Reviewed: February 20, 2007
Reviewed by: Blake Kenny
Publisher
Midway
Developer
Digital Eclipse
Released: February 7, 2007
Genre: Arcade
Players: 1-2
ESRB: Everyone
7
6
6
7
6.4
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Being an arcade fan and a child of the 80’s, yes, I have played Root Beer Tapper. Truth is, I played pretty much every arcade machine that I ever came in contact with. If it was new, it warranted at least 1 try, even if it didn’t really appeal to me upon first glace. Did Root Beer Tapper ever garner the love of more than $2 worth of my quarters? Probably not.
Back in ‘84 when the game came out, it wasn’t really my type of thing. Pouring root beer for thirsty and belligerent customers seemed like a pretty lame and boring concept for a videogame. Perhaps I was just too young to appreciate it. Since it didn’t feature some kind of weapon, spaceships, ninjas, plumbers or monsters, I wasn’t interested.
Regardless of that, I’ll always love and appreciate the classics, most of them anyway - and in all honesty, I enjoy this game far more today that I ever could have as a child. Maybe it’s the maturity I’ve gained that has made Tapper more appealing over the years? Still, I wonder if I have the opposite problem with tapper now. 20 years ago, serving drinks didn’t do anything for me, today, as an adult I find serving root beer to be an almost childish endeavour, heck I may as well be playing a game where I run a lemonade stand or try to keep crazed kids away from Mr. Kool-Aid. Still, none of this really matters, what people really want to know is whether or not Root Beer Tapper has what it takes to capture a next gen audience? Read on and find out.
In some ways Root Beer Tapper could best be described as an early form of puzzle game, maybe mixed with a little bit of strategy for good measure. In essence the root beer stand you work in contains 4 counters. There's a Wild West saloon, a sports field, a punk rock joint and a few others. Thirsty patrons roll into your business and walk their way down the length of its 4 bars. It’s your job to pour each of them a drink and send it sliding down the counter towards them.
Many of the customers leave the bar after they receive their drink; others will slide their empty glass back at you and continue moving in for a refill. Not only do you need to pour them a second round, but you also have to catch their empty glass before it falls off your end of the bar. If it falls you lose a life, if you slide a glass down the counter and there’s no one there to catch it, you lose a life, and if your thirsty customer reaches the root beer taps before you can serve them, you also lose a life. That’s basically the premise of the entire game in a nutshell.
As you progress through the game, more and more customers enter your establishment and move towards you faster and faster. Fortunately you can move from one bar to another in the blink of an eye and run down its length to grab the empty glasses rather than wait for them to reach you. Not only that, but you can pour a half dozen mugs of root beer in about 4 seconds, which is helpful, but keep in mind that most of your customers can drink just a quickly.
For a little extra, some customers will leave a tip behind. When you run down the bar to collect it, not only does it increased your score, but it brings out some dancing girls that can be used to temporarily divert the attention of a few customers. It really doesn’t serve much of a purpose other than to allow you the chance to catch your breath.
There’s also a between levels bonus game. A sneaky character shakes up all but one out of 6 cans of root beer. He then mixes them around and challenges you to guess which is the unshaken can. This is mainly done for bonus points and serves little purpose other than to segue into the next section. It also comprises a few of the game’s 12 achievements, most of which will take a lot of practice and prove fairly difficult to obtain.
Root Beer Tapper also includes a couple online modes. Co-op and Versus. Online the game is very much like taking turns in the arcade, except here, you actually play at the same time. You can’t actually watch what the other player is doing, but you can see their score tally up, which obviously gives you an idea of who is in the lead and who needs to get their game together. It’s still a lot like playing alone, but with a little more purpose. It’s a nice touch to be able to compete against another player and it’s unfortunate that more of the classic XBLA releases didn’t adopted this feature. Galaga update anyone?
On a whole, this is a very simplistic game visually, just like all of the classic XBLA games. Other than the colors being nice and bright, there’s very little to be said. Root Beer Tapper contains little significant detail of any kind, but then Tetris didn’t turn any heads either and still managed to offer that one key ingredient: addictive gameplay.
Typical, old school sound effects. Like all classics, very little can be said about this portion of the game without making it sound lifeless.
I’m sure glad that none of the classic re-hash games cost more than 400 marketplace points, because if they did, they simply wouldn’t be worth it. Only serious fans would pay more than 400 points for a classic game; and only the curious might spend 400 points to take a chance in the first place. Be grateful for those trial downloads. New original games for 800 is fair and acceptable because they require more work and development time, but these old titles, no way, they’re often just spiced up versions of some ancient and already existing game code.
Still, 400 points isn’t bad for Root Beer Tapper, as it features some decent online components and like most puzzle games, tends to keep you coming back for more. At least for a couple days.
Personally, I love XBLA, but I find myself frequently disappointed with each new release; once again being spoon-fed some ancient classic. If I get more than 2 or 3 classics in a row, I start getting impatient for something with a little more modern day depth and presentation. Games like Cloning Clyde, Assault Heroes and Heavy Weapon were great surprises, but treats that seem few and far between.
The classics have their place and deserve to be enjoyed by people who never experienced them before, but I find there are a ton of incredible classics out there that have more appeal than Root Beer Tapper and Paperboy. This is a great, inexpensive game if you’re a fan, but it won’t hold much lasting appeal to most people for very long. Personally I need to have many drinks in me to enjoy playing Tapper for more than 10 minutes at a time. Not root beer, but real beer.