KLAX

~ KLAX ~

Tengen

HuCard

1990

My logical brother Alexei tried to reason with me, but I would have none of it: I was going to play KLAX even though I knew it would be a waste of time and a thoroughly dopey thing to do. I wasn't "giving it a fair chance" or anything, as I had complete faith in Alexei's reports of its through-and-through shittiness; but I play everything Turbo. Everything. And I can't receive word of a massive disaster without subsequently rushing out to view the wreckage firsthand.

Well, I went and I saw. And I'm here to tell you that even if you know full well that KLAX is an outright stinker heading in, there's an extremely good chance that it will still find a way to make you despise it to an unanticipated degree. It's a disgustingly awful puzzler that, laughably enough, is considered a "classic" in some circles.

Well, there's your mission. Get to it. KLAX doesn't exactly match Tetris in cleverness of concept.

It has no personality and is every bit as boring as it looks. With annoying cheers and screams in lieu of actual music, the game quickly transitions from dull to irritating.

Wait, did I say it has no personality? My mistake. The background "scenery" does change every few levels. Here we have an exquisite parking lot...

...and here's a forest. Play well and keep advancing and you'll get to see... palette-swapped versions of the early backdrops...

...which isn't much incentive for taking on the game's silly challenges.

But whatever. I honed my "BIG X"-making skills until I earned the right to "warp." I was whisked away to the later levels...

...which provided no relief from the monotony.

Ah, to be back in the days of useless pre-stage "hints." Kinda reminds me of Gauntlet. Speaking of which, Tengen should've granted the Turbo a rendition of Gauntlet. My treasure-hunting cousin Zigfriedelnov and I used to spend hours looking around for the stupid "clues" in the NES version.

Um.

KLAX

Tengen - 1990 - U.S.A.

HuCard

I got this game recently as a gift over the Christmas holiday. I've never been a big fan of KLAX, but it was a necessary acquisition in my seemingly neverending quest to acquire all the TG-16 US releases.

The TG-16 port is actually a really, really good facsimile of the arcade original. As far as TG-16 arcade ports go, KLAX is up there with the best of 'em. "Great," you're probably thinking, "KLAX must be a home run." Well, KLAX's arcade-perfect blessing is also it's biggest pitfall.

See, the trouble is that KLAX is a lousy fucking game to begin with. Keep in mind I'm probably the biggest puzzle game whore on the face of the Earth. KLAX is inane, it's slow, and it's boring. The most excitement in KLAX comes when you meet certain criteria that allows you to "warp" ahead a certain number of stages. That excitement is short-lived however, as soon as you actually reach the stage you're warping to and the doldrums of the gameplay set in once again. Audio in KLAX consists of "clicks", "clacks", "beeps" and "bloops." There is actually a "sound test" option available from the option menu where I was able to "test" all four sound effects and a couple poorly-digitized speech effects. This would be all well and good, except the game actually lacks any sort of in-game music. It doesn't take long before the clicking and clacking gets reaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllly fucking old.

The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that the game "options" screen really lives up to it's name. Just about every aspect of gameplay is adjustable, from the screen resolution right down to how random the colors of tiles you are given are. Unfortunately, there is no switchable option available in the options menu to toggle ass suckage, so despite the configurability factor, KLAX still remains a first-class KLUNKER.

I was a little excited about picking up the TG-16 version of KLAX, since I've seen many-a-gamer rave about it. Let me just say that unless you already know yourself to be a big fan of KLAX (in which case I'll say you ought to expand your horizons), you're better off spending your money on Puyo Puyo or Implode. You'll have a shitload more fun and get a fancy soundtrack to listen to while you play (imagine that!). Fuck, even Hatris has in-game music.

What an honor.

I'm pretty disappointed that this was the domestic effort we got from Tengen, though they did a fine job with what they had to work with. I would, however, have been much more excited to see the rumored port of Marble Madness come to fruition than this pile of crap. I'm a major Marble Madness fan, and I bet a Turbo port would've been just awesome.