While it's inarguable that the average 2600 game from any one of the major third-party companies (namely Activision, Imagic and Parker Bros.) contains superior quality to the typical title released by Atari themselves, I find the outright dismissing of Atari's own games as compared to others' to be awfully generalized and off-base. This is partly because my favorite type of video game is the multi-screen adventure; but even excepting those kinds of games, Atari has created some fantastic action bouts that easily rival any third-party contest. Yars' Revenge, Krull and the Joust adaptation are examples of earlier masterpieces, while Gravitar, Solaris and the translated Jr. Pac-Man are gems from the later era in which Atari, to a sadly diminished audience, outdid themselves.
But Atari's creative pool boasted one handful of games that, in my opinion, was the cream of the crop from the very beginning of the first gaming boom and continues to outlast similar workouts by other companies. This article will discuss Atari's adventure games for their own machine -- my favorites out of all VCS titles. I'm doing this partly because I don't agree with the bashing that's constantly discharged upon some of these games.
First, we should establish what "multi-screen" means. Donkey Kong and Tutankham are two quests that could be considered multi-screen, but not by my definition. The former engagement basically features only one screen that is renovated with a new layout after the conquering of each previous one, and the latter harbors a playing area larger than one screen's worth of space but which scrolls like a moving window to fit everything in. The sort of game I'm talking about contains a variety of stationary, screen-sized rooms that are entered and exited via passages or doorways on the screen borders.
The object of such a game usually involves exploration -- finding certain objects and doing required things with them. These games are usually completed, rather than continuous. Regardless, some of them keep score by some means.
The first such game ever released was Superman, in 1979 (although programmer John Dunn used the screen-switching engine from Warren Robinett's yet-to-be-released Adventure). Considering Atari's other offerings of the day, this was quite a complex game with over-average graphics. As Superman, the player flies from screen to screen (city block to city block), hunting for arch-villain Lex Luthor and his five toadies. When the Man of Steel flies into one of these bad guys, thereby picking him up, he has to fly to the jail screen and deposit him behind bars.
Simultaneously, the player searches for the three scattered pieces of the bridge blown up by the baddies at the game's beginning. Unlike the wandering rogues, these pieces are always on the same screens. The only change I would wish on this game is a random scattering; but it doesn't take away from the pleasure to know where they are. It's fun flying quickly to their locations (some of us have had the city's weird layout memorized for years) and making blinding haste to the bridge screen to see the magical reconstruction take place. In fact, the coordinative pleasure centers of the brain that VCS games often trigger (Dodge 'Em, Astroblast, Solar Fox), that primal release felt by controlling something simply, quickly and smoothly, applies manifold to Superman. It feels good to smash our hero through screen border after border as the loud rush of wind echoes over and over.
A neat thing is that the bad guys all have different speeds; the fastest is really a bitch to catch, even if you've found him. Sexy Lexy, of course, is the most devious, zipping from city block to block with his little backpack-helicopter. But what's really well-done, especially considering how early the game was created, is the random temperament of the bad guys. I've been playing this game for years; I still can't second-guess where they'll all be hiding. There's a set amount of collective movement patterns, I'd imagine; for example, almost half the time, Lex and a couple of specific criminals always start out in the screen to the right of the jail. But they all scatter so quickly and disparately that even knowing the game like the back of your hand won't necessarily guide you directly to each guy.
Hindering Superman are floating Kryptonite satellites with no less impressive movement patterns than those of the bad guys. The other nuisance is a helicopter that flies around at random, picking up and relocating the bridge pieces. It also picks up Kryptonite satellites and Lois Lane (the antedote for a touch from the former), but this isn't as bothersome.
Once the bridge is rebuilt and all six bad boys are behind bars, Superman has to return to the phonebooth on the game's starting screen, change back into Clark Kent, walk over the newly rebuilt bridge one screen to the right, and make his way to the Daily Planet. Three tones signal the end of the game, prompting you to hit reset and try to beat your last time (my record's 1:17 -- without the cheat I explained two issues ago). It's almost impossible to play this game just once per sitting.
Adventure came out in 1980 and, more than the much more hectic Superman, forever changed the way designers approached action/adventure games. Like its antecedent, it has a plot that must be resolved. But it has no scoring whatsoever, it leaves more time for contemplation and, also unlike Superman, it employs a wholly logical room layout. This game fascinated me when I got it in 1982 and continues to captivate me; it feels mysterious and too quiet, and the quest feels momentous. The simple graphics add to the game's raw fixation on the completion of a straightforward act by way of unraveling a puzzle based on the manipulation of objects. A stolen chalice has to be found in one of two evil castles and returned to the hero's castle. Along the way you have to find keys to the castles, and you might have to find and use the magnet to pull one of them out of a wall, for instance, or the portable bridge to search the closed-off part of the maze inside the White Castle. Finding the sword and killing the three variously-tempered dragons makes the search easier. A bat -- the equivalent to Superman's helicopter -- flies from screen to screen, displacing objects. But unlike the helicopter, he can't be stolen-from; you have to try and persuade him to trade what he's carrying for something you don't need at the moment.
An altogether unique thing about Adventure is that the player can reincarnate his onscreen counterpart if he's swallowed by a dragon. Being eaten doesn't end the game or decrement a depot of lives; it just limits the player's movement to the small space inside the beast's stomach!
Game variation 3 places the objects and characters in random spots, so this is the only one I play, because it makes this a game, plot conflicts and all, instead of a linear hike to memorized item locations. There is actually a set number of object deployment configurations, but there are so many that the game is constantly new.
1981's Haunted House has the player searching for three pieces of a vase that, rebuilt, must be carried out the front door. There are four floors, designated by the color of the walls, but this is all that changes upon entry and exiting via staircases; the floors themselves scroll up and down as the player moves, albeit being made up of mini-rooms separated by doorways that can't all be entered and exited at will. There are ghosts, spiders and bats wandering around that are all deadly to the touch, but in some variations the bat steals and re-deploys any vase pieces that the player's carrying. By way of aid, there's a key that allows passage through all locked doorways and a sceptre that renders the hero immune to baddies; but no two objects, including the collective vase, can be carried at once.
The game's not as complex or consistently bewitching as Adventure, but it's still extremely engrossing and satisfying to play. Its unique aspects are the fact that the player needs matches to see and pick up objects (in all but the easiest variation), which are blown out when creepies approach; and the representation of the hero, which is a pair of eyes that looks in whatever direction the joystick's being pushed (even when a game's not in play!).
Howard Scott Warshaw's Raiders of the Lost Ark entrances me almost as much as Adventure. This 1982 achievement returns to the room-by-room ways of that de facto prequel, but is minimally random; in compensation it involves a ton more objects (it introduced action/adventure gaming's first dynamic inventory) and some careful, proficient joystick work. It's spooky, larger than life and, for me, continuously indulging and pleasing to play. Even the rooms act strange and ominous. Indiana Jones searches for the Ark of the Covenant, the ultimate archaeological treasure; but first he has to slink around doing the right things with the right objects to figure out which desert mesa it's buried in.
When E.T. came out in time for Christmas 1982, it evidently disappointed a lot of players -- but not me. Not only was I relieved that it wasn't cutesy like the movie (in fact it's one of the most alien-looking games on the 2600), but I also became captivated for apparently the exact reason it didn't sell well: It's complex and takes a lot of practice to master. So sue me.
Mr. Warshaw's onscreen rendering of the ugly outlander has to fall into wells, searching for the three pieces of his interplanetary telephone. The game is extremely original, using icons that appear as the ground is traversed to do the various necessary things.
The cherry on Atari's multilayered cake of adventure (that's probably the worst sentence I've ever written) is Secret Quest, released in 1989 by Atari founder and gaming pioneer Nolan Bushnell. The game and the story behind its creation will be covered in a full article next ish. Seeya then! -- CF