Collection essentials #17: Pitfall! (2600)

 

If you’re at all acquainted with the Atari 2600, odds are you know what Pitfall! is already. It’s known for being one of the first ever “platformer” games, predating Mario. The game involves navigating a series of screens looking for a number of treasures to score points within a 20-minute time limit. In the present day, first impressions of Pitfall! may make you think the game is totally outdated and obsolete. I guess that’s a little bit true, you can’t replicate the feeling of seeing a game like this for the first time in 1982. But it actually holds up better than you’d expect. There is a surprisingly large amount to explore for an Atari game, and trying to map the game out is very complex due to different portions of the screen leading to different areas. The game also completely avoids sticking the player with “cheap deaths.” For those who don’t know what that term means, a cheap death in video games is basically when an enemy/obstacle/etc. gets you in a way that you absolutely could not have anticipated without already dying to it before. With few exceptions, that sort of thing is rather frustrating, and the trial-and-error element it causes usually just isn’t any fun. But if you die in Pitfall!, that’s on you for not playing well enough or not observing the game well enough. That’s something I really respect in such an early platformer. A no-brainer essential to the collection.

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