One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.
This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.
The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.
A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.
Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)
Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)
All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.
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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.