Journey Escape

"A video game rip-off breathtaking in the exasperation it engenders"

This game may be one of the worst crimes against porting ever executed. That endearing game where you took each of Journey's band members to a separate world to rescue his instrument became distressingly monotonous when Atari developers didn't even seem to try to ''capture the spirit'' of the game. The only reason this is not the worst game of all time is that the sound is above average, but when I remember my euphoria at picking this up for a mere two bucks at Kay-Bee(''Well, it's got to be something like the Arcade version! Doesn't it?'') I came to realize you do occasionally get what you pay for.

In this game, a race against time, stuff scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom, most of which you'll want to avoid. You're confined to the bottom half and need to be on the lookout for your Scarab Escape vehicle. If this works out, you get another minute added to your total time left and get to try again with the next member of the band, indicated by initials in the lower corner, and the monsters will move more diagonally. Succeed with all five, and you get a short break scene before you start over again with a bonus. How and when the monsters and aids and even the Escape Vehicle appear seem random, which is a huge problem.

Your score in this game is actually a money total; you start with fifty grand and gain money for completing a level(all five band members) and lose it for running into obstacles. Obviously being as far up the screen as you can allows you to There's this heart on legs which signifies a groupie that takes $300(That's Right Kids, heavy metal induces suicide subliminally, but softer bands like Journey may encourages kleptomania,) blinking cameras that take $600 if they pop up and touch you(maybe being photographed in such a stinker of a game would hurt your group's popularity) and faces with hats(slick promoters, they say) which get you for $2000(''I've got a video game idea that makes money, honest, wanna invest in it?'') All of these push you back a bit but the worst may be a stage--no, you don't have a $1000 dollar bill fall through a crack or a trap-door, but it costs you even more time as it seems to fall on your head before it pushes you all the way to the bottom, which may not allow you to get to the Scarab soon enough and cut short the Big Fun you're experiencing. Fortunately there are folks who will help you--Loyal Roadies which look like robots render you invincible for a short while, the end of which is not indicated by a further change in tune, and Money Managers make the equation totally random by not only giving you $9900 allowing you to pass through everything that would cost you time for the rest of the level. Without them the game is probably too hard, and if a couple appear randomly(two may even appear on the same scene) you are pretty much set. All of this is unconvincingly explained in the manual for those without ESP(good thinking--anyone with ESP would know to stay well away from the game,) but I guess they had to make some sort of plot.

Of course the old gag about how the OFF switch is the most effective control is not far off here. But there is some attempt at letting you use the fire button. The timer doesn't start on a level until you push it, and it also helps you move around more quickly and is useful when you need to duck a bad guy, even one that's already touched you and is pushing you back. And it is nice that you actually have 2-d movements with the tradeoff of speed versus visibility depending on how far up you are.

The graphics are really terrible--you can only see the band member's initials, and the things that you have to avoid or get seem ludicrous. There's no difference among the band members--even different color shirts or pants(as in the arcade version) would have been cool and very doable, but as it is your guy just looks like he jumped from the frying pan of SwordQuest into the fire. The hearts with skinny legs and the shifty-eyed faces with hats look, overall, very kiddy, and the stages that come at you look like barn doors. Your loyal roadies look like robots(extreme even for a Heavy Metal group) and the money manager looks like cookies' smirking response to the Kool-Aid Man. Combining that with the odd starry background(the star colorings form a rainbow-like swath) in outer space and the Scarab Escape Vehicle being a weird yellow wire that, for a special treat, fires at nothing in particular. There's even a planet with a ring in the background. But all this is overshadowed by what happens if your score goes over 100K, which usually happens when you get the bonus for winning the first level. The dollar sign disappears. How tacky.

The background sounds are actually pretty good. You have different tunes depending on whether you're vulnerable, protected by a roadie, or by a money manager. There's the standard screen-flash when a band member reaches a ship, but it's accompanied by a unique sucking noise, and the interlude with a decent rendition of ''Don't Stop Believing,'' although it can't measure up to ''Separate Ways'' in the arcade, is still catchy. However there is a nasty klaxon when you run into the bad guys, and it quickly disrupts any positive vibes you may get from this game.

Overall this one's a stinkeroo. If you're forced at gunpoint to play a few games of this or start smoking, well, try and enjoy the sound. And it's not as silly as those ALL CAPS INTERNET SCAMS with bad grammar--you won't be embarrassed to admit you tried this to your friends, either. But overall the game seems to epitomize the gauche attempts at porting video games to the Atari--it's nothing like the original, and it has very little fun or strategy value. There was one alternate game I invented that kept me amused for a minute. I tried to get down to zero dollars before time ran out, and I suppose the game's more challenging if you avoid the money managers. But that will be for more patient minds than my own to decide.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 09/25/00, Updated 01/30/02