the screen. Type the featured one (backspace is allowed if needed) with a wave and hit space (your thumb) to regain energy. Lose energy if a word makes it across. A near-perfect word wave and winning three letter waves merits a bonus wave. Words start nonsensically but some had me actually cracking a dictionary in my youth--lateral learning was no mean feat then. Sometimes words randomly appear too close together, and since you can't pass and take one hit, one mistake snowballs.
Forty levels of this are structured so many feed into others. For instance, level one has ASDF, two has JKL;, and three combines the home row. Later levels introduce shift-characters, though letter cases are still too futuristic. However, the snazzy menu specifying enemy speed (affecting bonuses) and starting level allows for learning curves, too. Even the sounds work. The ominous introductory scale quicker with each wave, and the more functional "DOMP" as letters move and bell when you mess up all provide more atmosphere than the standard missile noises from so many knock-off arcade games.
And while TA has a high score list, which I abused the level editor feature to conquer ("sixty-four A's, word attack? Yeah, A's a word. 90 words per minute,") my warmest memories are of the dancing letters: A's leaning on one leg, Y's swaying, and T's and I's tilt their tops to a techno-hillbilly tune I still whistle today. All kinds of Pac-Man clones had their own odd rip-off skits, but I never suspected LETTERS could go crazy.
My parents gave me all kinds of wretched educational software for the Apple, and I suspect the cheap games they got me were meant to sucker me into actual learning. Type Attack underhandedly outdid that. I think a TA remake could still teach a Maltron or Dvorak keyboard well. And I'm sure someone could think up some extra cool letter dances. It's simple enough, a fan remake would go pretty quickly--even if they haven't mastered the game.
Rating: 8/10
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Most recent video game reviews written by aschultz
Dragon Wars (Apple II) [February 06, 2012]
Eternal Dagger (Apple II) [January 21, 2012]
Othello (NES) [January 09, 2012]
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (Apple II) [November 15, 2010]
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (Apple II) [November 14, 2010]
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