AGH Atari 2600 Review: FAST EDDIE by Fox Video Games Like Donkey Kong and Space Panic before it, Fast Eddie is zany, whimsical, cute... and, of course, fast. Not the character himself, of course, but the game he plays. Designed by superstar programmer Mark Turmell, you control Eddie as you work your way up and down from one floor to another using only ladders and his own two feet. He needs to capture all of the floating hearts that he can without being tripped up by the Sneakers. Eddie has four levels to ambulate, and lots of Sneakers to hop over, before he's able to take on the biggest Sneaker of all (High-Top). The tenth and last prize awaits Eddie just over the head of High-Top. Once Eddie has that prize, he earns bonus points and gets a new screen to try. Each game begins with four Eddies and a total of ten hearts that appear two at a time in random places on the screen. These prizes move around a lot, as do those wily Sneakers, so it takes some quick thinking as well as strategy to capture the former and avoid the latter. The joystick controller moves Eddie around, and the firing button is used to make him leap over the Sneaks. Pushing the firing button while also moving Eddie to the left or right increases the length and height of Eddie's jump. Joystick control is a tad on the touchy side, when ladders on different floors are in alignment with each other. Too heavy a hand here and you'll have Eddie scampering madly up and down and up and down the ladders until rought under some semblance of control. There are eight levels of difficulty in this game. The sound effects aren't good, but the colors are bright and sharp, as are the graphical representations of the Sneaks and Ed. There are a number of games out and about on the 2600 that resemble this one very closely, but Fast Eddie is nonetheless quite entertaining and diversionary fare, probably for the younger and video war-weary player, although not necessarily a cakewalk for gaming veterans. Title Fast Eddie Publisher Fox Video Games System Atari 2600 (VCS) Graphics 7 Sound 5 Gameplay 7 Overall 7 Reviewer Keita Iida