Lode Runner (A800, 1983) | The Jeff Gerstmann Hall of Fame 006
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
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We've got another double shot this time around, though that's mostly just so I can officially induct Pitfall II: Lost Caverns after playing through the Atari 800 version of the game on a stream recently. After briefly revisiting that game in the context of the induction, it's on to the real deal, Doug Smith's Lode Runner. It's a classic action/puzzle game that takes some of the basic hole digging gameplay from Space Panic (or Apple Panic, if you're more familiar with that A2 clone of the arcade original) and adds gold, puzzles, and shredding guitars. Oh wait, no, the shredding guitars were my addition to the game as I played it obsessively for what seems like years, but in reality... I bet it was the summer of 1984.
Lode Runner has a terrific level creator and an ability to string those levels together in a way that evokes some of the same feelings I'd have playing Super Mario Maker decades later.
Maybe one of these days I'll get something that'll dump floppy disks and see if any of my created Lode Runner levels have survived. I bet they're... pretty bad.
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The NES version was on every X-in-1 cart I feel like lol. That's my first exposure to this game.
I always enjoy it when Jeff brings out the classic games. Get a lot of knowledge from them and also it's entertaining.
This is a cool idea for a series. Looking forward to seeing what else you got on the list
As I've gotten older I've definitely come to appreciate games like this. In an era where any idiot can mash a bunch of premade assets together and flood Steam with garbage games, it's impressive that people could make games as good as Lode Runner with such limited hardware so early in gaming history.
I love that public domain but still Dragon Ball-ass intro theme for this series.
I adore Lode Runner! 1994. Brand new Compaq Presario running on Windows 3.1. Fired up the pre-installed “Lode Runner: The Legend Returns”. It had that little Sierra mascot walkout during the opening credits: “whew…SEE-AIR-UH!” Spent so many hours playing and editing my own levels. Still holds up. Great entry into the Hall of Fame!
Lode Runner might be my most-played NES title over the years. And I've attempted to get through Championship Lode Runner on and off for the last 20 years, but I can't. It's devilishly hard. Some levels are just hard puzzles, very specific orders for digging, dropping, and collecting, but some of the levels are just brutally hard action levels where you have to manipulate the AI, and going between the two styles is just hard. I'll never beat it but I still enjoy trying every few months.
Count me as someone very nostalgic for Lode Runner: The Legend Returns, which came out on DOS, Win95, and PS1 at just the right age for me. In addition to monks, it added a bunch of items like bombs, deployable traps that permanently take out a monk, and throwing buckets of slop that slow monks and you down. There's a remake of Mad Monks Revenge, the online focused re-release/mission pack of the game for modern PCs.
I like Lode Runner and I do think that this game has this magical thing that you mentioned, it feels good for its era, it's not "straining the hardware for everything it's got", but that's probably also why it runs so smooth too, it's a good balance.
I never was too nostalgic for exactly Lode Runner but I am nostalgic for Lurid Land, which was a Lode Runner clone for Windows 95. For the longest time I couldn't understand why, when I searched for Lurid Land's gameplay online, all I could find was Lode Runner.
Still I do recommend Lurid Land as probably the best Lode Runner clone there is.
I had the KB Toys Tiger Electronics Game & Watch - like Pitfall in the 90s and I'm surprised at well it played I guess, though yes probably slow and on top of 1 background though it did still have caves, gators to jump on, and swinging vines. I wish I could get my hands on it again, but it's gone.
Back in the day, my father, being a very smart man, bought my mother an Atari for Valentines Day in 1988, which is how I ended up with an Atari as a child. That marriage didn't last long. I never did get a chance to play Lode Runner; however, I did play the hell out of Pitfall, Super Pitfall (Jeff's favorite) and Indiana Jones. If I try the game, I'll be going into it 100% blind, which might be neat.
Anyhow, I appreciate all you do, Jeff -- always happy to see you gush about a game
I grew up playing on the Master System, so never once played Lode Runner on the NES and we didn't own the Atari cartridge. But I definitely played the shit out of "Zillion" on the Sega, which seems like an upgraded version of this?
I feel like Wrecking Crew for the NES was a spiritual successor of Lode Runner, the core idea is there, learning the enemy pacing, studying its behavior and having the leasure to make your own levels as well, just a thought.
Had similar experience with DOS game Jetpack which was probably inspired by this.
I briefly played the Game Boy version and remember being pretty taken with it. It wasn't until I downloaded the NES version on the Wii Virtual Console that I truly understood its greatness. I completely agree about the speed, it all feels very smooth and easy to control all these years later and has aged very well.
The "monochrome" version is color if you play it on a fuzzy crt with NTSC artifacting. It's not meant to look like weird sharp lines, those are what generate colors on that tech.
This. Due to the imperfect composite signal and how CRT TVs blurred things, you could make it produce more colors than what would normally be possible in this era of computers (see also the Apple II). Ideally, the emulator would have an option to simulate this.
If this is true, why would a color version have been necessary? It's not like anyone was playing on an LCD in the early 80s. Edit: I think I figured it out, the European versions of Atari 8-bit computers probably used SCART connections, which wouldn't have had the artifacting, or if they did would've looked weird on PAL displays. Ralf probably hacked the game to look correct on European computers, and the original version of the game looks weird in emulators because they don't have the NTSC artifacting turned on by default.
@@dukeofthebump CRT monitors were usually much sharper than a normal NTSC television (to allow for denser, but still readable, text), and color monitors (which were more expensive) usually had separate wires for the color channels, so there would be less interference. So, if you were playing the game on a monitor, it would look more like most of the screenshots seen on Moby Games. A version of the game that doesn't depend on NTSC's imperfections would look better in that situation.
Also, this color version of the game is tagged as a mod, not official. I can't immediately find much information about it or when it was made though. My guess is: because this game launched on the Atari 8-bit and Apple II simultaneously, where the Apple II color palette is very limited, the original game didn't use significantly different graphics to take advantage of the Atari 8-bit line's increased color options.
NTSC artifact color. The vertical lines gave it color.
I’d love to hear Jeff’s thoughts on “Lode Runner’s Rescue,” the isometric one from the mid-‘80s. (I played it on C64, but I’m assuming it was on all computers.)
Atari 50 inspired me to actually pick up an Atari 800 - it was definitely before my time and I didn't even really realize Atari *had* computers with quite a few games on them during this period.
Lode Runner totally works for me, and does stand out.
I played a lot of Lode Runner on Apple IIe. Such a solid game!
i played the hell outta lode runner when i was a kid in the late 80s. my mother was a fiend for it.
Patron here - Solid choice! I played the hell out of this game on the C64 as a kid
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Still a threat to the establishment so called hall of fames
Hopefully you'll be doing a video for Hogwarts Legacy? It's absolutely brilliant, very worthy of all the universal critical Acclaim it's received. It's absolutely my game of the year so far. All the love and attention the developer has poured into every facet of this game, it truly is a magical game to experience.
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