Quantum: Recharged

For as much as I’ve enjoyed Atari’s Recharged series, I can’t help but shake the feeling that we’ve seen and done this all before. Not because these are reimagined takes of arcade games released four decades ago, but rather because most of them end up being fairly straight-forward shoot ‘em ups, something we’ve seen a lot of in the last fourty years. Thankfully, that is not the case with the newest entry in the franchise – Quantum: Recharged. This is the rare action game where instead of shooting and causing huge explosions, we create shapes that will suck the bad guys into a void. Is that enough to shake up the shoot ‘em up genre? That’s what we’re going to find out when I review Quantum: Recharged from Atari.

First released as an arcade game back in 1982, Quantum was a simple yet creative action game developed by Betty Ryan. Using little more than a trackball, the goal was to draw a circle around the atomic particles in order clear them off the board and earn points. The action plays out a lot like a mix of Centipede and Qix, where the idea is to literally cut pieces into the level in order to defeat the bad guys.

This update keeps the same premise, but expands on the idea in some fresh and exciting ways. The goal is still to create circles and other shapes to open up a void in the playfield, but now it sticks around for a few seconds and will even suck up nearby baddies. This is especially important to the scoring system, because every enemy that gets vacuumed into the void will increase the multiplier. The trick is to maximize your points by sucking up as many enemies as possible before the multiplier timer runs out.

What I like about Quantum is how simple the gameplay is. This is one of the few Recharged games where your character doesn’t shoot anything, so all you need to worry about is creating circles by connecting the line your ship is generating. The special moves are limited to holding down one of the face buttons in order to speed up and dashing forward using the should button. That dash move is especially important, because it can quickly zoom you past enemies and allow you to open up shapes you normally wouldn’t have enough time to create.

One of the biggest changes to the game comes in the form of the bad guys. The so-called “atomic particles” of the first game have grown up and turned into an impressive selection of shoot ‘em up villains. You have the ships that will chase you, the ones that will trap you and even a few that will link to enemies and scatter in all directions when split up. The difficulty ramps up with the introduction of both stationary and moving enemies that shoot out laser beams, one of the things you’ll be able to avoid if you time the dash move properly. I like the way the game keeps adding new types of enemies, all while effectively using the ones from previous levels. This is definitely one of the more challenging games in the Recharged series.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

Speaking of the past games in the franchise, Quantum: Recharged also has its fair share of power-ups. Because this isn’t a traditional shooter, you won’t get the usual machine guns and spread shots, but rather will slow down enemies and add an important shield to your ship. There are a number of power-ups you can snag that will stop the enemies dead in their tracks, making it so much easier to draw a circle around them. While it’s certainly a nice addition, I didn’t feel like the power-ups were as crucial to this game as they were to Centipede or Caverns of Mars.

If you’ve played any of Atari’s Recharged games, then you can already predict the structure. The game is split into two different modes – arcade and mission. The arcade mode is a straight-forward affair, where you’ll have a set amount of lives and are working on beating your high score. Much like some of the previous games in the series, this arcade mode allows you to handicap the game in a few specific ways in exchange for a score multiplier. Although simple, this mode is fun and even has a multiplayer option.

Of course, the real fun in Quantum: Recharged comes in the form of the mission mode, which has been one of the very best things about this Recharged series. Spread out across a couple dozen challenging stages, these missions are mostly built around clearing the screen of enemies. Occasionally you’ll be timed or even have to hit a certain score before you run out of bad guys, but the action mostly remains the same. While that may sound boring, the game does a good job of introducing newer (and tougher) challenges with each passing level. This is where you’ll really start to appreciate the wide variety of enemies.

That said, I can’t help but feel like the mission mode comes up a bit short. This is a problem I’ve had with the last few Recharged games, as the challenge levels doesn’t feel as unique and thought-out as they once did. If you go back to Centipede or even Breakout, you’ll find missions that completely shake up the level designs and force you to play the game differently. I loved the missions where the goal was to avoid enemies for a certain amount of time, because that’s that kind of thing that takes you out of your comfort zone. There’s nothing like that here. It would have been fun to see walls and other obstacles get in the way, or maybe give us challenges where we need to suck up ten or twenty enemies with a single shape. There’s a lack of imagination to these challenge stages that continues to disappoint me.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

The same can be said about most of the other issues I’ve had with this series. Once again, the backgrounds in Quantum are boring and lame. There’s no way to change the look or spruce up the backgrounds, which feels like a huge missed opportunity. This is the kind of game where you should be unlocking new skins, backgrounds, themes, music and other ways to customize the experience. This is something Pac-Man Championship Edition managed to get right back in 2007, yet these Recharged games continue to be depressingly barebones. What’s up with that?

Thankfully, the unique style of gameplay helps make up for the typical problems. This is the kind of game that takes a few seconds to learn, but the gameplay ends up being quite a bit deeper and more satisfying than it first appears. It helps that the developers have spent so much time retooling the enemies, giving each one a personality and a reason to be feared. There’s a level of chaos here that you don’t normally see in modern shooters, and the fact that you can’t use the typical guns and ammo makes the action so much more intense and rewarding. Of all the games in Atari’s Recharged franchise, Quantum is my new favorite.