Maze Craze: A Game of Cops and Robbers Review

Sometimes things are not as they appear to be. Take Maze Craze: A Game of Cops and Robbers (hereafter referred to as Maze Craze) for example. At first glance, it may appear to be a Pac-man clone, as God knows too many of those found their way to the Atari 2600 over the years. But, since it released in 1978, two years before Pac-man hit arcades, it more likely influenced Pac-man than cloned it. Although a much simpler concept than Pac-man, this game remains entertaining.

The concept of this game is simple. You are in a maze. Your objective is to make it to the end of the maze without getting caught by your enemies, who are represented by moving blocks. These blocks move through the maze, and if they hit you, it’s game over. The game does not keep score in any way, so you basically either make it to the end of the maze or you don’t. And when I say maze, I mean maze; its not a multi-path Pac-man arena, but a literal maze.

Aesthetically, this game meets 1978 standards. The pixels are pretty big for the most part, although the player’s guy has some smaller detail. The color scheme is also somewhat limited, although, when playing with multiple opponents, each one is a different color. On the sound side, there is no music, and the sound effects are the typical bare-bones set to be expected in 1978, namely, one when you reach the end of the maze, one when you die, and one if an enemy reaches the beginning of the maze and touches the icon marking the starting spot. They don’t sound too bad though, so I’m not going to complain much here.

In terms of gameplay, this game controls exactly as I described. The button is only used to bring up the next maze after you make it through one, and all other control is handled by the joystick. The game controls well though. The mazes can be difficult to find your way through, but that only makes the game more interesting. I must say though that it seems that the enemies come straight through the maze backward, making them hard to avoid, but a good knowledge of the mazes can probably deter that, if you’re patient enough to get that knowledge. There seems to be a variety of mazes though, which is superior to Pac-man’s one arena and three years prior to it.

This game boasts a multitude of gameplay modes. You can alter two things: the number of enemies, from zero to at least three (I say at least as I never tried to get above that since three proved to be difficult enough for me), and the visibility factor of the maze. You can make it so a bit of the maze in the middle, or even the entire maze, are oranged out (the pathways are normally marked in orange, so when the walls are removed, the section of the screen becomes orange). When the maze isn’t all shown, the oranged out portions will flash the walls every few seconds so that finding your way through the maze isn’t a complete exercise in futility though.

If you just want to leisurely find your way through mazes then, there’s full-maze shown and zero enemies available as an option, but, in all honesty, where’s the fun in that? But it leaves this game with a level of challenge that is right for every player, a feat which is commendable in any game. Although this game would later be outshone in many aspects by the better of the Pac-man clones, it still stands as a game that is great for Atari 2600 gamers of all skill levels, and, for that reason, I recommend you consider getting it if you can find it.