Well, today’s comic is about a game that taught me the lesson of box art vs. content. As a gamer from a time called ‘back in the day’, I spent most of my youth renting games from the local video store based upon two things: reviews in EGM (when I could buy it), and box art.
This explains why I didn’t play Mega Man until Mega Man 2 came out, with the fresh box art. The guy shitting his pants on the cover of Mega Man drove me to rent Fist of the North Star instead. But this box art thing was worse when I had to make choices based upon nothing BUT box art to go on.
There are websites now based on poking fun at the Atari’s old box art, but, Adventure was the one game I was truly excited about owning by looking at the box art. Even now, that little yellow dot was, in my mind, every fantasy hero I’d ever read about. It was Fafhrd, it was Conan, it was Elric of Melnibone. Which reminds me that unless your visual cues are painted out in every color of the rainbow with super-realistic shading and textures, you can’t suspend your disbelief.
As it stands, I’m not the only enthusiast of the old 2600 game, Adventure. Apparently, these guys made Adventure II, which was never released, but based on the 5200 architecture.
And above, there are some guys from the Penny Arcade boards who are working on an Adventure reboot!
Also, the dragons in the game, the ones that look like big old ducks? They each have names.
Wow. Also, I think today’s dragon is probably the nicest looking thing I’ve put into the comic in a while. I hope you all enjoyed it.
See you Friday!
Alienmastermind