Fracas is based on similar Nintendo games of the mid-80s in almost every way. You control a little man with a big gun, the goal being to rid the level of all the bad guys. Maneuvering the man through the two dimensional over-head view game board is a snap, like most of the rest of the game.
An original Nintendo blast from the past. Fracas’ graphics during play are not the greatest. The sprites are very small (icon size) and those that are not sprites are simply two dimensional (like the faces at the end of a level). These graphics are, however, typical of Ingemar Ragnemalm’s Sprite Animation Toolkit (Ingemar’s Skiing, Bert, etc.).
Where the game does excel is in its soundtrack. With the option to hear high quality sounds, the background music, which changes at each level, delivers a pleasant listening experience. But Fracas isn’t the sort of game that thrives off of great (or poor) graphics and sound, Fracas has one goal in mind: to be fun. Which it is. However the five-level “crippleware” captures your amusement for all of an hour at most. You are then enticed to pay the $15 shareware fee, which is a little steep for a game of this caliber, to get level 6-∞. Infinity? How can that be? The game only has data for 9 levels. Well the level boards probably overlap and are reused, but just with different enemies, or quicker enemies. While this is a decent idea, creating a game that has no end and takes up a rather small amount of space, I would have preferred a 40 level game where new surprises and challenges await each and every level.
 
Scaled 50%
The two player simultaneously game suits Fracas perfectly. Now instead of there being just one pint-size hero on the board, they're two. Unfortunately the number of enemies in the level remains the same as one player game, making an already rather easy game even easier. But there is one nice, unique feature of a two-player game of Fracas that I feel deserves to be mentioned. If a one-up balloon with your face appears in a level and you get it, you gain a life. If a one-up balloon with your partner's face appears on it and you get it, nothing happens. But if your partner is dead and you collect their one-up balloon, they come back to life! Pretty cool, eh?
The bottom line. Considering the old concept of the game, it was surprising to find that there weren’t many games very similar to Fracas. But that doesn’t rule out the fact that this new game uses rather primitive graphics and applies them to what can quickly become a worn out concept. If what you’ve read here interests you, then by all means download Fracas. Weighing in at a 40 minute download (14,400 bps) I can’t say that Fracas is really worth the time it takes, and neither is the shareware fee.
 
graphics sound effects music
   
challenge addictiveness fun factor
   
concept game play story line
   
overall
 
 
Fracas' System Requirements:
• 4.9 megabytes of hard drive space
• 5.125 megabytes of RAM
• monitor capable of displaying 256 colors at 640x480
