Adventure

"Slay the dragon...and return the chalice...while avoiding the bat...mmm...intriging..."

Digging through the closet, I came across my old 2600 Atari and a ton of games that I had forgotten where there. Given to me by my father, I’d simply locked them away for some odd ass reason and never played them up until recently. What you have to realize about these games is that there really isn’t all that much to them and you have to give credit to where the programmers attempted to make something out of literally nothing. With nothing more than a small block as your character, you head out through several screens of dragon avoiding danger in an attempt to find a chalice and bring it back.

Sure, there isn’t much of an involving story attached to the game, but it was games such as this that really set the mood and mark for future role playing games. You’ll find that Adventure is a game that gives you the basic elements of seek and find while keeping the game play challenging in the same right. Through most of the game, you’ll run into a bat that steals your item and replaces it with something completely different, keeping you from finishing the game properly. Once you’ve been around that, it’s more or less a game of avoiding danger while completing the simple quest.

Adventure also allows you to carry different items that will keep you moving through the different screens. You have several different items that range from bridges to swords and all of them have a particular use while trying to get around the different dragons that occupy certain points of the game. The dragons themselves really aren't that much of a problem and can be dispatched with a different item each time. Once you’ve learned just what to do and how to play, the control that is here is nothing but a simple move of your little adventuring block around the screen.

Visually, you’ll find that the game screens are interconnected, much like Pitfall. From time to time, the game will trick you in the maze and you’ll end up in the same spot again. A couple of different castles and open areas is what you have to look forward to and even though the game really doesn’t have much going for it, it keeps it simple and well programmed. The sound is a portion of the game that you don’t have to worry about simply because there is none to be found. Small effects like blips and bloops are the mainstay in most Atari games and this one is no different!

With all of that being said, there is very little here that I could find wrong with the game other than it could either be exceptionally cheap, or way too short. With the simple bring the item from one side to the other being your main mission, it’s so addicting that you may play through the game just to see what might be different each time around. However, without the bat doing the item stealing, you would find that the game has very little difference no matter how many times you go through!

Adventure is a game that you have to appreciate for the type of genre that it created. Giving you several different types of elements all rolled into one game, you’ll find that this is where all of the role playing games started before experience points and multi-faceted armor was ever thought of. With the simple to use control and the mindless game play that its involved, you’ll find that Adventure is possibly one of the best games that you will return to on your old Atari 2600.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/02, Updated 03/06/02