Raiders of the Lost Ark

"Boring!"

As far as Atari games go they really aren't that great when you compare them to games found on later platforms. Still, Atari produced some pretty fun games, Cosmic Ark, Combat, Missile Command, Pac-Man and Kangaroo to name a few. The Atari also however, produced some games that were less enjoyable, such as those crappy football games. Unfortunately, ROTLA falls into the crappy category, even if for no other reason than its very bad control. There are other reasons, but the control stands out in my mind as the most annoying aspect of this game. It just wasn't reliable and it was too complicated to use items, and that's not good when you consider that we're talking about an Atari game.
Control 1-10. Here's why the control gets the lowest possible score. First off, it was far too easy to screw up while moving and therefore die. Second, you needed two controls and therefore two people just to play a 1-player game. One contril moved Indy around while the other selected items to be used. I mean yeah, variety is good, but this is just plain inconvenient!
Audio 1-10. Here's the other major annoying thing about this game. The music, (what passes for music on the Atari anyway), was a very bad rendition of the Indiana Jones theme. I understand that Atari's sound quality sucks compared to later systems, but the Atari did do a very good job on the ET theme for that game. Then the sound for when you die is just a few annoying plinks, and to worsen it even more, once all lives are lost it launches into that horribly trashed version of the Indiana Jones theme.
Story ???? I don't know if they based this game around the movie. I didn't play it long enough ecause of the bad control and even worse music. I only payed three bucks for the game but it might as well have been saved to buy something more worthwhile, like Lufia III whenever that game hits the stores.
Overall 1-10. OK, now some of you may like this game, but I didn't. THe 2-person controls were just two damn complicated and you spent more time dying than you did killing. I don't recommend this game to anyone unless they're truly devoted to the Atari, which I don't see as being all that likely although I could be wrong. In short, DON'T BUY THIS GAME!

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/01, Updated 03/01/03