Name: Antarctic Adventure
Platform: ColecoVision
Region: USA
Media: Cartridge
Controller: Joystick/Numeric Keypad
Genre: Action
Gametype: Licensed
Release Year: 1984
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Coleco
Players: 1
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YOUR SOUTH POLE ADVENTURE

WANTED: Fearless explorers for Antarctic Adventure! Must be willing to travel. High tolerance for cold a must. Salary: all the fish you can catch! Fringe benefits: high adventure and lots of fun! Apply Admiral Bird.

Join a polar expedition as you help a spunky penguin explorer speed through ten Antarctic ice stations. Race against the clock to help him be the first penguin to circle the South Pole!

As you travel around the South Pole, icy crevasses appear with surprising suddenness! Leap over them and continue your adventure. Hop over ice puddles or glide around them. Watch out - playful, curious seals may pop up at any moment to surprise you! Capture the flags scattered over the ice and snap up the flying fish for extra points.

--From the Colecovision Antarctic Adventure instruction manual.

Overview:

This is a pretty tough little game where you speed around a track as a little penguin. The little black bullet is downright comical looking. The graphics aren't all that bad, but they aren't that complex either. The animation is smooth, but the scenery is bleak. You're in the Antarctic so there's a whole lotta white. The music is simple and not bothersome. The sound effects amount to just little blips and bleeps, but they let you know what's going on. The gameplay and style is very similar to 3D World Runner (which I love) but it doesn't have as many items. The only items in this game are fish and flags.

Directions:

Race to the finish!

When it says "Press any key" at the beginning, it's a lie. Just press the minus key on your keyboard. If you find yourself being cut off in the middle of the level after just a little bit of play, and then being taken back to the start screen, congratulations, you've been playing the demo.

I did this about twenty times before I figured out what was going on.

Press forward (Up) to go faster, and back (Down) to slow down. You don't have to keep pressing forward to maintain speed or back to remain slower. When your speed meter at the top right corner is where you want it, you can let off and the game will automatically maintain that speed. This frees you up to dodge like crazy. Watch out for the aforementioned cracks in the ice and seals. If you run into one, you do a jig to the side and it wastes considerable time (not to mention it's very annoying). The seals are particularly treacherous since you will be tempted to jump over them but you can't! They are too tall! If you run into a huge crack, as opposed to the small, round, ice-fishing looking ones, you will be stopped until you jump over it if you are caught on the front side. If you just catch the edge of it you will do that little jig I mentioned.

Catch the fish and tag the flags for extra points. This is really difficult at top speeds. The fish don't land on the ice to be picked up, so jump up and catch them as they fly out of the round holes. You don't have to be right next to the hole to catch a fish. As long as the picture of the penguin covers the picture of the fish, you caught it. The game doesn't seem to really know where the fish are in 3D terms. Also, you will drift on curves, just as if you really were on ice, so be prepared for that. The word REST at the top tells you how far you have left to go. You can't get hurt, so you don't have lives to worry about, but you don't get any continues either, so when the TIME runs out, you have to start all over again. You begin each stage with 90 seconds. The timer is steadily winding down! When it begins to run low an alarm will start sounding to let you know, but by then, it's really too late to do anything about it. Can you make it in time?

Controls:

Minus Key: Starts Game
A Button: Jump
B Button: Jump

Hints:

- Avoidance -
Watch out for the round holes. When you get going fast it's easy to want to jump over every hole, but the round ones are the ones that will quite often contain seals. They will seriously slow you down, so simply avoid all of the round holes instead of trying to jump them.

Reviewer: fallenrain 
http://www.consoleclassix.com/colecovision/antarctic_adventure.html
