Adventure's Easter Egg

I had a lot of Atari 2600 games as a kid, and most of them, even the bad ones, got plenty of play time from me. But one of my all-time favorite games to play on Atari was always Adventure, a game that I still enjoy playing some 25 years later. For those that aren't familiar, Adventure was creator Warren Robinett's attempt at bringing PC text adventure-style games over to the Atari console. The game is largely based on the text adventure Colossal Cave, but in a very simplified form. Only one thing can be carried at a time, such as a key to a castle, a bridge, or a sword. You guide your little avatar, which is just represented with a square, around several mazelike screens in an attempt to get inside the black castle, get the Chalice, and return it to the Yellow Castle. There are three levels of difficulty, and since the third level randomizes where the items show up (not to mention a bat that always shows up at annoying times to steal your item and replace it with another), you can keep on playing the game and never have the same experience. 

The game was groundbreaking for its time in its complexity and scope, but also because it introduced the gaming world to the "Easter Egg", a hidden secret or surprise. As the story goes, back in the Atari days, games were made by a single person. Art, programming, sound, everything. Yet they were not permitted to have their names show up anywhere, not the box, not the manual, nothing. This was partially because Atari didn't want other companies to know who designed what and have them stolen away. It was also because by this time, Nolan Bushnell had sold Atari to Warner, and their new owners thought of them as no more than assembly line men, making a product. They thought of them as no different than someone who put together a chair to be shipped out, and didn't believe they deserved to be recognized. 

Warren Robinett decided to sneak his name into his Adventure game, by hiding a secret item, a dot, one pixel large, that was the same color as the background and required the bridge to get to. If you acquired the dot, then brought it to the room below and to the right of the yellow castle, and placed one more item in there, your character could walk through the right hand wall, revealing a new room with the flashing words "Created by Warren Robinett". Atari didn't find out about it until kids started calling in months later asking about the room. Adventure's Easter Egg is legendary, and although I love this game, I'd never tried to get to the room. Until the other day, when I decided that it was my duty as a retro game lover to make the pilgrimage to Adventure's hidden room! It took a little bit of time to find the dot, but I finally walked through the wall and found the message! I was so excited that I took a video capture of me in the room! So I used the video footage and made a short animated gif to commemorate the occasion!

Anyone interested in seeing one of the best games the Atari has to offer should give this game a try, and maybe look up how to get to the secret room!

Where is my Heart? - a Playstation Mini

I don’t think many people pay attention to the “Minis” available on the Playstation Network, or even know of their existence. Sony doesn’t seem to do a very good job of informing people of them or showcasing them, even when something amazing comes out, as it has with Where is my Heart?  For those that don’t know, Playstation Minis are kind of Sony’s answer to apps; they are small programs, and tend to sell for a few dollars. As such, most of them tend to be of the same quality of a phone app as well. Most of them also play on both the PS3 and PSP. Every now and again though, a Mini comes along that is worth taking notice of.

Where is my Heart? has a simple premise, you’re trying to get a character (and shortly thereafter three characters) from the starting point to the goal. However the screen is divided into various grids, and moving from one grid does not necessarily mean you’ll end up in the grid alongside it. Finding your way around can become surprisingly challenging. The visual style is used for a new gameplay feature when one of the characters gains the ability to rotate the various grids. The gameplay style has been described as being like The Lost Vikings, and while I partially agree, so far I’ve not come across any level that required all three monsters to work together, but rather each level has focused on the ability of one of them. But perhaps that will change later on.

At $6.99 it’s definitely on the higher end of the pricing scale for a Mini, but it’s a charming and enjoyable indie game with some absolutely fantastic pixel art. If you’re looking for something new to put on your PS3 and PSP, keep this one in mind.

Tag: The Secret Origins of Portal 2

Many gamers may be familiar with the indie project that started the ideas for Portal, a small development team of 8 students at DigiPen made a game called Narbacular Drop that threw the player into the role of a witch that could summon a blue and an orange portal that were linked, allowing her to walk into one and come out the other. The game’s basic concepts intrigued those at Valve, who hired the team to flesh out their idea into what would become Portal.

Portal 2 has a similar origin story that once again starts with a small group of students at DigiPen. This game, Tag: The Power of Paint, like Narbacular Drop offers a single gameplay mechanic that leads to endless possibilities. In Tag, you’re given a SuperSoaker-looking gun that can be loaded with different colors of paint. If you paint something green, you can jump high off its surface, if you paint something red, you will run really fast over the red paint, and if you paint something blue, you can walk along the blue surface, regardless if it’s on the side of a building or on the ceiling. This of course would later be further developed by Steam in the Portal 2 game; while you can’t shoot the paint directly, you’ll find gels that you can redirect onto surfaces to help you along. The green paint to jump is now blue gel, and the red paint to run fast is now orange gel. The blue paint to walk along surfaces has been mentioned in numerous interviews as having been in the game at some point, but every play tester apparently became motion sick and they couldn’t figure out a way to prevent it, so it was pulled. Instead we have the white gel, which turns any surface into a portal-able surface.

While Portal is a solid, polished experience, Narbacular Drop was more of a diamond in the rough. Tag: The Power of Paint certainly feels more polished, with a smooth frame rate and an interesting visual design (the world is completely black and white except for the three paint colors). It is, however, very short, with only 8 levels and no save feature it’s meant to be beaten in a single playthrough. For anyone that’s a fan of Portal 2 and wants to see where these ideas originated, I highly recommend checking out Tag: The Power of Paint, it’s fun, it’s fast and it’s free!

Giana Sisters now available in North America!

The Great Giana Sisters was a platform game that came out for the Amiga and Commodore 64 computers back in the 80s. It borrowed heavily from Super Mario Bros, some boxes even having the tagline "The brothers are history". It wasn't long before Nintendo was made aware of the PC "homage" and forced them to stop selling the game, making it something of a sought after item for collectors.

Fast forward to two years ago, when the Giana Sisters made a surprise return, this time on Nintendo's own DS in Europe! However even with this more legitamate version, if didn't last long, and online prices for the European version often surpass $70. Then, in January of this year, an ESRB rating surfaced for Giana Sisters by Destineer, an indication that a North American release was nearing. A couple of months went by with no word of a release, when suddenly in the March issue of Nintendo Power they reviewed the game, giving Giana Sisters a respective 9 out of 10. Then once again not a word was said about the game, until now. Online retailers seem to quietly be getting shipments of the game in stock, specifically Wal-Mart and Newegg. At only $19.99, this quasi-sequal to a ripoff of Super Mario Bros can now be bought in the US. 

I just got my copy in the mail today and look forward to some old-school platforming action this evening. At the very least, it's something to satisfy my Mario craving until Super Mario 3D Land arrives later this month!

Let's Go Retro! - Ghostbusters (PC)

After a long hiatus from making these video reviews, I present the third Let's Go Retro! This time I'm taking a look at the game Ghostbusters 2 for the PC. I used to play the heck out of this game as a kid, and I still found it fun to play during this review. I'm also happy to announce that the next video should have much cleaner sounding voiceovers, as I've bought myself a Snowball Microphone after hearing some good things about them.