You're a lone footsoldier fighting your way through a platoon of enemy troops, trying to take out as many of them as you can until you find your way to a handy empty tank. But once you man your own tank, enemy tanks surround you. If one of them hits your tank, you have mere seconds to bail out before your tank blows, and you have to dodge cannon fire until you can find another friendly tank to commandeer. After crossing hazardous stretches of desert and fighting off entire battallions of enemy tanks, you're en route to the final confrontation, a showdown with the enemy's armored headquarters... (Coleco [under license from Taito], 1984)

At one time, this was one of my all-time favorite Atari 2600 games - well, it still is, actually - even though it really pales in comparison to the coin-op it's based on. Even the version released for the ColecoVision, which used the roller wheel on the Super Action Controller to stand in for the arcade game's aiming knob, wasn't quite the same. Still, at the time, this did just fine: you fired your gun in whatever direction you were facing.

The graphics are typically Coleco clunky, even though the 2600 was capable of much better. Perhaps the trade-off here was in preserving Front Line's rather large "world," which progresses through ever more hostile terrain until you reach the enemy base. All the same, despite the simplified game play, Front Line for the VCS is enjoyable enough, so perhaps for sentimental reasons alone I give it a four-star rating.

Rating:  Four quarters - a couple of minor irritants, but mostly a compelling and addictive game.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster