Game Review: Carnival for ColecoVision

Rating: 70 out of 100

Carnival for ColecoVision is another port from an arcade game. It came out for the ColecoVision in 1982. The name is slightly misleading as you don’t get to choose from different carnival games. It is one game: The Shooting Gallery.

Even though it is not really action packed, it is probably one of the funner classic games I have found. You control the gun and shoot various items as they scroll past your screen in one of three levels. The higher the level you shoot the items at, the more you score. If the ducks make it to the bottom level they take flight and if you don’t hit them pretty quickly they go down and eat some of your bullets, shortening the game. After killing everything on the screen you get to kill bears that increase in speed depending on how many times you hit them.

There is a bonus box in the upper left corner which you must hit before it goes away! It comes back ever so often so keep your eye out. The flags at the top center aren’t there for decoration either. You can shoot them and get a few more bonus points. And speaking of bonus points, if you shoot the letters “B O N U S” in the right order to spell out the word “bonus” guess what you get?

I picked it up for a few bucks at the flea market and it was totally worth it. It is not one of those games you get addicted to, but is easily one you can spend an hour a week playing off and on. The graphics are pretty good. The music is annoying after awhile but can easily be turned off by shooting at the music note in the far right corner.

I would recommend this to just about anyone. It is an easy game to pick up on, it plays well and its just plain fun and different. It is one of the first games I found for ColecoVision so I don’t figure there will be any problems finding it.

Check out the video below to see an extremely corny original commercial for the game.

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE: Don’t forget to vote for your favorite game system on the poll located on the top of the column on the right! A lot of people have voted for the SNES, which is probably my least favorite vintage system and I really don’t think it did much to further the video game industry, but one man’s trash is another’s treasure. Anyway, VOTE! PLEASE VOTE!