What it has in scope it destroys with execution.
In the second phase, Atari would fly those who passed up to their headquarters and have them all compete in a race to complete a different version of the game. The prize of the EarthWorld competition was a golden amulet with the twelve birthstones engraved into it.
However, this amazing concept, a virtual game being linked to real materials for real (and quite valuable) prizes, amounted to a terrible video game.
The game is played across twelve rooms, each representing a sign of the Astrological Zodiac. There are a total of fifteen items that you can carry and place into a room using an extremely clunky movement system. Some of the items that you carry have an extra effect (such as one that shuffles the order of the rooms).
Four of the rooms have action segments that you must pass in order to collect items from or leave items in that room and you must repeat these challenges every time you enter the room. Two of them feature horizontal lines that you have to avoid (but your target is so big and sluggish, that you may as well hold up until the character gets through on a fluke). The Leo room has a series of waterfalls that are increasingly difficult to pass. But worst of all is Aquarius. Aquarius' challenge requires you to climb across a pit on platforms going opposite directions that randomly change size and velocity. This action segment may take upwards of thirty minutes to complete every single time. Either way, since there is no penalty for failing an action segment they are rendered into little more than boring chores.
When you place the correct items in the correct rooms, numbers will flash on the screen, displaying a page number and panel number to refer to on the comic (You could find these clues yourself, but the game gives you the correct order, so you can't get around it). Unfortunately, the items' necessary positions are completely arbitrary. This wouldn't be so bad if only two or three needed to be in the correct room, but the game requires that upwards of six items need to be in specific places and there is no indication when you place one item in the correct place.
At the end of the game every item must be placed in a specific room. Fifteen items in twelve rooms makes 15,407,021,574,586,386 (that's fifteen quadrillion) permutations to test.
Even were this impossibly difficult test of one's patience omitted, the game still has no positive qualities outside its real-world competition. This is a game for the history books, not for gamers.