Pitfall : Atari 2600
A review by iN008.

The adventuring adventurer.
Pitfall! For the Atari 2600 was the first of many games to come in the series, it has been remade countless times, 7 times from this game alone. Be it ported to the next console or not, this series survived for quite some time, even getting games on the systems like the Xbox and the Wii, of-course those games were either based on sequels or had major changes to them. But as it stands, the Atari 2600 had given birth to yet another franchise. Amazingly it has lasted longer than most of the other franchises made around this date.

Harry's first steps.
The first game deserve some recognition does it not? Well of-course it does. It set up the basic rules for any sequels and remixes and was probably one of the better games on the Atari 2600, it's funny though, for all the games that to mention when talking about the Atari 2600, they rarely mention this game, it's like the system is just called bad for the awful games that were created for it. Don't blame the system, blame the creators as some games turned out quite well, this one and River Raid for example.


Graphics and Design : 9/10
As usual, being on the Atari 2600 had it's restrictions, be it the color palettes or the sprite capability themselves. How did Pitfall! Fair against it's brethren? Well quite well I must say. Almost everything found in the game is quite clear on what it is. Take Harry the main protagonist here. In total he has around 15 or so sprites from walking to falling. This in itself allowed for there to be quite a detailed animation when it came to Harry. His running animation is quite believable and looks decent, I mean for the system it looks realistic. The character of Harry himself is rather plain, and he pretty much consists of the backgrounds colors, a green top, dark green trousers, pink skin and one line of brown hair... or is it a hat? He is an adventurer now isn't he. Beside the fact that his design is basic, it still can be recognized as a humanoid. Which is probably the hardest thing to do, most of the other things within the game seemed like quite an easy job. The rest of his animations such as jumping are quite good so there isn't much else to say about that. There are a plethora of enemies within the game, ranging from crocodiles, snakes to what I believe to be scorpions. Each are quite easy to identify besides the aforementioned scorpions.

Lets start with the most common threat, logs, when stationary they are a dark brownish-green color and are shaped like a cylinder. The bottoms look weird to me and it could have gotten away without the dark spot in the middle of the bottom, the rest is easy to recognize. Next we have crocodiles, these are on the surface of the water and can be identified by there zig-zag mouth. I feel as if the water was a brighter blue that they would have been easier to see but they are still easy to see, they are generally good looking, the scorpions usually found in the caves below are quite weird however, I couldn't recognize what they were straight away, but after I while I figured it out. Besides them I didn't find much else enemy wise. There are a few snakes, these are curled up and feature a stripped pattern, the stripes appear to be purple but I couldn't make it out that well. Fires are a uncommon sight, they feature a jitter animation and resemble that of a camp fire. The only other thing found within the nature are the vines, these swing rather the opposite of realistic it would have been cool if they had more detail put into them.

The game is set within a jungle, thus the screen is generally filled with green colors, to be honest it seems more like a forest rather than a jungle as trees are spaced out, more trees and shrubbery would have made it much more detailed, I mean the underground cave is just black with no decoration besides the odd brick wall blocking the way. Sure each from screen the background's trees are slightly moved, however these are generally just repeated over two screens. This seems slightly lazy to me as I'm sure more effort could have went into it. There isn't even any kind of interface here, score and time is just displayed at the top where there was clearly space next to "AcTiVision" at the bottom, this seems like a waste of space and it could have been changed easily. There isn't even a title screen or anything, to put it into plain words, there really is only what's present within the game to go on about graphics.


Sound : 1/10
Within the game there is no music, pretty much standard amongst the Atari 2600, the only thing sound wise in the game is that of the sound effects, generally these don't bother me, however in this game it does. Let's start with the fact you make a sound every time you jump, this is really annoying as it is rather annoying and you tend to jump every two screens in this game. Next you have the fact that you make a sound swinging on vines, this sound is somewhat enjoyable but is rather out of place, wouldn't a swishing noise be more appropriate? Even getting hit by a log, the sound just drones and is really quite off-putting, I was wearing my headphones whilst playing and had my volume at the usual, when I did any of these actions my ears would get irritated so I ended up just turning sound off for the entirety of my play. Okay I understand it's the Atari 2600, but jeez... that seriously hurt my ears. Droning sounds are really only ever tolerable when in games that are text heavy and the droning is not that bad. This game has no excuse.


Addictiveness and Replay-ability : 4/10
Well, the game-play for this game really doesn't make it that fun, I'd presume if you were more into this kind of game you would be slightly more addicted to it. Sure it's okay to play for a while but it sure does get boring after a while, thanks to the timer I saw that when I played it the first time I only played it for the first 5 minutes then I got bored, only when I replayed it to check out everything did I play for ten or so minutes. There are some surprises along the way such as pitfalls suddenly opening... lakes also do this.... don't ask me how, this adds some reason to play again, but after a few play-throughs the game gets boring and really not that fun to replay. I wouldn't necessarily say play it once, but if you do intend to play this try playing it two of three times, just to get the most out of it.


Depth : 5/10 and Story : 2/10
As per with my last review, due to the real lack of story I've grouped it with depth. Starting of with depth, the game is of a short but still decent length, if you have like 20 minutes to kill then it will do the job. It seems to be a so-so when it comes to length as for stuff like choices there is two or so choices. When starting you can either go right as you would probably do first, or left, if you want to play the game like intended then go right, this means logs will come towards you, if you go left however the game is made quite a bit more easier. Logs will go the same direction as you and are the same speed as you, meaning they are no longer threats, this also touches onto a bit of difficulty. As per the other choice, you can occasionally choose to go underground into the caves, these are generally empty besides the occasional scorpion. My experience with the game was kind of bland and a short affair, I don't really think I'll be playing it again.

As per story, the only story is that off the box's which goes around something like this, the main protagonist, Harry, introduces himself as a veteran when it comes to jungle exploration. He's off to hunt for treasure and fortune to find untold riches at your control. Against extreme dangers, swinging across vines above the bottomless tar-pits, across swamps and using crocs as stepping stones. So in all the only story is Harry wants to be rich and is off to hunt around jungles and swamps for treasure... exciting? Nah not even a single temple, he just runs around swamps and jungles and really that's it, hence why there really is no story. But from the box we can tell somewhat about Harry's character, he seems cocky and is somewhat greedy, going out of his way to achieve wealth. It also tells us he is somewhat courageous and is adventurous, this adds to the story how you ask? Well anything is better than nothing.


Difficulty : 5/10
The difficulty really can be changed depending on which way you go, right will be the normal way, going left would be the easy way. As per stated above in depth, the rolling logs always head left and thus going left will stop them being so much of an annoyance to you. The only real part of difficulty is that of the opening and closing water and tar pits. I myself have found that I get caught out by these as they are not present when you just enter the "screen". Besides this all the other things are easy to dodge, besides of course the crocs, these require quite well timed jumps and some precise movement, they open and close and if your standing on there mouth when they open you fall and lose a life, only when on the "eye" will you be safe. This adds quite a bit of difficulty and need difficulty at that. If your going for a harder but not to hard Atari 2600 game then this will be the one for you.


Overall : 4.3/10
The game has it's flaws, there is no denying, however it does have it's successful moments, for example I really like the graphics in this game, they are slightly plain, but aren't all in the Atari 2600 library? The game is fun enough to play when you have that time to kill before something, but as a casual game there are much better choices, I've rated it a 4.3, the average of the other 6 scores, but if you ask me the game is a solid 7 when it comes down to it since most of the Atari games lack a significant story and sounds really are quite bad for the system. If I were a kid growing up in 1983 I would probably asked for this game of the box-art alone. Times go by and the standards of games increase, this game has aged like so many others yet is still good enough to burn time with. So what would I say? Well, if you've got 20 minutes to burn whilst you wait for something then go ahead give it a go. You may even enjoy it... just turn your sounds off and have some fun. Also I have to admit, my uncle came in and saw that I was about to write a review of a game that you'll probably see a review for later, and recommended I'd review it since he had it as a kid and I'm glad he did, I've found a great time killer.

References :
GameFAQs : Box description.
My Uncle : "growing up in 1983... asked for this game... box-art alone"

Edits :
08/04/2013 (Server date) : Fixed formatting.

iN008 : Great review IN008, I really enjoyed how you described the game, ?and also Wow.. Reading the ending.. I don't get why someone would just want a game box art, instead of the game.. that's weird in my opinion, The only thing I hated about this review was the layout made it hard to read for me. (Edit: ?I was reading this while seeing his new layout *faceplam* fail on my part.)

SuperCrash64 : Yeah, I've went and completely redone my entire layout should be easier to read now, btw what I meant was I would have bought the game solely on the box-art alone... I mean that's the reason my uncle did it I'm actually surprised it reached 2000+ words... I mean the last Atari 2600 game I did was that of River Raid which only reached 1000 words. Thanks for actually reading it

Also to everyone who is gonna reply to my review/s, because I'm sick of them, don't post in my reviews advice since it will be considered spam by me.

Great review! This one had a good amount of detail and went into everything. It is really long! Great job!