ARCADE FANS REJOICE!
Snappy controls. Addictive game play. BUMPY GRUMPY blends right in with the arcade classics of the period it's paying tribute to.

Disclaimer: I playtested this game and received a key for it in the process.

Mommy's Best Games' latest tongue-in-cheek arcade-era tribute features its most relatable scenario yet: a varied and endless array of awful drivers is making you late for work, and your only hope of overcoming this collective blight on the morning commute is to embrace the darkness and become a greater road hazard than they are. Streak past your unwitting adversaries like a bat out of hell, mercilessly cutting off as many as possible (multiple times apiece at that), just plain knocking the most hapless specimens out altogether; there is, after all, no good or evil when it comes to corporate-mandated punctuality.

As with its cabinet-bound inspirations the controls are about as simple as you could ask for - up, down, accelerate, brake - but unlike most such relics the layout of enemies and powerups is randomized each credit you play, so you can't just keep popping in spare change and eventually memorize your way to a perfect run: depending on what manner of experience you're craving this will be either the game's greatest strength or its most irritating downside, for while this setup ensures that every session is different and keeps the emphasis on rapid-fire moment-to-moment split-second reactions, it's also undeniably frustrating when, despite the game's suitably zippy controls and forgiving collision detection, a rival driver still manages to perfectly weasel his way directly in between you and a vital powerup (particularly your scattered work papers, which determine the ending you get).

Beyond that point, however, if you're able to push past the occasional "ugh, seriously?" fender bender and build up a more instinctive feel for how to handle the mercurial hazards in your path, getting on a tear just plain feels great: squeaking out of seemingly impossible scrapes, adjusting your eyes to better spot oncoming collectibles, knowing when to slow down for an intersection or just blaze on through it at the last second (and you definitely want to wreak as much highway havoc as possible, as it means more points and thus extra lives to work with), once things start to become second nature the "just one more run" urges become fiendishly hard to resist, especially since a full playthrough is so brief. Seeking out more and more unconventional ways to boost your score and maybe even impress your boss in the end can keep you glued to the screen in a way you might not expect from such a simple game.

Dollop an era-appropriate presentation (including a special display option for diehards who want to run the game in a genuine arcade cabinet) and even a bit of lore about the "original" developers on top and you can feel genuine affection for the foundational early 80's classics present in every pixel; as in the old days this title can and will sometimes have you groaning when it seemingly steals a life from you, but methinks just about anyone with the mindset to add this one to their library will get plenty of value just in terms of the quarters they would otherwise pump into a bona fide machine way back when (and if you're not quite sure, just try the demo). Boot this up and pour one out for the bygone neighborhood diner or laundromat that set you on the wild, hazard-strewn path that has, at last, led you here.

Bumpy Grumpy rules. Just put it on a screen at a get together and you will be shocked at how many people want to get in and bump it up.