How to play Barnyard Blaster online
- Aim: move the mouse over the game screen (it stands in for the XG-1 light gun)
- Shoot: click the mouse button
- Choose one or two players: shoot the matching hay bale on the title screen
- Back to the title screen: F3 (Reset)
- Music on or off: F2 (Select)
- Pause: F4
Gameplay
A farm is overrun with pests, and you are the one holding the gun. A round takes you through three areas. In the barnyard you shoot bottles and cans off a fence while a gopher pops out from behind a tree. In the cornfield, watermelons and pumpkins sit still while crows and rabbits move around, and the vegetables have to go before the critters. In the barn, small animals scurry across the floor and birds swoop down from above.
Each screen gives you up to 40 bullets, and you need to reach a certain shooting accuracy to move on. Targets are worth between 10 and 250 points: the faster you hit something, the more it pays, and the gopher is the most valuable. Unused bullets add to your score at the end of a screen. Between rounds comes Gramps’ bonus screen, where he throws 10 bottles into the air for you to hit before they disappear. Whatever you do, don’t shoot Gramps. Every new round is harder than the one before.
When the game is over, you get a rank based on how many screens you cleared. There are 13 ranks, from “Total Dud” for none at all up to “Blaster” for 33 screens or more. In a two-player game, the players take turns with the same gun.
Tips
- Shoot the still targets first. In the cornfield the order is forced anyway, and elsewhere stationary targets are easy accuracy points.
- Don’t fire blindly. Misses hurt your accuracy, and every bullet you save is worth bonus points.
- Watch for the gopher. It is worth the most points, especially if you hit it the moment it appears.
- Keep the mouse still on the bonus screen. Wait for each bottle to rise into your aim instead of chasing it, and never let Gramps drift under the cursor.
The story behind Barnyard Blaster
Barnyard Blaster belongs to the second wave of 7800 games that Atari released to grow the console’s small library. It is one of only a handful of games that work with the XG-1 light gun, which Atari had originally designed for its XE Game System. The final cartridge is dated October 1988, and the game also came out for the Atari 8-bit computers.
Reviews have been harsh. Collectors’ sites praise the colourful graphics but find the shooting dull, and The Video Game Critic called it the worst of the 7800 light-gun games. It is still a gentle, cartoonish shooter that is easy to pick up for a few rounds.
