Cloak & Dagger (1984)

Name:Cloak & Dagger
Number:217
Year:1984
Publisher:Atari
Developer:Atari
Genre:Top-Down Shooter
Difficulty:5/5
Time:2 hour 30 minutes
Won:Yes (89W/70L)

As I was putting the finishing touches on I, Robot, I was quite eager to consider Atari's arcade games over and down with. Indeed, that was to be the last arcade game I covered this year too, but of course, it turns out I missed something important. The movie tie-in Cloak & Dagger.

I say tie-in, because it's not a license like we think of them, it's supposed to be the game inside the movie. From what I'm reading, it's a spy thriller loosely based off a crime short story and has the dubious honor of being one of four films based off said short story. The game's relevance solely seems to be that the main character wishes that he lived in a world like the protagonist. We think about such things today, but for something like this, that seems downright quaint.

Why would you think that would work when you've been chasing him for a while?

Cloak & Dagger was released as a conversion kit for Robotron 2084, because this was just before I, Robot, and Atari was doing quite poorly. The movie doesn't seem like it did much either, which could not have helped. The story is that you're chasing after Dr. Boom inside his bomb factory.

You already sort of know how this one's going to play like, Robotron 2084. It controls the exact same way, one joystick shoots, the other moves. The focus is quite different in how you're supposed to do that, rather than a hundred or so enemies on-screen, often there are a handful, with a ton of boxes everywhere. Or rather, explosives. You get points for shooting them, but the inactive ones you get more points for taking. To actually encourage players to do this, there are objects you pick up which are maps and power-ups. Preventing you from just taking everything are active explosives, walk into them and you die.

The actual enemy list is pretty basic starting out. Starting off there's dumb enemy who just kind of shoots back. He gets more aggressive as the level goes on, but he's not very troublesome. Later, Dr. Bomb hangs around for a moment to throw bombs at you. There's an eye thing, not too troublesome because it stands still and has no range.

The blue things are forklifts, the tube in the top left is an explosive armer.

Other hazards aren't really enemies. Forklifts kill you. They move boxes between places, and reflect your shots. Explosives Armers are...exactly what they sound like. Also on every stage is a bomb in the center. This functions as a timelimit and as a bonus, you get an "igniter" button, which throws something towards the bomb. If it lights you get mega bonuses, just don't get caught in the blast. It also lights after a certain amount of time anyway, but slower.

There are three distinct kinds of levels, the first are the conveyor belt levels. These have a bunch of crates on conveyor belts. This is the most common level type, and most of the focus is here. The real problem, outside of not keeping an eye on each enemy, is just fighting the belts. Getting something of actual value off these things can be annoying. They don't quite work the way you'd expect.

Then there are the cave levels. I have no problems with these. You get to shoot the walls and for once the game isn't focused on overwhelming you with random crap. Sadly, there are only a handful of these.

This only briefly flashes, so you can't just abuse this to advance.

For three levels, you need to find maps to a minefield, and then on the fourth, you use that map to figure out the path through a minefield. You could, of course, just manually do this, since you have a mine radar and it periodically lights up, but this is risky, but not entirely worthless. The path is not always the quickest one, and finding the map can be tricky on some levels due to the sheer number of crates there are.

This goes fairly well for a while, it's easier than most of its contemporaries, but this is more because instead of throwing a thousand enemies at you, it throws a thousand crates at you. Something that is sometimes deadly is always better than something that always is, but it's not a cakewalk either.

It's helped by a generous amount of the game allowing you to skip to later levels, both at the start and a between level skip, which forces you to stop on minefield levels, without the map, but you should be able to figure out where to go if you're paying attention.

That said, once you get into the teens things ramp up. Eyes start appearing in non-cave levels, and most annoying of all, there are box crushers. You have to time your way past them, fine, but they work wonky as far as shots getting past them go. It's not clear where you can and cannot shoot past them. It takes until the twenties before it truly gets bad. Something I found amusing was that after I decided to play this with save states, the next level goes with a "Careful, these next levels are tricky", as if it wouldn't have taken me thousands of quarters to get to the point I just was.

As these were the final stretch, this would be more shocking if they weren't. They were still all better than Level 28. I don't know what it was about Level 28, but I could just not get any luck there whatsoever. Either I got lucky on the final stretch, or they just aren't as hard as the game credits, but I died in these less than I did Level 28. They just weren't that hard after what I went through.

The red pool is an acid pit. I don't know why it's red.

Well, except the final minefield, Level 32. You're basically pinned down at the start, there's plenty of spare room to get past the eyes, but they shoot down your shots, and you have to deal with all the robots. I know what I have to do with the eyes, but I can't seem to do it properly here. I need to get lucky with them. Now, here's the reason why this game isn't fondly remembered, practically every level has conveyor belts. Every level is the level that moves you around whether you want it to or not. Further, the game also doesn't like you moving and puts as much danger in your path as possible; Basically, the conveyor belt is putting you on a path towards death.

Something I waited to mention was the between level elevator rides. These are honestly just cool as hell. Depending on the level, he acts like it was no sweat, or if he nearly got blown up, freaks out. It's not quite accurate, but he plays out like a proto-Build protagonist, no voice clips, but the badassery is still there. Also, hints and ways to skip past levels you've already played.

The final boss fight is actually kind of mundane. It's not easy, of course, but compared to some of these minefield levels, it's easier. Dr. Boom goes down in one hit, so the real threat are the robots. My character's hitbox is completely bizarre, I don't understand what it is at all. To get past here, you just shoot the stars guarding the secret plans, and go through the next elevator.

Right, I've won...and the elevator is going up to Level 32...and opening. It's the same, except there's no bomb. This game is kidding me. Fortunately, I don't have to play Level 32 again, I can play Level 31. Now the reason why you don't stop are Node Monsters and Superguard. The Node Monsters appear in the ruins of a bomb, they bounce around and take three shots to hit. They're annoying, but you probably shouldn't be staying around for too long. Superguard chases after you if you stand around for too long, and fighting him is technically possible, but not very wise.

Okay, not that impressive.

You win the game, definitely a win, since the game ends, by making it back up to the ground floor. No second boss, you just escape. The game congratulates you and then shows you the blueprints you recovered. For all we might expect such a feat to be worth some grand ending cutscene, I think that in of itself, there is no other reward for completing this than completing this. Which isn't as bad as you'd think, even in the dirty way I won.

Weapons:
Fairly basic, I think you had about 8 shots on-screen. 1/10

Enemies:
The actual enemies, as opposed to hazards, is quite low, about five enemy types, most of which depend on the level and some aren't even there until you've nearly beaten the game. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Some interesting ideas at first, then devolves into endless conveyor belts. 3/10

Player Agency:
The igniter button is a bit wonky to figure out, but that's emulation issues. It's otherwise mostly fine, but it handicaps itself too much. 5/10

Interactivity:
You can shoot pretty much anything that's on-screen, but most of it is boxes. Still, points for effort. 4/10

Atmosphere:
The whole spy theme feels at odds with the strange game world. Cool, I'm some super spy, why does every level look like it was taken from a Looney Tunes game? 3/10

Graphics:
I dig the between level sections, but otherwise it's mostly just functional stuff. 3/10

Story:
An excuse. 0/10

Sound/Music:
A nice little intro theme, then blips and bloops. 2/10

That's 23, which would tie it at number one for 1984, but that doesn't seem right, so I'll remove a point, so 22. Still higher than I, Robot.

Next up, Rejection, yeah, I actually got that working.