Lode Runner, a game many of us logged hundreds of hours upon. Lode Runner has a great deal of replay value thanks to its great map editor. The game was first published by Broderbund in 1983, but was first prototyped by Douglas Smith, an architecture student at the University of Washington.
The Lode Runner prototype was called Kong and was originally written for a Prime Computer 550 minicomputer on campus, but shortly after it was ported to the VAX minicomputer. Originally programmed in FORTRAN and utilized only ASCII character graphics (the most basic of characters).
In September of 1982 Smith was able to port it to the Apple II+ (in assembly language) and renamed it to Miner. In October of that same year he submitted a rough copy to Broderbund and he’s said to have received a one-line rejection letter, “Sorry, your game doesn’t fit into our product line; please feel free to submit future products.”
The original title had no joystick support and was developed in full black and white…not exactly exciting. So, Smith then borrowed money to purchase a color monitor and joystick and continued to improve the game. Around Christmas of 1982, he submitted the game, now renamed Lode Runner, to four publishers and quickly received offers from all four: Sierra, Sirius, Synergistic, and Brøderbund.
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Okay, Don – low level characters in Mass Effect are hampered in combat, partly due to the fact they’re underpowered, and also due to the fact the combat isn’t well-designed. The key to surviving early combat is this:
1. Use biotic and engineer powers a lot. Biotics goes a way towards crowd control, while engineer powers weaken. Make sure you get the weapon abilities that allow you to rapid-fire without the weapon overheat, too. Remember to restore your shields when they go out.
2. Be a coward for a while. Don’t try to wade in. A good example of this is the bar – after you kill Fist, you have an entire bar of hostiles. You should make sure you have full health and shields, then run for the exit, healing and restore your shields when they are almost depleted. Your teammates will be downed, but if you make it far enough, they’ll get up and follow. When fighting the giant Geth, run and hide and take out the smaller Geth before you duck-and-shoot the giant Geth.
3. The toughest battle you’ll have is when you’re attacked by a group of Krogan and Geth when rescuing Liara. Make sure when you rescue her, you have an engineer and a biotic so you can crowd control them. You’ll probably deal with that a few times before succeeding.
4. Always upgrade your items as much as possible.
At some point, your characters become so powerful, they mow down enemies easily – usually, this involves the Spectre’s ability to revive downed teammates. It also involves the uber-weaponry and armor as well, to the point that the only way you die is if you do something stupid.
The good news is that when you start a new game, you can use the character you just finished with — and they’ll start at that high level, so you won’t have to deal with weak characters from the start.