SEA HAWK (SANCHO/FROGGO) |
In the early 1980's, before the crash, video game system manufacturers did not hold as tight a reigns on their hardware and software licensing as they did afterward. There was no Atari seal of quality, or Colecovision Stamp of Approval, if you wanted to make games, you just spawned your own 3rd party company with purloined information and went about making new titles. At the popular end of the spectrum, you had Imagic and Activision, which were actually started by ex-Atari Employees irritated at how Atari treated their developers. Then you had Coleco and M-Network, Atari 2600 cartridges made by the competitors of Atari. Then you had scads of other brands, some familiar, some not: Epyx, Telesys, Hozier Video Games, U.S. Games, Data Age, Sega, Entex, Sancho, and even the nefarious X rated brands like Playaround. Sometimes spinoff companies would take the same program code from these other companies and repackage them, much like Atari started standard style versions of carts originally released by Coleco and other companies toward the end of the 2600's mainstream shelf life. One of these companies was "Froggo" who mostly sold repackaged versions of other companie's games. They were founded in California in 1987 and sold most of their games in very plain white boxes with black and one accent color for the box graphicis, with no screenshots. This Game (Sea Hawk), Sea Hunt, Tank Command, Water Ski, Cruise Missile, and Karate are close to the only titles they released over the course of 1987 and 1988. They mostly focused on the 2600 and 7800 consoles which by then were well past their prime and overshadowed big time by the Nintendo Entertainment System. Dollar Store Atari Games - My Experiences I remember finding this game new in box at a DOLLAR STORE as a kid. We picked out Sea Hawk and Sea Hunt and brought them home. Honestly, Sea Hunt SUCKED. Not even 15 seconds into the game some carnivorous ocean creature would eat your harpoon guy before you even had a chance to react - horrible game. But this, Sea Hawk, I actually quite well liked. Sure, it's a simple side-scrolling schmup, but it's not that bad. Not very challenging, but not bad. Years later, I picked this game up with a 1977 Sunnyvale Heavy Sixer I had in high school, and that's the copy I currently have. After we got our cat we discovered she likes attacking the on-screen characters while I play, so it's usually a technicial 2-player game with me and the cat - Riff tries to catch my aircraft and the boats at the bottom of the screen, I try to keep sinking ships and blowing up helicopters. It's like California Games all over again, but this time somewhat managable (I really should try to capture this on YouTube). So it's a cart I keep around because of the additional fun value of getting the cats involved ("me get fast moving buggies on screen"). |