As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #10, March 2005.

”It is the nineties and there is time for...” Klax!  Well, at least it wasn’t an over hyped claim for this original addition to the puzzle game genre that was actually released in 1989 by Atari Games.  The gameplay in Klax is deceptively simple: catch colored tiles as they flop down a plateau and off the edge, then drop them into patterns of three or more alike colors so they’ll disappear making a “Klax” (three or more tiles of the same color horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) and points are awarded.  The more complex the pattern or chain reaction the more points the player earns.  Each wave has specific criteria of what must be accomplished in order to move onto the next one.  If you miss too many tiles as they flip off the edge of the playfield or run out of room then it’s game over.  It’s Tetris meets Tic-Tac-Toe in a game that is based around the marriage of puzzle solving and fast reaction.  While things may start slow, soon enough the tiles come barreling down the playfield leaving nearly no time to plan out long, high scoring sequences.

The first difference between the NES version and the arcade original that most people will notice is the music on the NES version since the arcade original didn’t have a soundtrack.  The music itself can be best described as 8-bit NES electronica and there are five different audio tracks to choose from that all sound somewhat different.  However the option to leave the music off and have just the sound effects play is there as well and the click sound the tiles make, as they flop down to the edge of the plateau, is about as close to the original as one could expect on the NES, not bad at all.  The chime sound effects that play when a Klax is made are close to the arcade sounds as well.  However the applause sound effect after completing a wave or a chain reaction and the female voice that announces each wave are both missing, it’s not a big deal but they are both something the game is known for.

Visually the NES port is not as detailed but everything is there albeit at a lower resolution.  The arcade original had the same graphic feel of other Atari arcade games such as Paperboy and 720 with simple yet detailed sprites.  Although the graphics are expectedly dumbed down for the NES hardware it’s still all there and it still all works.  The controls are simple enough and are an exact transition from the arcade cabinet with left and right moving the paddle left and right and the A or B buttons drop the top tile on the paddle into the well.  Pressing down on the control pad accelerates the speed in which the tiles approach the paddle and pressing up on the control pad throws the top tile on the paddle back up onto the plateau.

With the NES version you also get Blob Ball, a completely unrelated little mini game hidden in the menus.  It’s somewhat like Breakout with a blob of snot instead of a ball and no wall of bricks to smash.  As the manual puts it - “Blob Ball is simply the stupidest game to come along in a decade!  Lucky you.  Just for fun, try out-thinking this blob and keep it from killing itself!  It doesn't even know what a pattern is... oh, and in case you're wondering, Blob Ball has no relationship whatsoever to the rest of KLAX, it's just sort of there...”

At the end of the day Klax is what it was back in 1989, a middle ground between Tetris and Columns but it never became popular as either.  Klax was ported to many consoles of the late 80’s and early 90’s including my favorite version on the Atari Lynx but it doesn’t endure as well as Tetris since it’s not a relaxing game to play, it’s tense from about the seventh wave on.  The arcade version featured 100 waves and I would guess that the NES version contains all 100 as well but I decided to keep my sanity and not attempt to play beyond the first couple dozen.  Klax was Atari Games’ runner up to Tetris, which they also designed the arcade version of, as well as a Tengen NES port - but that can wait until another time.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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