Warplock, published by Data Age in 1982 for Atari 2600, traps the player's ship in a space-time anomaly from which space pirates emerge to attack from any angle of the screen, while the defending ship can only move horizontally along the bottom and fire straight up, using a paddle control. That asymmetry between the enemies' freedom of movement and the player's rigidity created a frustrating experience that both period and retrospective critics agreed was one of the worst designs in the 2600 catalog. It's, flaws and all, one more document of Data Age's rushed final stretch before it vanished from the market.
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