8/28/20- Mail Order Monsters

Mail Order Monsters (1985) by Paul Reiche III and Evan and Nicky Robinson, published by Electronic Arts for Atari and Commodore 64. This game is cute, I like it. Pick a monster from a pleasingly large selection of creatures, name it, and duke it out with other monsters. After a fight, you can upgrade your monster’s stats and equip different weapons, because apparently a crab can wield a flame thrower and a stegosaurus can lob grenades. If anything holds this game back, it’s the clunky combat. Actually attacking requires you to hit the attack button and a direction, almost like Smash Bros., but it isn’t clear which to hit first and with what timing, and it isn’t very clear how some of the weapons work. This would make for a fun little game to remake; I could definitely see it as a mobile game, although EA would probably jack it up with microtransactions… sigh…