Q*bert (1982 Arcade) and Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert (Unreleased Arcade) Review

Q*bert
Enhanced as Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert
Platform: Arcade
Developed by Gottlieb/Mylstar
First Released in 1982
Included in Q*bert Rebooted (2014)
Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert Never Officially Released

The story of Q*bert’s development is every bit as fascinating as the game itself. Like how it was originally going to be a shooting game called Snots & Boogers. Later, after shooting gave way to strategy, it nearly carried the disastrous name “@!#?@!” which would have been literally impossible to spread via word of mouth. I’m curious to learn a lot more, which is why I just ordered Creating Q*bert and Other Classic Games by the man himself: Warren Davis. $13.99 on Amazon. It’s what I’m treating myself to for Christmas.

Well, I promised this review when I did Krull and Three Stooges, and with 2023 almost up, there’s no time like the present. Q*bert is an icon of gaming. One of those characters that’s reached the zenith of recognition. Yet Sony, the owners of the franchise, really haven’t done a whole lot with him. Mostly, they just license him to appear in movies. Q*bert had a cameo in Wreck-it-Ralph and a prominent role in Pixels. As terrible as that film was, it was still more dignified than the 1980s cartoon that was set in the 1950s where Q*bert was a greaser. I’m sure that’s what children who wanted a Q*bert cartoon were clamoring for: Q*bert meets Happy Days. However, next year marks ten years since Sony really did anything with the adorable little orange thing. Q*bert Rebooted released in 2014 to scathing reviews, with most critics citing the bad controls. They said the same thing about the Q*bert game I had for Dreamcast. The weird thing about the franchise is it’s famous for difficult controls, but I’ve really never struggled with them when I’ve played the arcade game. Actually, Q*bert is maybe the arcade game I was most wrong about. I haven’t always been a fan. But, I have to admit, it grew on me.

The end of my best game ever. 117K. I was proud. As for the iconic swearing, it happened when sound designer David Thiel got stymied by how the synthesized voices needed to be programmed. Each syllable had to be arranged manually, which is harder than it sounds. In Ultimate History of Video Games, Thiel notes that “Bonus Points” sounded like “Bogus Points.” He became frustrated and inserted several random speech banks together, and the end result sounded like alien swear words that something somewhere would exclaim in anger, and they went with it. So, in a sense, Q*bert’s swearing is actually gaming’s greatest rage quit!

When I reviewed the Atari 2600 and 5200 versions in Atari 50: The Games They Couldn’t Include – Part Two, I gave the 2600 version a YES! despite the fact that it’s missing a couple key baddies. It gets off to a slow start, but once you reach the levels where the cubes change colors every time you jump on them, I enjoyed it a lot more. The coin-op, on the other hand, becomes overwhelming, especially when a little green imp appears that undoes all your progress. I thought it went too far (heh, I had no idea what “too far” was, it turns out). And for that reason, I initially disliked Q*bert. I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong, and I got arcade Q*bert wrong. More specifically, I had the wrong mindset. I was thinking strictly of both the puzzle and level-clearing aspects and not the high-score chasing side of the equation. That was my mistake and I take it back. Once I focused primarily on challenging my own best scores, I had jolly good time playing Q*bert. Warren Davis.. which I keep typing as “Warwick Davis” because my brain is STOOPID.. created something special here. So did Jeff Lee, the artist who designed the character itself and the stack of cubes he hops across.

The last few cubes are a pain in the ass. Learning the timing for when to use the discs is pretty much everything. Actually, one of the things that helped me was that I started to anticipate when the game was “due” for another one of the jackasses that undoes your progress. A strategy that was foiled by the unreleased harder version of Q*bert.

But, a funny thing happened when I adjusted my attitude. Once I was in the right mindset and treated Q*bert purely as a white-knuckle, score-driven avoider, I actually got further than I ever have before. A lot further, actually, and I could maintain this consistently between games. You get points for every successful hop you make that changes the color of a block. Levels are divided into four stages, and by the third and fourth levels, you’re dealing with blocks that can change back to their original colors. This was previously as good as I could do because of the creatures called “Slick” and “Sam” who revert cubes back to previous colors. This time around, once I got to that point, I took a defensive approach. I was still mindful of the goal of each level, but with my focus more on survival, I came to better appreciate the thrilling close calls. Seriously, the chase element here is every bit as intense as the best Pac-Man games. I loves me some Pac-Man (read my Jr. Pac-Man review) but this offers even more close calls, actually.

The discs of Q*bert are pretty satisfying to use. Actually, I admire the restraint shown. It must have been mighty tempting to have the “turn-the-tables” aspect of Q*bert involve directly attacking the enemies. It’s what was trendy at the time. But, Q*bert is one of the more comical game characters of the era, and getting the baddies to fling themselves off the pyramid has a Wile E. Coyote vibe to it. The arcade cabinets even had an authentic pinball knocker to complete the effect. This was produced by pinball stalwart Gottlieb. They had plenty.

I always got angry around this point in Q*bert. Not this time. I finally said “screw completing the stage! This is too much!” and started trying to scratch out enough distance between me and the baddies. Then, it happened. After about a minute of hopping around, just hanging on for dear life, through sheer osmosis, a path to victory revealed itself. About six or seven hops later, I had won. Wait.. what? The first time it happened, it felt like a fluke. But then it kept happening level after level. As it turns out, the best offense in Q*bert is a good defense. Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t COMPLETELY mindless avoidance, but I also stopped getting angry if I had to leave the area I was “patrolling” for lack of a better term. It was rewarding, because the chases were always exciting. This is especially true as you get deeper into the game, since the speed increases for baddies and you. I liked how the faster gameplay felt so much I longed for a dip switch option to make it permanent. I wish it happened sooner in the game. The one remaining annoyance I have with Q*bert is that I wish there was some kind of warning when new balls/eggs/blobs/whatever are about to drop onto the playfield. Maybe a Looney Tunes-like bomb-dropping noise, a countdown, or shadows. With enough playtime, you eventually learn to anticipate it, but it’s never totally intuitive. Well, at least at the skill level I’m at.

A bit redundant of a title. It’d be like calling me slower, shorter, more lower to the floor Cathy.

Personally, I think the challenge for Q*bert is spot-on, but creator Warren Davis didn’t, and hence we get Q*bert: Sadistic Pants Wetting Nightmare Edition. Actually, it’s “Faster Harder More Challenging” and despite being fully finished and even route-tested, Gottlieb Mylstar’s new overlords at Coca-Cola opted against releasing it. I thought about postponing this review until my copy of Davis’ book arrives to find out the full story, which apparently also involves 7-Eleven and maybe Mello Yello. Actually, no, I guess the Mello Yello Q*bert was a different thing, but hold on, wait.. why Mello Yello? Coca-Cola has owned Minute Maid since 1960. Why not Minute Maid Q*bert? You know, something that actually makes sense? Or maybe they didn’t want consumers to imagine the orange juice they were drinking was actually the blood and bile and various other bodily fluids collected from juicing a member of Q*bert’s species.

🤔

And now that’s all I’m going to be able to think about. Eww. Yea, going with Mello Yello was a good call.

It turns out, I had that ROM too. It’s the exact same game as Q*bert, only it contains 45 mg of caffeine per serving.

Actually, Davis himself released the ROM of FHMC Q*bert to the public in 1996, thus preserving it forever. Now THAT is a guy who gets it. Class act. And I’m really happy he did, because Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert is not simply “hard mode” for Q*bert. I mean, it kind of is, but there’s a lot of changes. The discs now move up and down the sides of the stack of cubes, with a little warning graphic of when the move is about to happen. AND, despite being the hard mode, the discs will reappear after you use them. It’s not an endless supply, and I actually wish there was a counter that showed how many discs were left, but I appreciated it nonetheless. It’s literally the only kindness the game offers. This is one of the most difficult and downright cruel games ever. You know what? THIS should have been the one with a gibberish swear bubble for a name! It’d been fitting.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Each round in FHMC is built around how the levels work in normal Q*bert. In other words, round 1 is always just permanently changing the colors to the target color. Round 2 is always triple colors with the third color being permanent. Round 3 has colors change back when you hop on them a second time. Finally, round 4 is always triple color with the second and third colors swapping back and forth. I got my wish to have the game speed up faster. But, I made that wish on a monkey’s paw, because the Faster Harder Etc. Q*bert utterly spams the screen with enemies fairly quickly. And while you have more discs, the snakes are a LOT more savvy to them this go around and are harder to lure into jumping off the stack. These twists alone would have been hard enough, but Faster, More Intense Q*bert is just getting warmed up. Remember the green things that undid your progress? Well, they still do that, only they also lock the squares from being changed. How do you unlock them? You have to lure the snake into jumping on them! WHAT? That’s.. that’s sick. You alright, Q*bert?

The blocks with patterns on them are locked. So, go ahead! Get the snake to jump off the stack now! See where that gets you!

And finally, the game introduces Q*Bertha, a love-sick purple member of Q*bert’s species who chases him around the board and undoes your work. Unlike the green things from the original build of Q*bert, this thing lingers on the board, chases you, and has to be killed using the discs. And now I understand why the discs respawn. I reckon the game would become impossible after a certain point without that. It was also around this point I started to comprehend how this didn’t get the best reception in route testing. Without exaggeration, I struggled to clear level 1 – 3. It took me hours of playing to make it to level 3 to even encounter Q*Bertha for the first time. I ultimately made it twice to Level 4 – 2 and I’m convinced that stage has to be impossible to beat without getting an incredibly lucky break. Actually, you’ll need more than one lucky break, since it sort of feels like both games I made it that far, the roads that led to 4 – 2 had many moments of just dumb luck working out for me. Or moments where I’d hopped around the same stack of cubes so long that I just killed myself because it would clear the screen of enemies and allow me to finally get the final few cubes without interruption. I think that pretty much says it all about Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert: that ending your life is a legitimate strategy. This game is EVIL!

It looks so innocent. This is Satan in digital form.

Still, I’m all about historical curios, and Faster Harder More Challenging Q*bert, frustrating and seemingly impossible as it is, is still a whole lot of fun. I don’t think it would be worth buying as its own release, but every time Q*bert is re-released, they really ought to bundle this with it. As for the original game, I’m not too proud to admit when I’m wrong. Q*bert actually is one of the greatest of all-time. I’m a big fan of close calls in chase games, and Q*bert offers up more than most golden age arcade games do. It also offers players enough flexibility to come up with their own strategies, which I put the highest premium on. It’s such a shame that the franchise hasn’t survived the test of time. At the start of this review, I called Q*bert an icon of gaming, and I stand by that. But, in terms of general pop culture, it feels more like an oddity of the 80s, instead of an icon of it, doesn’t it? It deserves so much better. Sony really shouldn’t be so stingy with it. They might own Q*bert in the legal sense, but it really belongs to gamers everywhere, and it deserves better than what it has gotten in the past forty years.
Verdict: YES! and YES!

Hell, I didn’t even mention the bonus stage that happens when you beat level 2 in FHMC. You score points for every solid blue block. Oh and the green things have to touch the blocks, so you can’t just intercept them all. Oh and they rain non-stop during it. I got eight once. I was happy to have gotten eight. Even the bonus stage is a kick in the ass. And now that the review is over, I’m going to go cry. Holy crap, how is this even a thing that exists? EVIL!