Kid Grid

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Tronix

In an example of advertising that worked 40 years too late, I was flipping through some old video game magazines and found advertisements for Kid Grid….since every issue of that magazine seemed to have a giant ad with Kid Grid featured, it got my attention. So, when picking games to review for the launch of the Atari 8-bit section, Kid Grid immediately popped in my mind. Give those advertising folks a raise, Tronix…I suppose there's no record of that transaction now, 40 years later, is there? Ahh, well I tried. Anyway, Kid Grid is similar to the game Amidar, which is, for lack of a better description, kind of like what would happen if Pac-Man and Qix had a baby. Similar to Pac-Man, your goal is to eat up all of the dots on the screen, and similar to Qix, by eating those dots, you'll also be drawing lines all over the place, scoring when you successfully draw a box on the screen. As you do this, you'll have cast of crazy enemies following you, at various speeds, to try to halt your progress - Moose, Squashface, Muggy, and Thuggy. Sounds like a delightful quartet of gentlemen, eh? Anyway, Grid Kid is simplistic, but addictive, and had me playing quite a bit longer than I had anticipated…every time my game was over, I thought, "I can do better," and tried again…and again….and again. The only downside to the game is that it only has a single maze (though the colors change as you advance to each level) so while the action gets more frantic, and there's still fun strategy in avoiding the enemies as you try to complete the screen, it does get a little dull visually with no maze variety. Still, though, Tronix did a very good job with Kid Grid and I'm very glad that those old advertisements caught my eye.

Review added: 07/23/2026

Kissin' Kousins

Also known as: N/A

Developer: English Software

Where do I even start with this one? The boxart calls Kissin' Kousins "a jaunty multi-screen arcade game." Let's look up the definition of jaunty, shall we? Let's see here…lively, cheerful, and self-confident…it describes a person's upbeat manner, a bouncy walk, or a stylish, perky appearance like a hat worn at an angle….really? A hat worn at an angle is jaunty? Anyway, let's focus on self-confident. David Woodhouse was very self-confident about this game, it seems, as the very top of the back of the box blames him for this game. I wonder if he also had a hat worn at an angle….can dunce caps be worn at an angle without falling off? I bet David Woodhouse figured it out - it might be where that self-confidence came from. Anyway, this game just simply isn't good. It's awful. There are platformers on the terrible NES collection of failures known as Action 52 that are better than this game. The controls terrible, the animation is terrible, hit detection is terrible, the graphics…well, to be fair, some of the graphics are good for their time…but who cares when the game will likely shut off roughly sixty seconds after booting it up, never to be played again? Maybe if ol' Mr. Woodhouse spent less time kissin' his cousin and more time focusing on making a playable game, I wouldn't be trying to figure out which situation would be worse - playing this jaunty arcade game or being diagnosed with jaundice. I bet jaundice would be more jaunty.

Review added: 07/24/2026

Knockout

Also known as: N/A

Developer: Kingsoft

In 1984, Nintendo's Punch-Out!! hit arcades. While it wasn't, at least in my opinion, as polished or fun as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! on the NES would be in 1987, it was still a decent boxing game for arcades. Later in 1984, a sequel, Super Punch-Out!! was released, pitting players against a handful of new boxers. I went through that short, simple history because Knockout is one of the absolute worst attempts I have ever seen to clone a game and/or port an arcade game over to play at home. As soon as you boot the game up and start to play, you can see, visually, that Kingsoft was clearly inspired by Punch-Out!!, from the gimmicky boxers that you battle against to the boxer that you control that has a see-through, wire-frame body, it's clear that Kingsoft was trying their hand at the Punch-Out!! formula. If this was them trying their hand, then perhaps those hands should be chopped off. Once the gameplay starts, it's a mess. Simply mashing buttons will get you past the first few boxers, which is the complete opposite of the strategy required in the Punch-Out!! games. Strategy IS required later on, but I highly doubt most folks will play long enough to see a fight where mashing buttons won't get them a quick win. The fighters also look like they were drawn by a five-year old. This looks like something that you'd post on the refrigerator to make a child happy, not like something that you'd expect people to pay money for. My Atari 8-bit computer is not a refrigerator to place your drawings upon, Kingsoft!! The gameplay is about as crisp and well done as the fighter designs are…leaving you with one of the worst boxing games that I've ever played. Instead of Knockout, this should have been called Throwout…as in, throw it out and into the trash.

Review added: 07/24/2026