Tapper

"SIDE-SPLITTING, SODA-SLINGING LAUGHS AND SPILLS! The Official Home Version of BALLY MIDWAY'S Arcade Sensation. Five belly-busting screens of Soda Fountain Fun, including: four mad-capped bar rooms of soda-starved, clammering cowboys, sports fans, punks and space creatures. Plus a head-spinning Soda Bandit Bonus Round Awesome colour-packed action graphics. Just try to keep your cool as hot-headed, crazy customers blitz your bar for another cold one.

I've never really been a fan of this game on any platform due to strict timing requirements and having to keep a constant watch of all four lanes. The C64 game is especially difficult as there is a fair amount of input lag in reading the fire button. Aggressive save state abuse going on in this one and I don't see how its completable any other way!

I play on beginner difficulty as I was finding Arcade difficulty very frustrating and didn't get out of the third area. There are four areas in total although you will play some areas multiple times or with a minor variation of it. Between areas you get to earn some bonus points on the soda fountain bonus screen. its also easy to earn extra lives on the lower difficulty level. Any mistakes were left as a way of showing the different ways to lose.

Overall, its a colourful and well done conversion of the game with the usual c64 frustrations that often lead to frustration in these sort of games. After completing all four areas the game starts over at what could be expert difficulty with four punters in each lane. I didn't intend to play this but I did show snippets to show what the game was doing at this difficulty level so ignore the lives counter in this round.