Game of the week: Mechwarrior 2 for Macs

The year is 3057. You are a warrior for either Clan Jade Falcon or Clan Wolf. Ahead of you lies the Refusal War in which you must pilot a BattleMech against your enemies. The future of the galaxy depends upon you, soldier!

Yeah? Who cares?

Let's get to shooting and blowing up stuff! Because that's what the MechWarrior games are really all about.

And MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat won't let down fans of the BattleMech genre. There's tons of combat and explosive action to be found here.

I have to admit right up front that back in the early-to-mid 1990s, I preferred Apple's Macintosh computers for gaming because they had better graphics. PC play has caught up today, but back then, the Macs ruled.

Which was on reason I preferred to play MechWarrior 2 on a Macintosh. Better graphics.

There is a complex background story to this game, and it does come up from time to time while playing, but for the most part you can just sit back and enjoy riding along in a gigantic bi-pedal tank that's sort of like a robot while you get to blow up stuff and shoot stuff.

At the start of Mechwarrior 2 you are given a choice of which of two clans to join, but either way you will face 16 missions ahead of you. The first mission or two are relatively straightforward and relatively easy, but the missions get tougher and tougher, as does the action!

This game will not bore you, I promise. Each mission is different and has different jobs needing done, and you'll have a variety of Mechs to drive as well as you'll face a variety of enemy Mechs, too.

The controls can get a little complicated because there are so many buttons to keep track of on your keyboard, and each one is important, but one of the cool things about this game is you can set up your own controls, and there's an option for quite simple controls, basically just pointing and shooting with a little movement.

The graphics are superb for the time period, perhaps the best 3D computer game graphics from the mid-1990s. And the sound is quite awesome as well; not only are the explosions and Mech noises quite believable but the musical soundtrack by Jeehun Hwang is excellent, quite militaristic in places.

So, if you're an old-school Mac gamer, you've got to get this game. You'll be doing yourself a favor.

Enjoy!

Game of the Week: Pitfall! for Atari 2600

Back in the early 1980s, the Atari 2600 was the top selling home video game system on the market. But one of its weaknesses was graphics. The 2600 often did not have the greatest graphics for its games. But then along came companies such as Activision and Imagic, made up at least in part of former Atari employees, and suddenly the Atari 2600 had some great games with great graphics.

One such game was Pitfall! by Activision, which came out in 1982.

What was the goal of Pitfall! The player controls an onscreen character known as Pitfall Harry through a jungle while search for 32 treasures. Along the way, Harry has to swing on vines over the heads of crocodiles, jump over scorpions, avoid falling into bog pits and avoid all kinds of other nastiness. And toughest of all, Harry only has 20 minutes to find all 32 treasures.

Believe me, that was no easy task.

One of the great things about Pitfall! was that it was the first really popular Atari 2600 game to have solid graphics for the time period. Sure, that little image of Pitfall Harry on the screen was still a little blocky, but that was better than most former Atari 2600 images of characters which were often just big dots. There wasn't a ton of sound to Pitfall!, but that was uncommon for the time, though there was some and it wasn't too bad. The game play was easy enough.

But I have an admission to make. I never finished a game of Pitfall! all the way to the end. Why? To be honest, I found the game to be a bit tedious. By no means was it the worst Atari 2600 game I played back in the day, but it seemed all Pitfall Harry did was run and jump and swing. Plus, in my opinion, it didn't help that the game had a definite ending. Back then, games generally went on as long as the player could save enough onscreen characters. Plus, being only a 20-minute game, it wasn't as if Pitfall! was going to keep my interest all day long.

But really, I did enjoy Pitfall!, it just wasn't my favorite game.

Here's a bit of trivia for you: Do you know what comedic movie star got his start doing a television commercial for Pitfall! in the early 1980s? If you don't know, take a look at the video below.

Game of the Week: River Raid for Atari 2600

There is little disagreement among fans of the Atari 2600 home video game system that many of the best games made for that system were made by Activision. In the early 1980s, Activision made games with crisp colors, quality graphics and great gameplay. What more could an Atari fan want?

Then 1982 rolls around, and Activision tops itself with the release of a game titled River Raid.

At first glance River Raid seems like any other random scrolling shooter game. But it's not. It's THE random scrolling shooter game for the Atari 2600, and introduced the concept of a scrolling shooter to many home gamers back in the day.

The basics of gameplay are simple. You fly a fighter jet along a river while shooting at enemy planes, helicopters and boats. Every once in a while you have to fly over a fuel depot to add fuel to your jet. If you get shot, you die. If you run out of fuel, you die. If you run into the sides of the riverbanks, you die.

Simple stuff. For about thirty seconds. Then the game gets tough. The riverbanks close in on you, forcing you to fly into tight squeezes. The maze that is the river starts forcing you to speed up or slow down to avoid crashing into things. Then the enemy crafts start coming at you from all kinds of angles. And worst of all, those fuel depots you desperately become more and more rare.


River Raid proved extremely popular, so much so it was eventually ported for tons of other home gaming systems and home computers, including the Intellivision, the Colecovision, the Atari 5200 and more.

There was even a sequel game, River Raid II, that was introduced in the late 1980s, and while it was a quality game, it never achieved the popularity of the original River Raid.

Activision is still around today making newer games, but the company can always be proud of the quality work it did back in the day, especially the work done on River Raid for the Atari 2600.