giant anteater

n.
A large tropical American anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) having an elongated narrow snout, long sticky tongue, and large shaggy tail.

• Release Date: 1982
• Genre: Action
• Style: Maze
• Similar Games: Oil's Well (Commodore 64/128), Pac-Man (Commodore 64/128), Pac-Man (Atari Video Computer System), Pac-Man (Game Boy), Pac-Man (Intellivision), Pac-Man [Tengen Unlicensed] (Nintendo Entertainment System), Pac-Man (Atari 5200), Oil's Well (ColecoVision), Pac-Man (Sega Game Gear), Pac-Man (Texas Instruments TI-99), Pac-Man (NeoGeo Pocket Color)

Game Description

A precursor of Oil's Well, Anteater is an obscure, though delightfully addicting game in which players control an anteater's sticky tongue as it winds its way around a series of trickier and trickier underground anthill mazes, gobbling up ant larvae, ants, worms and queen ants. Eating a queen ant destroys all onscreen enemies. What sets this title apart from Pac-Man and other maze games is that the tongue stays tethered to the anteater, and players will lose a life if an enemy touches any part of the elongated tongue other than the tip. To avoid this, press the button to zip the tongue back into the anteater's mouth. When the game progresses from day to night (a visually cool scene), a spider will travel along the tongue toward the tip. Players should gobble up a queen ant before the spider reaches the tip of the tongue. Objects and characters are recognizable, but decidedly ordinary. The musical intro sounds like a synthesized keyboard, but the sound effects are merely adequate. Shear gameplay is definitely Anteater's best asset.

Roots & Influences

Ant Eater spawned many imitators such as Oil's Well, but this title probably stole many of its ideas from the gaming classic Pac-Man.

Review: Overall

While games like Q-Bert were capturing people's imagination with gee-whiz special effects and graphics toward the front of the Arcade, Anteater sat in a back corner, hopeful for someone to pass by and pop in a quarter. Heaven help the player who ultimately did spend that twenty-five cents though, because one try of Anteater and you were hooked. It was such a gaming success because it focused on the important fundamentals of good design.

The tension inherent in the rules of the game makes all the difference. Tremendously straightforward in its concept, all of the permutations of what your tongue could or could not do forces you to really stay on top of the action on the screen. You can eat the ants with the tip of your tongue, but they can't touch any other part of it. You can only eat worms if you approach them from behind. Extending your tongue in the wrong direction blocks you from getting to other larvae.

All the while you're work against the clock, in this case is the rising and setting sun, to avoid having to deal with the pesky spiders. The game so addictive because it appears to be so easy and straightforward, yet is so hard to completely master. Your frustration compels you to try "just one more game," because you know there's a better effort awaiting if you just try this or that new technique.

This game could have been an all-time classic if it had adopted the traits of two of its contemporaries, Pac-Man and Q-Bert: great graphics and audio. The graphics in Anteater, while standard for their time, are nothing spectacular. The same can be said for the sound -- it's decent but not memorable. Anteater needed more of a personality, or a cameo character such as Q-Bert or Pac-Man. It's one of those games that only got the important part right: the gameplay itself.

Review: Enjoyment

Lord, this game is addicting.

Review: Graphics

Fairly standard fare. Psychedelic colors seem somewhat out of place.

Review: Sound

Does the job adequately but doesn't extend much beyond that.

Review: Replay Value

I could never get myself to spend just one quarter on this game, it beckons repeat plays.

Review: Documentation

Standard fare.

Production Credits

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The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: large shaggy-haired toothless anteater with long tongue and powerful claws; of South America
  Synonyms: ant bear, great anteater, tamanoir, Myrmecophaga jubata

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