Today's article is the start of the Atari 2600 games, starting off with the first two games in the Adventure category, Adventure, and Haunted House. As with today's games, a lot of the games featured in the coming weeks will include screenshots of the user manual mainly to show how the games would try to increase their complexity and put into context the often simplified visuals on the Atari 2600 console. With the 2600's limited 8-bit CPU, it was limited in what it could display on the screen, so having an idea ahead of time about the story in the game as well as the box and cartridge art was important for the player to visualize what their yellow square on the screen was supposed to be besides a monochromatic polygon. I was aware of both of these games before I played them on one level or another and I did go into both games with an open mind and as unbiased as I could be.
Adventure
Since Adventure is not just a straight-up shooter with an attempt at a simplistic plot, I read through the instruction manual to get a sense of what I was supposed to be doing and while I appreciate that the manual is included in the game, I probably should have had it out (at least on my phone) while I played because there is a lot to remember here. Not that the names of the dragons are important, but knowing that Yorgie the Yellow Dragon is afraid of the Gold Key or that if a slain dragon is blocking your path, you can use an object by placing it next to/near the dead dragon "and move through the area." Although you had better hope that the black bat is not in the area because it is likely to swoop in and swipe whatever it is that you are carrying and fly off to some other area of the map. Like when it took off with the key I found in the blue maze, but it dropped the sword, so that was nice. Except then it reappeared when I was about to attack the Green Dragon and gave me back the key, but took the sword and I was eaten.
The game has an interesting mechanic/use of the reset button, that allows you to "reincarnate" if you are killed by a dragon and any item you were carrying will respawn in the place where you died, but it will also respawn any dragons that you killed. Dark Souls-esque? In my one playthrough (including two deaths at the hand of the Green Dragon), I did manage to find the White Key, and the Gold Key which I used to open the Gold Castle but that just let me into an open room with nothing in it, so after finding the magnet from the bat, I stashed that item in there because I didn't know what else to do with it. I also found the bridge which the black bat was also flying around on the same screen as the corpse of the Green Dragon, and while running away from the bat thinking that I could use the bridge to cross an impassable black line (river?), the bat flew up to me and traded the bridge for the corpse of the Green Dragon. I then managed to catch the black bat again on the same screen but by that point, I was kind of over the game. Maybe?
I feel like this is definitely a game that back in the day, with "day" being sometime in 1980, would have a couple of sheets of either graph paper or binder paper with maps drawn showing the way to where the various keys for each castle are located, where each dragon starts out and frequent shit talking about how much of an asshole that annoying that stupid bat is. One other thing that stood out to me and should not have been a surprise was that there was no music and very few sound effects. Moving through the maps was utterly silent, so maybe I should have been playing some Led Zeppelin in the background while either drinking a Tab or a Coors.
I think I can see the appeal of the game and I might replay it again on a different difficulty setting (stupid bat) although I really feel like maps would need to be drawn by me because playing with online maps just feels really disingenuous to this game and even disconnected from the game.
Verdict: Yes.
Haunted HouseAs I sadly expected, I have mixed feelings about Haunted House. It is one of the earliest survival horror video games that has you wandering around a darkened house populated with ghosts, bats, and spiders while you try to collect the pieces of an urn so that you can escape the house. You have matches to give you some light for a short time, and there is a scepter that can repel enemy attacks depending on the gameplay mode. There is flashing lighting that lights up the floor you are on and a key that unlocks doors throughout the house. All of the early elements are here. Maybe I need to play the game in a darkened room on an actual Atari 2600 and not on a 3DS while sitting in my office at work (albeit with the lights still off).
I did play for 10 minutes on Game Mode 4 which has locked doors, lights off, all of the enemies, and the master key is randomly placed somewhere in the mansion. Knowing that the game scores you on how many matches you use, I did briefly consider using matches sparingly, but after bumping into walls for a good 10 seconds, I decided that I should get used to the game by using matches as frequently as needed and just bump into locked doors instead. By the time my 10 minutes were up, I was kind of glad because I had died four times, I had the Master Key, I found and subsequently dropped the Scepter, and I had previously picked up one of the three pieces of the Urn, but I never made note of where I dropped it (because you can only carry one item at a time). I just do not think I was fully prepared to complete this game, but having played a bit this one time, I feel more prepared for my next adventure in this haunted house.
Verdict: Yes.
Game 1: Game 4 (Random Key)
While I did end up enjoying the first two games in the adventure collection, I feel like I was not as wowed by them as I had hoped I was going to be, especially since neither of these titles was arcade-like in their "Get the highest score on the leaderboards!" type of game. I think what ultimately made me give the games the rating I decided upon was that I appreciated the different approach each game took, that, each game had difficulty and accessibility options that could modify some of the core gameplay mechanics, like having the lights on in Haunted House. I do not know if I would play Adventure again with the same settings because that bat was a real asshole and while I do enjoy a challenge, I would much rather enjoy the game than be punished by the challenge.
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