The concept behind the revolutionary action
game "Adventure" is to navigate a man, being represented by a simple
dot, through a series of mazes in order to find a Chalice. As far as the
casual gamer is concerned, there is no specific reason that the dot-person
requires the chalice. It is just the job of the gamer to find the
chalice, no questions asked. Once the Chalice is successfully located,
the player is then to escort it back to the Golden Castle, which is locked
unless the player also has the golden key. There will be trials and
tribulations for the player, of course. Besides the mazes and a few other
castles that might contain the golden key and/or chalice, the player must face
three dragons. The dragons are stationary until the player is within
their sight. Then, they will attack ferociously. For an experienced
gamer, they will be comically easy to elude. A zig zag motion will leave
them confused and disoriented. The dragons can be slain using the sword,
and the sword is represented by a yellow arrow; however, it is far more
entertaining to simply juke the dragons.
The handy sword allows the player to slay the fearsome "dragon".
A
game like this must have been quite exciting at its release date of 1979.
Even for a gamer like myself that has wasted (ahem, invested) hundreds of hours
on games ranging from the original Medal of Honor to Modern Warfare 3, there
was still a thrilling sensation in my stomach when I saw the red dragon charge
my courageous and noble dot-person for the first time. But there is so
much more to this game than just the surface material. I find it
interesting and a touch inspiring that the gamers of yesterday were able to use
their imagination so fully for this game. It is far more difficult for
today's gamers to be captivated by such a game. After all, we have been
spoon-fed plots our entire lives.
The
class instructor, Professor Young, mentioned that this game included the first
Easter Egg in a video game. After a little research, it was discovered
that although it is not certain which game had the first Easter Egg, it is
certain that Adventure was not that one. On the other hand, it was the
first widely-known Easter Egg. The Easter Egg for Adventure stems from a
humorous story. Due to the policy in Atari (the company that created
Adventure), game developers were not given credit for their work in a
game. The disgruntled creator of Adventure, Warren Robinett, included a
secret room that is nearly impossible to discover. In the room, there are
flashing lights and the words "Created by Warren Robinett". I
actually looked up a tutorial to find the room so that I could share in the
experience, but after I realized that is was complicated and time-consuming, I
gave up.
Adventure
was a worthwhile use of 30 minutes (15 for play, 15 for research).
Although I will probably never return to it, it is comforting to know that the
gamers of 1979 at least had a game like this with which they could be
entertained.
Mission Command and Tempest
The other two games of this series, Missile
Command and Tempest, were not nearly as impressive or entertaining as
Adventure. In fact, unlike
Adventure, I became uninterested in the first 10 minutes of play for each of
the games. For their time
and place, the games must have had value, but because it lacks the creativity
of Adventure and is a very old game, it just pales in comparison to the more
advanced versions of these games.
The main problem with Missile Command is the
bases being completely stationary. Gamers
crave and need movement. Even
if the map does not stretch to great lengths (or is in fact just a large square
like in Pacman), it is far better to have a game that allows some movement rather
than giving the player shackles. It
is one of the classic blunders of game designing, with the most famous being
long, inescapable cut-scenes. To
make matters worse for Missile Command, the game is unreasonably
difficult. After the first,
ridiculously easy level, the game turns the notch up to 11. Even if the player is skilled enough
to hit the incoming missiles directly at their impact point, they may or may
not detonate. This means
that the player must use multiple shots for each incoming missiles, which in
turn means that the player will run out of shots before the end of the
level. Therefore, it is
simply chance that decides how many levels the player will survive before all
of his/her bases are destroyed. In
an age that rewards dexterity and reaction time in gaming, a game like Missile
Command simply does not belong.
When a player loses, they are entertained with this screen, simulating the end of a nuclear war. Players may recognize it from "Terminator 2".
Tempest, while not as engaging as Adventure,
was exceedingly better than Missile Command. In this game, the player rotated
around an axis while spinning quadrilaterals tried to destroy the player. The quadrilaterals could rotate around
the axis and send “bullets”, which would destroy the player just like their
touch. Because this game
required the player to successfully maneuver around the axis while shooting the
approaching four-sided shapes, it requires a decent amount of attention and
dexterity. The major flax
to this game, though, is that there are no limits to the player’s ammo. This means that anyone who wishes to
can just “spam” the fire button and clear every round with little effort;
however, anyone with gaming integrity will just ignore this design mistake and
play the game as intended. The
other cool addition to Tempest is the “clear the axis” button. Once per level, the player may use
this button to clear all of the quadrilaterals on the axis. There may be more after that, but it
can save a player that is a second from death. It makes the game more enjoyable and
varied, which is nearly always favorable.
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