As in the arcade game of the same name, you're a mama pig trying to prevent her adorable piglets from becoming a side of bacon for a pack of big bad wolves. First, you try to shoot down as many wolves as they try to parachute to safety with balloons, and then you have to prevent them from rising back up again, because if they do, they're going to push a big rock right off a cliff and on top of you. (Konami, 1982)

For some unfathomable reason, the Atari 2600 cartridge of Pooyan is incredibly rare and valuable. Even today, the game can fetch $20, if not more, in online auctions. Not that it isn't a decent game, mind you; for Konami's first entry into the home video game arena, Pooyan was a very good effort. But I can only guess that a limited quantity of Pooyan cartridges circulated, and now everyone seems to be trying to get one of those few. As a side note, Pooyan remains one of my toughest games to store with the rest of my Atari 2600 cartridges because Konami, for reasons unknown, made their casings really long, even longer than Mattel's.

Rating:  Three quarters - worth repeat play, but with some annoying features that might alienate less patient arcade veterans.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster