The A-Team

Name:	The A-Team
Company:	Atari
Model #:	CX-26133
Programmer:	Howard Scott Warshaw (Programmer) & Jerome Domurat (Graphics)
Year:	1984
Released?	No
Notes:	A reworking of Saboteur

If The A-Team looks familiar it's because it is little more than a graphic hack of another unreleased Atari game called Saboteur.  At one point it was thought these games were the same except for the graphics, but after analyzing them I've found some slight gameplay differences.  On this page I'll concentrate on the differences between Saboteur and The A-Team, for more information on the gameplay itself look at the Saboteur page.  

It's unknown why Atari decided to change Saboteur into The A-Team, but we assume it's because they wanted a game based on the then popular A-Team TV show and didn't want to wait for a new game to be developed.  At that point Saboteur was ready for release and Atari decided that they would attempt to integrate A-Team characters into a game that was already finished.  The results are interesting at best, confusing to say the least.

Rocket Construction Site - The new premise of the game is that The A-Team has been hired to stop evil forces from destroying the world with a nuclear weapon, so on this board you must help Mr. T and Murdock stop the launch rocket for the warhead from being built.  

The gameplay stayed the same on this board, but the graphics underwent a major facelift.  To integrate A-Team characters into a game where they didn't belong Atari had to do some quick thinking.  

Saboteur	A-Team
		The Hotat the robot is now Mr. T ('B.A.' Baracus)
		The Blue Robots have become guys carrying rocket pieces over their heads (they kind of look like a pizza delivery guy)
		The yellow Gorfons have become Murdock (or his face anyway)
		The Yar character has now been replace by an FBI guy.  Could this be a reference to the FBI character from HSW's E.T. game?
		The Master Robot has become Colonel Decker, the A-Team's arch nemesis.  But what's with the hat?  He looks more like a 30's gangster....

Warhead Factory - Here Mr. T must stop the warhead pieces coming down the assembly line.  Unfortunately this concept didn't translate well from Saboteur to A-Team, because now Mr. T must shoot bullets at Decker and have them bounce down and hit the warheads.   Maybe Decker has some kind of funky armor?

This board remained almost exactly the same with the exception of the obvious graphic changes (notice the background has a striped pattern).  The sound effects and colors here are also slightly different from Saboteur.  

Nuclear Showdown - This is it!  Mr. T has one last chance to stop the nuclear warhead or its death and destruction for everyone!

This board stayed pretty much the same as it was in Saboteur.  However in The A-Team your main foe has gone from a warhead to a helicopter (and briefly a Jeep).  If you shoot the helicopter it blows up and it's off to level two (who knew Mr. T could shoot lasers from his eyes?).  Why a helicopter you ask?  The launch controls for the rocket are being carried on the helicopter, that's why.

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