Split Second Lives!

The house is once again stocked with AA batteries, so I pulled out Split Second. I must have bee seeing double (or at least 2/3's) when I looked at the battery compartment initially. This game calls for 6, not 9 batteries.

So after loading it up, I turned it on and voila, we have LED. You select a game 1 through 8 as detailed on the back:





If you're having trouble reading, the choices are:

1) Mad Maze..."Visible"
2) Mad Maze..."Preview"
3) Mad Maze..."Invisible"
4) Space Attack..."Beginner"
5) Space Attach..."Pro"
6) Auto Cross
7) Stomp
8) Speedball
Maze is a fairly simple game. Give a U shaped target, navigate your single LED self into it, winding your way through virtual barriers (see picture below). There are 3 modes, "Visible" where the LED is on all the time, "Preview" which gives you a flash of the target and obstacles and "Invisible" where you just have to bump and stumble your way home. Entering the goal, the game emits a very unsuccessful sound -- a downward note one would usually associate with failure.



Space Attack is another fairly simple game. Guide your single LED gun site to shoot what looks like a stylized Star Wars Tie Fighter. Kind of like this: . -- only the period is centered vertically. The difference between Beginner and Pro is simply that the movement of the target is a little faster and more erratic.
I believe Auto Cross simulates a car race, but the object appears to be to just guide the single LED car into a "tunnel" without steering into the frame of the game.
Stomp is a reaction game is actually kind of challenging. Using a centered LED light, U-shaped goals (randomly one or two goals at a time) appear and your response is to press the appropriate arrow(2) in the direction of the goal(s). You're not given much time to react -- one might even say a "split second"... HA!!!
Speedball is probably the most challenging game and reminds me a lot of Centipede. Guide a 4-dash LED worm toward a single-LED moving target and attempt to surround it on all 4 sides capturing it. The speed with which the target moves and it's erratic movement (jumping several LED locations at a time) make this one difficult enough to spend some time with it.