Adventure

"Hey....this ain't camelot....."

Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaa, what were these guy's smoking. Welcome to Adventure, and my 1st review for a game for that monster o' madness the Atari 2600 VCS. What we got here is Adventure, the first console RPG, and the only to ever be freaky enough to make you wake up in a cold sweat if you play it too much. Lets take a look at this creation.....

In Adventure we follow the journeys of...a Brave young square on his travels to get the glowing goblet back from the invisible evil wizard and his meancing psycotic drag-o-ducks. In the midst of his travels he has to use various items scattered about the land while changing colors with his surroundings like a chamelion while being tracked by a flying moustache and the drag-o-ducks who either want his toys or want him for dinner. What a plot huh, that was some strong stuff in that Atari there was.

Adventure was one of the earliest efforts at Atari, so the graphics do not count off, but I do applaud them as Atari put the important factors above all else: Fun and Gameplay, something lost amongst todays 3-D trishaded polygons.

The Sound is an amazing thing from the normal beeps and boops that pulsate out of your television speaker while you travel through the land that is somewhere between Oompa Loompa land and a really blocky Narnia (except there are no lions, witches, and funky short fat guys with green hair who sing every time our 2-D background shaded quadragon gets eaten by a psyco duck dragon hybrid), to the great bang of noise that sounds like the Atari having a private moment.

The Gameplay is some of the best for an Atari game, it works with the way the game is setup itself. Instead of some lousy, slow, jerky control, we have nice smooth almost NES quality control, not to mention outmanuvering dragons is a cinch with a 3rd party controller (I think the stock Atari's are too stiff).

The fun is always there with this zany cast of characters: we got our little boxman, the flying moustache (most people call it a bat), 3 psycotic psudeo drag-o-ducks (aka. Dragons), a Wizard who never appears (I think he ran off to Hyrule to become a hermit who lives in rocks and gives swords to little elfmen, get a NES and you'll understand, he also says ''Dodongo Dislike Smoke!''), and our great Chalice that brings about the greatest of medevil techno remixes to ever be seen or heard to be conjured from a 6502 processor. Yes, Adventure has it all and more, now I better quit with the fun craziness before someone drags me off to the happy home.

Plot: 10/10
Graphics: 2/10
Sound: 6/10
Gameplay: 10/10
Fun: 10/10

To buy/not to buy
This is a 2600 game, you can usually get it for the cost of a dollar store screwdriver at a flea market these days. I would say, get it, it's a cool piece of zany nostalgia.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/08/02, Updated 03/08/02