.

AUGUST 20 . 07

Balloon Bowhunter Extreme ........... PLAY ME!

You are a lone hunter, stoically perched upon a mountain ledge at sunset. For survival you have your wits. Your determination. The knowledge that you alone control your destiny in this harsh, unforgiving wilderness.

And you have “f.”

In Balloon Bowhunter Extreme you control a hunter, rendered in a style that’s somewhere between an ancient cave painting and a random squiggle that some 6-year-old forgot to color. A red balloon (just one at a time, alas, not 99) floats toward the top of the screen, and if you time it just right you can shoot that sucker. With an arrow. Take that, balloon! If you hit it, an identical balloon takes its place­, but the ledge upon which you stand (which extends significantly beyond the mountain itself, as if supported by the very hand of God) moves to a different position. It could go up. It could go down. It could even move so that your hunter is partially obscured by the score bar at the top of the screen. That thing’s crazy. Although once you figure out when to fire based on the relative position of balloon and hunter, the game gets fairly easy (what I’m telling you here is that I’ve gotten pretty good at Balloon Bowhunter Extreme).

And that’s about it. There’s no end to the game (technically I suppose there might be, but if it exists somewhere beyond the stage of 50 or so popped balloons, I’m not sure I want to be the type of human being that finds it).

-Matt