I would rather listen to someone describe paint drying than play this game. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most boring games I’ve played. It is all about the high score, but why would you want to get it?
Your lives go by fast, the graphics aren’t all that great, and the gameplay is boring. There are good games on the Atari 2600 and fun games from the 1970s and 80s. Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t one of them.
This is one of those morbid curiosity games. You’ve heard how bad it is, but to really know, you’d need to play it. The best thing I can say about it is that the game is playable. I’m just not sure why anyone would want to go back to see how bad it is.
TLDR: Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the Atari 2600 is one of the most boring games I’ve played.
History
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the few games published by Wizard Video Games. It is widely reported that the game sold poorly because retailers refused to stock it. I believe this is true, but I can’t find the original source.
Narrative
This game doesn’t have a story, it doesn’t follow the movie, and the only character is Leather Face. I’m assuming it is Leather Face. It could be anyone, and this game could be anything.
Gameplay
This is one of the worst things I’ve played.
You control Leather Face, and you have to kill people. I believe they’re women. You get 1000 points for each kill, more gas at 5000 points, and the game speeds up at 10,000 points.
Your life meter is measured by how much gas is in your chainsaw. You have three gas tanks, and when you run out, the game is over. I don’t believe you can get more tanks, but I wasn’t interested in finding out.
You can walk either left or right. It doesn’t matter which way you go. Once you find one of the people, you chase after them until you can kill them. While walking through the strangest forest in Texas, you have to avoid skulls from some undetermined animal, parts of fences, wheelchairs, and, I think, hay.
If you run into anything, you freeze in place for a bit. If any part of your character touches one of the obstacles, you’ll be frozen in place. There isn’t anything else to this game.
It’s boring. I have nothing more to say about this game besides that it is boring. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is all about the score, so I guess you could impress your friends by saying you got a great score in this game if you wanted to.
Visuals
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an average-looking Atari 2600 game. The developers tried to make it look interesting. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look better or worse than any other Atari game.
This game requires less imagination than some Atari 2600 games. The scale and perspective are all over the place, and some things don’t make much sense. The bales of hay don’t look right, the skulls are odd, and, for some reason, the chainsaw is the same color as your character’s body.
This isn’t the worst-looking Atari 2600 game, but it isn’t good-looking. It looks better than the games from the 1970s, which it should be, but it doesn’t look better than the other games from the 1980s on the Atari 2600.
4/10. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is playable. It looks okay, but the gameplay is extremely boring. After 3-5 minutes of playing, I was ready to move on to anything else.
Pros
- It is playable
- Easy to control
Cons
- Boring
- Bad music
Conclusion
This isn’t a good game by any standards. I would rather play any other video game. This is one of the worst games that I’ve ever played.
This is more of a novelty at this point, like one of those bad games you need to experience to say that you’ve played it. It is up there with Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 and E.T. These are the games you need to play out of a morbid curiosity to see how bad they are. The big difference between E.T. and Texas Chainsaw Massacre is innovation. E.T. tried something different, but it didn’t work out. Texas Chainsaw Massacre attempted to make something fun and failed miserably.