Quadrun

Name:	Quadrun
Company:	Atari
Model #:	CX-2686
Programmer:	Steve Woita (Programmer & Voice) and Frank Hausman (Voice Tools)
Year:	1983
Released?	Yes
Notes:	One of only two 2600 games to feature speech.

Quadrun is an action/thinking game where you must shoot different kinds of enemies while moving around a four-chambered room.  The tricky part is that you must catch your energy ball again once you shoot it.  Each enemy has their own unique personality and you must employ a different strategy to defeat them.  Quadrun is an interesting game that should have seen a wider distribution.

Quadrun was only available through the Atari Fan Club for a short time making it the rarest Atari release for the 2600. According to programmer Steve Woita, Quadrun was playtested by a group of young girls who hated it because it wasn't anything like Ms. Pac-Man.  Based on this Atari decided to only produce 10,000 carts thinking it would flop.  You've got to start wondering what Atari's marketing department was smoking?

Each of Quadrun's enemies have a unique attack pattern which the player must counter accordingly.

Goons		Goons are the first enemy you'll run into.  They're pretty mindless and will simply move in a straight line.
Snags		Snags are really nasty creatures.  They move like Goons, but their middle disappears and reappears.  Watch out that you don't end up shooting an energy ball right through the middle of thin air.
Yo-Yos		Yo-Yo's move just like their name suggests.  They move forward and then quickly move back.  The trick to killing Yo-Yos is to get behind them and shoot before they snap back.  Unlike other enemies, Yo-Yo's won't move all the way across the screen.
Nods		Nods are pretty harmless for such a high level enemy.  They move like Goons but quickly charge forward with great speed.
Brats		Brats are as nasty has their names suggest.  Brats move is a weaving pattern back and forth across the screen.  Hitting Brats takes careful timing.
Runts		Runts are cute little harmless guys who like to commit suicide by running into the sides of the screen.  When a Runt escapes from the center of the screen make sure you grab it before it's too late.

Quadrun's most interesting feature is its speech.  That's right, voice synthesis!  Due to the limitations of the 2600 the speech is limited to the phrase "Quadrun! Quadrun! Quadrun!" which is said at the start of each round.  Every round the voice gets faster and talks at a higher pitch until it's almost unintelligable.  According Steve getting the voice into such a small cartridge was really difficult:

"I think some audio guy from the outside was trying to sell us some sort of audio tool that we didn't buy and I guess that may've got me to thinking about putting voice in the game so Frank Hausman had some weird tools that he and I worked on to do the audio compression.  I did some weird 6502 tricks to pull off the voice... We got my voice data down to 700 or so bytes and then I would just pitch bend my voice more and more as you progressed through the game"

 Also the screen had to blank when the voice was talking because it used up all the available memory.  It's a shame other programmers didn't try speech in their games; it really makes Quadrun stand out.

Quadrun is a great game, but it isn't for everyone.  The high difficulty level may drive many causal gamers off, but the challenge is one of the things that makes Quadrun so endearing.  Quadrun is one of the most unique games in the 2600 library, but unfortunately is often overlooked due its high rarity.  However Quadrun is one of the few rare games that's worth the high price...

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