Last night I decided to run my Atari through a 5.1 digital surround sound system ... because I could. Sure, the audio will be mono and crackly, but it will still be awesome. So I'm poking around boxes looking for Moon Patrol and what the fuck do I unearth?

DOLPHIN

I immediately thought of Chad and rigged it up.

Game play summary:

This game rules for a number of reasons. You play as a benevolent dolphin running away from a persistent octopus perpetually trying to catch you. If he succeeds this electrifying music comes on and everything freezes to the sound of a distant dread and you lose a life.
To prevent him from getting close you must catch the current or dodge it if its going in the opposite direction (arrow thingy). You can try to make the octopus hit the opposite current to slow him down and push him away from you, which makes the linear pursuit interesting.

The chase is perpetually interrupted by columns of small fish that appear between the gaps when the music/sonar thing stops on beat. You can swim through them if you're fast or jump on beat. I never thought about it, but it could you could approach this as a crude rhythm game because the beat is the only thing that prevents you from going headfirst into a wall of tuna. I'm sure there is a lesbian bar joke in there somewhere.

Going over the fish column makes the octopus change colors and move faster than you, so you have to fake him out by moving side to side. To win you must jump out of the water to catch (eat? vaporize?) a seagull that sounds like an ambulance, allowing you to then (french? bite?) the octopus which causes him to run away in a little dance to the most shameful 1-bit music possible for MAD POINTS. The pursuit of having this giant thing inches away from eating your face makes the game pretty intense even by today's standards.

Like most Atari games it doesn't hold up to the test of time, but it was clever 20 years ago and you gotta love the giant Activision logo in the HUD.

Good times, good times.