Article-I.D.: uiucdcsp.7100006
Posted: Sat Nov 16 08:07:00 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Nov-85 06:28:19 EST
References: <10800@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Lines: 32
Nf-ID: #R:ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU:-1080000:uiucdcsp:7100006:000:2118
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.CS.UIUC.EDU!nomura    Nov 16 07:07:00 1985


     The game is Gauntlet by Atari.  It is a 1-4 player dnd/rogue style
game with a fair number of (fixed) mazes.  There is no goal except to stay
alive; scores are kept, but they don't mean much in a game which allows
you to continue play indefinitely by inserting money.  You die when your
health counter reaches 0; you lose health by monster attacks and time.
     Each level you are confronted with a massive horde of enemies.
There is also food to be found on each level which adds to your health, 
although the amount of food does not increase with more players (which
sucks).  The idea is to blast your way thru the hordes, work through
the maze to the stairs and descend to the next level.  The first 8 levels
are in a fixed progression; after that you get random levels from a set
of perhaps 20 (I don't know exactly how many).

     The game is well crafted, which is an impression I get of many of
Atari's games - most are original, compared with their previous offerings
at least, and have excellent graphics and sound.  The negative tone in
my previous note is due to my annoyance with the other Atari characteristic,
their style of "pattern" games which seem designed to prevent anyone from
gettting good enough to play for a long time.  I imagine that video game
owners hate games which people can master and play forever, but I consider
being able to do this a feature of a video game, not a design error,
and it is what attracts me to a game.  Thus I was a Williams game fan
for a long time; both their video and their pinball were the best in
my opinion until they were bought out by Bally (*heavy sigh*).
Now their latest pinball, Comet, has the stupid Bally side drains and
the bumpers and lanes finely tuned to aim for them - the kind of game
where five balls can bounce around and drain without touching the flippers.
Atari put massive work into Gauntlet and various other games, but invariably
it is impossible to stay interested in them, as you either finish the
pattern (Marble Madness, Crystal Castles), or tire of feeding the machine
with tokens.  I think it works against Atari in the end.