| RIVER RAID Activision, 1982 |
 
River Raid is a top-down military-style shoot-em-up game developed by Carol Shaw for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It was the second best selling game of 1982 and was a hit for Activision. It had a sequel in the late 80's - River Raid II, developed by Dennis Lubatt, which used Carol's polynomial engine from the original.
In River Raid, you play a fighter-jet pilot flying over the "River of No Return", shooting at helicopters, other jet planes, tanks, boats, and whatever else, while collecting fuel to keep going. Each level is separated by a bridge you must also blow up. The plane is controlled by a Joystick. You can select between guided or unguided missiles using the difficulty switches. River Raid is one of the classic Activision titles that people talk about a lot. As such, it's also one of the more sought after titles. It's sequel, River Raid II, is a lot less as common, and also is known to have some issues with certain versions of the VCS/2600 - such as some early 1977 "Heavy SIxer" models and some late model "PAM" based "Junior" consoles.Blowin' Up Stuff - My Experiences As a kid, I always sorta saw Shoot-em-up games as something the older 80's Gen Xer crowd was all about. I never really got into them. As an adult though, it's turned into one of my favorite genres. So of course I had to pick this up. For starters, this game is "Atari Hard" - not "NES Hard" - "Atari Hard" - you think Super Mario Bros. is hard? Well you have another thing coming with this game. This is a Schmup, and Carol Shaw seems she did a good job getting that Arcade Schmup feel down. It's all about timing, fine maneuvering, and the control is pretty good. I have days where I like the game, and other days I don't. I have to be in that "Galaxian/1942" type mood to play this, which I'm in a lot when I just want to blow a few minutes between parts of my usual adult day. VIDEOS
Let's Play River Raid (Actual hardware, 2022) |
