Mousetrap

---

"One thing that is unique about this game is that it comes with overlays, which is atypical of Coleco. This is actually a pretty good game in my opinion. None of the features of the original arcade game seem to be missing (besides the fact that the BGM never changes and is a bit weaker), and the graphics and sound effects are not too bad. I think the cat meow sounds more like an elephant wail, but at least the sound effects in general bear a resemblance to the original game, unlike the feeble attempts on the Atari 2600.
"I do have to gripe though, because of the particularly unresponsive play control. Maneuvering the mouse is a pain because it has to come to a complete stop before it can change directions. I had to restart a few times before I could get the hang of it, and even then I still die many an unnecessary death because the mouse wouldn't navigate fast enough. Since moving doors and using a dog biscuit is done using the keypad, the player must stop before being able to do either because Coleco never seemed to 'work around' the quirkiness of the Intellivision controllers. This also causes one too many unnecessary deaths.
"Speaking of which, I hardly ever play an entire game from start to finish because of my picky nature -- I am always tempted to restart or quit any game after losing a life, especially when I think the death was very much preventable on my part. Regardless of the difficulty level, the player starts with too many lives and on higher levels loses them too quickly. Also, because of the thin walls and the specific timing routines it is possible for a cat and the mouse to collide on opposite sides of a wall.
"Despite my complaints, which are strictly my own opinion and probably not shared among the majority, I still think the game is worth playing. It is certainly better than most of Coleco's other flubbed-up attempts at Intellivision programming -- that is, if the poor quality of their other games wasn't intentional, which may forever be an open question." Rating: 3/5 -- Mike Hayes