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Retro

I distinctly remember the afternoon of my 13^th birthday.  

I bolted home from the bus stop, because I knew that waiting for me at home was The Most Awesome Video Game Experience Ever!  

The object of my obsession was a new offering for the Atari 2600 console, Haunted House.  

Haunted House could be thought of as Resident Evil -20.  The graphics, though looking a bit dated today, were pretty damn stunning at the time.  Since I no longer have access to a functioning Atari 2600 console, I'm unable to get my own screenshots, but I found one that I think beautifully captures the graphic artistry that was possible in home video games circa 1982.  

And Kids These Days Complain Their PS3 Isn't Realistic Enough...

Haunted House put the player, as represented by a pair of googly Cookie Monster eyes, in a, well, haunted house looking for pieces of an urn. Why an urn? I don't know. When I hear the word "urn", the first thing I think of is "ashes", as in "Don't knock over that urn! Uncle Bill is in there!" 

The map, such as it was, consisted of several dark floors that the player could illuminate with a match by pressing the button. 

Yes, Kids, In 1982 Video Game Controllers Only Had One Button. And We Liked It.

In easier modes of the game, the walls were visible, but in most variations they weren't so your gaming experience was pretty much just what you see in the first picture. Until the creepy things came.To give the player something to do other than stumble around bumping into things, the designers included some foes - an upside-down letter "V", a giant sperm, and a lump of steel wool. In the game they were called a bat, a ghost, and a spider, but, well, yeah: 

A Bat? A Ghost? A Spider? Maybe If I Squint...

These things would roam the house, and were accompanied by gusts of wind that would extinguish your match if they came into the room.  If they touched you, you'd lose a life, and I think you'd drop any pieces of the urn that you had accumulated up to that point.  

As simple as the game was, I played it a lot.  In most modes, it was just a matter of memorizing where the walls and locked doors between rooms were so you could run quickly through the house.  I believe on the hardest mode that the locked doors were randomized, but there still weren't that many possible layouts, but even so I can remember getting nervous when the wind in the game picked up and my blocky pool of match light vanished. 

It turns out that Atari has updated Haunted House for the Nintendo Wii, which might be kind of fun.  For $20, it's probably worth a look. 

-Jay

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