Atari 2600, Adventure and Dark Souls

The Atari 2600 has some fond memories for me, I spent entire summers in front my TV basking in it's cathode-ray goodness. Rudimentary though the games may have been, it's the imagination and thus creativity that their crude graphics sparked within my pre-pubescent brain. The cover art for those black plastic bricks of awesome promised so much more than the paltry 4k rom could ever deliver. I suppose coming from a background of table-top Dungeons and Dragons probably had much to do with this. Module covers promising so much action and adventure within one still image that you bristled with excitement waiting for your friends to show up so you could play. Video games became an extension of this imagination and that small block on the screen waiting silently for your input became a simple avatar for you to build up within your mind. The blue lines became crevice-encrusted walls, slick with the blood of those who died before you and that simple arrow now a Dragon-slaying +5 Sword of F**k-Ya.

Adventure is probably one of the most remembered games for the 2600 and it had, arguably, some of the most basic graphics available on the system. What brought so many to drink from it's low res, flickering pool is random chance and the unknown. You had no idea what items did what and they were never in the same place. Monsters appeared randomly and didn't care if you hadn't found the sword yet, hardcore experiences by today's standards. Just when you thought you had it figured out, you could bump up the difficulty and add whole new layers over what had come before. The cartridge is ingenious when you break it down, vastly far ahead of it's time and the games available today could learn a lot from it's 4k design.

Having finally got a hold of Dark Souls for the PC, I have been quickly introduced, or re-introduced, to the concept of dying repeatedly and not rage quitting. Something years of video game evolution has tried to eradicate through tutorials, on-screen prompts and general dumbing down of gameplay. Dark Souls spends it's time unabashedly trying to kill you, unfairly if it can, and doesn't give a damn how you feel about it. This by itself is refreshing in this day and age of hand-holdy gaming but what really gets my bun in a twist is the level and graphic design. Everything in this game feels hand-placed, by someone who actually cares and is not just trying to get on to the next level. It feels, natural, real, and most of all it looks like how I imagined Adventure to be in may ways.


Then


...and how I imagined it


Then


...and how I imagined it


Then


...and ya.

Although there have been many games attempting to do just this, Dark Souls (and obviously Demon Souls) seems to be the one that got it right. Just Google some screenshots and over and over you will find scenes that look like they belong in a Monster Manual somewhere - fantasy incarnate. There are many guides available for the game due to the many options and choices that affect it in ways that would be unknown to anyone without one. So many unknowns that make you want to replay the game once you understand them. This is true replayability, not a cheap easy mode item for completing the game but a desire to use your new found knowledge. The feeling of adventure and trepidation as you move forward, or backwards, or via some previously unknown path is palpable and each new monster is ripe with experimentation as you probe it's weaknesses. You are expected to use cheap tactics like kiting, bad AI pathing and spamming arrows from long distances to win, just like the the games of old. It's worth exploring the nooks and crannies because you may find more than just a chest, you may find a whole new path to explore. The love and care that went into this game is visible everywhere, the people involved in it's creation are serious fans of the genre and best of all, understand what makes it great.

This to me is Adventure for the new generation, the game that will live on beyond it's console lifetime and go down as one of the defining titles.
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