The 10 Most Influential Retro Games: Adventure (Atari)

Posted on Monday, December 3 @ 13:00:00 Eastern by KevinS

"The 10 Most Influential Retro Games" is a feature series that will run daily for the next two weeks, between 12/3/12 to 12/14/12 on weekdays, with each day highlighting one of our ten picks in an unranked order. Follow our tagged page for Most Influential Retro Games to view the entire list. ~Ed. Nick

There aren't too many games that really tell you what you're in for from their title alone, at least not nowadays. Back in the early days of the Atari 2600, it was commonplace to have basically-named titles, like Video Olympics or Video Pinball. But the first time people fired it up, players figured out that it was very different from any other game they'd ever played.

Adventure was just that: an adventure. Players took control of a single massive pixel to explore a maze of a castle, filled with items, dragons, and hidden within the walls the Holy Grail. The goal was not only to find the Grail, but the key to the room it was in, the key to your home room, and to not be eaten by any of the three dragons roaming the premises (they were called dragons, but they looked more like ducks). It was the first time a game was truly expansive and visual at the same time, and that alone helps the game stand as an innovative force.

What made Adventure stand alone as an inspirational and influential game in the annals of history is for one name: Warren Robinett. In the days when programmers didn't get the credit they deserved, instead being known simply by their company, one programmer slipped in a bit of code that wasn't discovered until after the game made it out to the public. All he did was sneak in a single extra room, which could only be unlocked after a few specific items are grabbed and the "gray dot" is discovered. All that's in the extra room was the phrase, printed vertically:

"Created By… Warren Robinett."

That was it. Just a plea from a programmer to grab some attention for the game he created. And as a result of that, two major things started to happen: the biggest was the idea of hiding those little gems, those "Easter Eggs," in software, those little extras that launched a thousand web sites, a thousand memorable moments (remember the first time you found the hidden 1-Up in 1-1 of Super Mario Brothers?), and continues to thrill us all when we've thought we'd beaten any game into submission. Easter Eggs give players a reason to replay games we've played thousands of times before, thinking there's just a little more left in the tank for one more run-through.

And that's not the only legacy of Adventure. WIth that name Warren Robinett cemented the idea that, no matter the medium, artists and creators deserve credit for their projects. Around the time the game was readying for release, a group of programmers quit Atari and started a company of their own, creating new games for which they were given full credit; you might've heard of them. They founded the first third-party game software company and named it Activision.

Now how's that for an adventure?

Tags: Retro Games Week, Most Influential Retro Games

Comments

ShadeTail
Joined: Nov 2006

Posted: Dec 3rd, 2012 at 1:59 pm
I played Adventure back in the day. It was a pretty fancy game, for the Atari 2600. It actually *had a goal*, rather than just being an endless obstacle course like almost every other game on the system.

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sliverstorm
Joined: Jun 2007

Posted: Dec 3rd, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I looooooooooooooove gaming history, and specifically the evolution of game mechanics. Super excited for the rest of this series.

Though I did play Atari (although NES was my first system), I never played Adventure. My friend owned it, and when I was over I would pretty much play Combat non-stop with him and his little brother.

So much Combat. Holy cow, what a fun game. That was before anyone knew any curse words, so when your opponent had a bead on you, pretty much your only recourse was to tackle them to the ground and scream for the third person to grab your controller and shoot them.

I've heard that kind of behavior is frowned upon in modern eSports circuits.

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sliverstorm
Joined: Jun 2007

Posted: Dec 3rd, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I looooooooooooooove gaming history, and specifically the evolution of game mechanics. Super excited for the rest of this series.

Though I did play Atari (although NES was my first system), I never played Adventure. My friend owned it, and when I was over I would pretty much play Combat non-stop with him and his little brother.

So much Combat. Holy cow, what a fun game. That was before anyone knew any curse words, so when your opponent had a bead on you, pretty much your only recourse was to tackle them to the ground and scream for the third person to grab your controller and shoot them.

I've heard that kind of behavior is frowned upon in modern eSports circuits.

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xclant
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Dec 3rd, 2012 at 6:27 pm
Ahhh nice comment silverstorm it really takes me back lol.

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used44
Joined: Mar 2002

Posted: Dec 3rd, 2012 at 6:01 pm
This is great. I'm excited to see more of this feature.

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xclant
Joined: Nov 2005

Posted: Dec 3rd, 2012 at 6:25 pm
I have this game in my big old sack of cartridges..... this was the skyrim of its day

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xDUMPWEEDx
Joined: Jan 2012

Posted: Dec 3rd, 2012 at 9:03 pm
This is an awesome series! I'm really looking forward to your opinion for this list.

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KevinS
Joined: Dec 2008

Posted: Dec 4th, 2012 at 12:02 am
I'm glad everybody seems to be enjoying this one! Stay tuned, more classic goodness is a-comin'! :-D

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moretokes
Joined: Apr 2011

Posted: Dec 4th, 2012 at 8:48 am
I played this on pc in elementary school. I also think I have it on my modded old xbox

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