Out of Gas is a top-down action/puzzle game developed by Realtime Associates and published exclusively for the Game Boy, in North America only, by FCI (Fujisankei Communications International) in 1992. And it is generally derided by those who’ve played it.

You play as Eric, and you’ve run out of fuel in your spaceship, so your girlfriend sends you out with a gas cannister to get more. And since petrol (or “gas” as Americans erroneously call it) is a processed fossil fuel, that seems a little silly in space… In fact: the name, backstory and setting for Out of Gas undoubtedly contribute to its failure, because none of it makes any sense…

The aim of the game in Out of Gas is to zoom around a variety of overhead scrolling levels, in a vehicle, shooting numbered circles in the right order within a strict time limit. Your craft can rotate, thrust forward and can fire projectiles from its nose cone. If it collides with any of the bounding walls, or any other obstacle, it will bounce back like a ball off a pool table cushion. Shooting circles labelled with the letter ‘G’ will give you a time extension, which again doesn’t really make much sense, although the game’s designers would argue that it gives you more “gas” to keep going… Surely it would’ve been better to drop the “gas” nonsense and re-label the ‘G’ circles as ‘T’ (for extra time), and to re-develop the game with a less nonsensical premise?

The actual game mechanics are not too bad, although the idea behind Out of Gas is clearly under-developed. The inertia of the craft feels okay, although at times it does feel a bit like pinball when you’re bouncing off the walls uncontrollably. And – as the levels progress – more hazards are introduced, like one-way conveyors, rocket launchers, gun emplacements, slippery ice, and bumpers, which tend to make the going more difficult (or annoying, depending on your point of view).

Out of Gas has 64 levels in total. The first few are insultingly simple, but you can skip them when you’ve been through them once, with passwords that the game gives you.

The graphics in Out of Gas are generally quite plain, except for some nice backgrounds and smooth scrolling. The music is tuneful and jaunty, but not particularly memorable.

Overall, Out of Gas is a poor game saddled with the wrong backstory and premise. It’s not terrible, but it does get annoying quite quickly. With a bit more thought put into it this could’ve been a decent shooter/puzzle game, but the whole experience just seems a little empty to me. A bit like Eric’s gas tank.

More: Out of Gas on Wikipedia