Uploaded September 2011 | Updated September 2026, 7 hours ago

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Welcome to Plaque Attack, a dentist simulator in the form of an Atari space shooter. Your ship, a miniature tube of toothpaste, is tasked with defending a giant's mouth from the advances of floating aliens resembling burgers, ice cream cones and... cassettes with hair?

A relatively simple challenge at first, it all gets rather frantic as the mutant doughnuts and candy canes flying at you from all directions become increasingly slippery. One must utilise all one's super-sharp Atari joystick reactions to eliminate all threats before the monster's teeth are rotted to mere stumps to leave him quite literally toothless. Presumably the giant then swallows your ship in a fit of rage before purchasing a new set of gnashers and allowing you to do it all again with a new tube of toothpaste.

You can earn yourself extra teeth, to be surgically implanted in a matter of milliseconds, every couple of thousand points to extend your game just that bit longer so you can experience the thrill of evil sandwiches and Glacé cherries being flung at you in Space Invader-esque fashion.

Not quite as fun as Fast Food, a similarly food-related title on the TV Boy, but certainly a novel little idea that at least *attempts* to deviate from the usual "Aliens From Planet X" Atari fare. Except it doesn't really, because replace the tooth sprites with buildings and it's just like War of the Worlds. The sound effects are pretty stock, and not really reflective of squirting toothpaste or exploding Christmas puddings, which is a bit of a pity. Nevertheless, it earns Brownie points for fighting a noble cause against the serial (cereal?) killer that is tooth decay.