DESCRIPTION

Prepare yourself for one of the most challenging games of all time! Remastered for PlayStation®, Q*bert™: Rebooted features the classic arcade version of Q*bert and an all-new action-packed version of the arcade mega-hit. Dodge enemies, evade death, and navigate your way through villainous isometric levels in this iconic, critically acclaimed game.

Q*bert: Rebooted introduces new enemies, playable characters, power-ups, traps, gem collecting, and is chock full of new challenges that it will leave you feeling victorious or demanding a do over.

Q*Bert was around during the Golden age of video games as it was first released to arcades near the end of 1982 by Gottlieb. At the time, Gottlieb was primarily known for Pinball games and even though Q*Bert wasn’t their first video game. It would become their most successful.

Q*Bert was released around the same time as Donkey Kong, Missile Command, Frogger, Dig Dug, Pole Position and Pacman were tearing it up in arcades. And like every arcade game of that era, Q*Bert was ported to home consoles. However, it was never emulated properly. Even today, the only way to play the game without owning the actual arcade version is via MAME.

So, when it was announced for Playstation 4, I was a little excited to see how this would turn out. Q*Bert could run flawlessly on a PC from the late 90’s. The PS4 should be able to run this game easily.

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VISUALS

While it’s not arcade perfect, this is by the far the best home console release of Q*Bert to-date. Sadly, this is not a remaster, but an upscaled port. So, assets aren’t as crisp as they would appear on an arcade, or a PC monitor and the jagged edges really stand out on an HD TV … even more so on a 4K TV.

Unfortunately, there are no settings provided to mimic scanlines. Consequently, any imperfections or flaws will be easily discernible and prominently displayed on the screen.

There are also many sounds that are completely different from the arcade release.

GAMEPLAY

Q*bert Classic handles quite well and the controls are responsive enough to make for a mostly enjoyable experience. Q*Bert Rebooted is garbage. It’s like any mobile game that forces you to earn up to three stars per level to advance to the next level.

The controls are clunky, and you’ll find yourself easily jumping off the side despite pushing in the correct direction. That happens far too much and later in the game when the levels are much harder, and precision is needed to win … it’s needlessly frustrating.

REPLAYABILITY

On the plus side, the game does keep your high score saved and there are leaderboards for bragging rights … so there’s that. Unfortunately, that’s about it for the arcade release. It would have been nice to have included a video history about the game and how it came to be. Anything would have been better than nothing at all.

While there have been exceptions to the rule … Pacman Championship Edition, Galaga Legions DX, most of the time when classic arcade games are “re-imagined” they’re simply awful and completely unnecessary. All we really want is to play the original game with, at the very least, the actual ROM.

Q*Bert is still one of the best arcade games ever released and doesn’t deserve to be treated so poorly. It appears that Wreck it Ralph’s portrayal of Q*Bert wasn’t that far off from reality.