| ADVENTURE Atari 2600 Review | |
  Before Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, or even Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, or even Ultima 0: Akalabeth - an accountant named Warren Robinette, who had been enjoying the spoils of the 1970's Adventure was a very ambitious project at the time, the whole goal was to make, what was basically the first console Action RPG (basically, The Legend of Zelda's caveman ancestor), cram it into a 4K ROM chip, to run on a console designed to play Tank and Pong originally. Robinette was so efficient with his code he had another 54bytes or so leftover to use up - which he used to create the very first video game "easter egg" - a little something special added to the game as a "hidden secret". In Warren's case, it was a retaliation toward Atari for them not publishing or crediting their game developers - the same scenario that led to Activision just a short time later. The way Atari Corp. saw it, the developers were no more important nor skilled than the guy putting screws in the cartriges. And they also were a bit afraid that their talented devs would get picked up if their names were published, leading them to Atari's growing competitors at the time. So what was the "Easter Egg" - well, it was a small room with "Designed by Warren Robinette" down the middle to the screen in a glowing font using the color-shifting used for the magical chalice. It took about 5 years for it to be discovered by the public and actually be exposed - which then, in a weird twist of fate, led Atari to ENCOURAGE their developers to add such things to their games. By the time the egg was Discovered, Warren Robinette had already left Atari, so any reprimand, if any, could not be carried out. Warren as since been quite kind as to give out a lot of information via the internet about this since 1995 or so.Colassal Blocky Adventure - A review Plot: Ώ/10 Adventure's plot can be looked at in a couple different ways....hence why I'm not sure how to rate it. By modern standards, it's practically non-existant and might as well be "BLockhead is sent to retrieve Dale Bozzio's US Festival 83' Bikini display from the Costco in northwest Atari Land" like you're going to Costco for a life-sized can of organic shake mix and a slice of pepperoni pizza. Then there's the real plot, an invisible evil magician whose actually NOT in the game did something that made the kingdom's enchanted chalice dissappear, and now you have to fare 3 evil dragons and a kleptomaniacal bat to find it and bring it back to your golden castle. But in actuality, you're a square, fighting psychotic ducks with a arrow, all the while being taken on world tours by a flying moustache (so THAT is where John Oates Moustache went!?!? Or was it Greg Hawkes?) - while you look for the radioactive moose head. And yes, I stole those descriptions from a circa 1996 website - seriously, it was some kid with a single GREEN background website in the then popular "Times Roman" Font ranting about adventure...
Anyway, not a whole lot else to the plot. Basically get chalice, fight dragons, avoid bat, and use a bunch of poorly rendered objects to do it. Graphics: 10/10 - or 1/10? The paradox of Adventure's early entry, if not practical CREATION of the Action RPG genre and the Graphical Adventure simultaniously, is it's hilariously so bad they're good graphics! It's like the Troma Film of video games! Brackets for a bridge, dragons that look like some kind of mutant Duck/Rat hybrid, a bat that looks like he's shitting on the landscape just as much as he's running off with it! You have mazes and castles that are rendered okay, but hte Keys are honestly the best looking "asset" in the game. The Chalice...is that a bikini bottom? A moose head? a F1 Race Car in holographic paint? Seriously, the quaint designs really give this game a wacky atmosphere. One benefit in this game is that RF interference can be a real friend. It makes the scenes look like they are literal 3D Art popping out of the screen due to ghosting, which is a big part of that early Atari "vibe". It's like, on one hand, they're terrible, but on the other hand, they're friggin amazing because not even your modern 128-bit, 3D, Trishaded polygonal graphics powerhouse game system with a online connection to the Cloud can touch that low-res but oddly 3D Quality a lot of early Atari stuff tends to have. Gameplay: 10/10 Adventure is one of the best executed early Atari games in this aspect. The controls are very smooth and tight, and the flow of the game is interesting, a little unsettling at times, and exciting at others. A big part of this is it does have it's own, unique, cohesive atmosphere. There's not really much to remember, just one button, and that's it. You literally don't need the manual, this could literally be some kind of wonky "Backrooms" adventure if you wanted to consider it that. Even just running from Dragons for hours is fun and amusing. Sound: 8/10 At first you might think..."Sound, what sound?"....see, Playing Atari is just as much about the room around you as it is about the actual game code. The QUIET is a big part OF the Atari Atmosphere. The unsettling buzz-hum of television interference picked up by your Rat-Shack RF switch and the RF tuna can inside the Atari console itself, the quiet crickets outside with all the windows open, the occasional racket to let you know something is finally going on that you really need to pay attention to. It's a "vibe" all it's one and the ABSENSE of sound is a big part of the dynamics. What sounds that are there are pretty good. The Dragons really have an intimidating growl when they snap at you to try and eat you for example. The sound for picking up and dropping objects is steeped in that late 70's/early 80's "technology" thing by using the same clip forward and reverse, and the ending theme is pretty climatic (bloop,bloop,bloop,bloop,bloop,bloop....it sounds just as perverted as it does hilarious). But these sounds surrounded by buzz-hum, and an odd 3d-like quality caused by the interference gives it a very interesting, and specific atmosphere that is hard to capture on any other system with any other game. Overall - 9.5/10 Overall, Adventure is one of my personal favorites for the Atari 2600 VCS. It's got just the right kind of atmosphere, goofiness, humor, but still a serious plot that makes it captivating even at nearly 45 years old, and it's all in your imagination to get it to be that way. |
