In the early to mid eighties, there were a glut of Atari 2600 games on the market. That made it a bit difficult at times to discern the good titles from the not so good ones. Later this era became known as the great video game crash or whatever but to a kid back then it meant a few different things. One, like I mentioned, there were some bad titles out there. Worse than E.T., trust me. And secondly, often times these games would wind up on sale. In a discount bin at a retail store. That's where my experience with Airlock began. A company named Data Age had released a few games that apparently didn't do too well in my local market. I specifically remember picking up Airlock, Warplock, and Encounter at L-5 for 2 dollars each out of a shopping cart full of games at a regional store called Shopko. The latter two games are actually pretty decent and have received fair reviews. But then there's Airlock..

GRAPHICS for this game are little below standard for an Atari game of this era. There were plenty of games that did much better, and Airlock has very little variation at all. There are 3 screens including the title/ending screen and the other two are virtually identical. Your character is more than just a block but that isn't saying much. He's only a static stick figure with no articulation. The walls and barriers are stationary and purple, and the enemies(torpedoes) are pink. Pink torpedoes. The verdict is a 5.

SOUND is not a game characteristic that these programmers seemed to concerned with. At least there are no truly annoying noises in the game, but all it is are bleeps , bops, and what sounds to me like a doorbell ringing when you fall. Like they could have at least tried. It gets a generous 4.

ADDICTIVENESS I will grant a 5. After you beat this game, there IS a little motivation to try for a faster time, but that's about it. I don't think anyone's going to spend too long playing this in one sitting, but for some reason(masochism?) I like to play a game once in a while. Turn it on for 5 or 10 minutes, then move on.

STORY for Airlock deserves a 6 for effort. You're the captain of a nuclear submarine that's trapped on the ocean floor and has begun to leak in water. The only way to save yourself and your crew is to retrieve all the hatch keys from each level before they all flood and drown everyone. In your way however, your store of torpedoes have shaken loose and they now roll along the floor impeding your path. If you run into them you trip and fall which will cost you precious time to recover from before you can continue to collect the keys. Every ten seconds another level floods so if you are still on it when it does it's a watery grave for everyone and game over.

DEPTH unfortunately for Airlock, doesn't mean how far below the surface the game occurs at. I give it a 3. There's just not a whole lot going on. You start at the bottom and go from side to side jumping to avoid torpedoes and obstacles and to collect keys until you either reach the top or run out of time and drown. Each level has two keys that must be collected before you can access the elevator to take you up. Then. as you pass each level it becomes locked and you're safe when it fills up with water. There are two game settings. The first has only 5 levels and single barriers. The second provides a bit more of a challenge with 10 levels and more difficult to jump over double barriers on the last five. In the end though, the game is over in under two minutes regardless.

DIFFICULTY I would say should be about a 4. The first few times you play you may die, but it won't take long to master it. Then if you're truly motivated you can try to shave seconds off of your score. My personal goal has always been to beat the hard game variation with no levels on the second screen filled with water yet. It may not be possible. But I try every once in a while for the heck of it still. The tip you see mentioned online is to try to time your jumps so that you can jump over a torpedo and barrier all at once to save some time. It's a good tip but it seems pretty obvious to anyone playing. The other tip I've discovered to help save a second or two is to wait before you start the game. When the game is just sitting there, the torpedoes are still moving back and forth. The game doesn't start until you jump though. If you wait until just after the torpedo passes before you start you can get past the first level with only one jump, plus jumping for the keys. It saves about two seconds. Other than that it's all about timing your jumps.

OVERALL I give the game a 5. I'm probably a little easy on it for nostalgia's sake but I can't help that. It's playable, and I always liked the cover of the cartridge. It looks like Tron kind of, check it out. It sure beat electronic quarterback for the time anyways. Or digital bowling. lol
Thanks for reading.

I can't believe I missed this review lol! Anyways, I think you did an excellent job with this review. I think you added a good amount of detail to the review, and you did good explaining why you gave each category the scores you did. I also like how the review isn't super long, but you still covered what needed to be covered. Overall, you did a great job.

gamerforlifeforever2 : Thanks for noticing. I got a thing for old and obscure games you know. I try to do them justice. If they deserve it that is. lol