Whassup all my retro gamer bro-dawgs? It’s October, in case you hadn’t noticed, and round these parts, October mandates that gamers start rounding up the carts and discs with a decidedly creepier theme to them. We at Retro Gaming Magazine are happy to admit we’re not immune to this infectious desire to splatter some blocky bits of blood, and because of that, you get an extra special treat this week on Revenge of the License: three, count ’em, three(!) games for the price of none! This week, we’re covering none other than the most ferociously frightening fear-fests we could find…on the Atari 2600. So hide your wife, hide your kids, we’re killing everybody up in here with our tribute to Alien, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and of course, Halloween.

Alien (1982, 20th Century Fox)

Alien

Alien on the 2600 has the distinction of being not only one of the earliest licensed video game titles, but also one of the earliest games to feature a horror motif. It also owes much of its success as a game to the fact it’s ripping off two other popular titles, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Like many other licensed games from this era, Alien departs heavily from its source material for the purpose of trying to make something entertaining. Cast as Ripley, Warrant Officer on the space freighter Nostromo, you’re tasked with scouring the corridors of the massive ship. While you patrol, you must smash every egg you find and avoid contact with the three xenomorphs which are also roaming the halls in search of some Sigourney-flavored alien chow. You’re armed with a makeshift flamethrower which usually, but not always, is enough to scare away nearby creatures while you perform your grim task of breaking eggs in order to avoid becoming an omelet yourself. Scattered around the ship are some better weapons which temporarily allow you to turn the tables on your attackers. The problem is, new aliens quickly arrive to replace the ones you dispatch, so hunting the buggers won’t do you any good.

Clearing a level of the ship sends you to the bonus stage: a mad-cap dash across a massive, alien-patrolled cargo bay, to grab something which might help you escape. Succeed and you win some bonus points, fail and you get nothing, and either way it’s off to the next level.

Alien is such a shameless Pac-Man clone it’s a wonder Namco didn’t sue the pants off 20th Century Fox, and what it doesn’t rip from the original maze game, it lifts from Activision’s 1981 Freeway, a game which answered the age-old question of why the chicken crossed the road–turns out it was to earn points. Who knew? Because of this, Alien only manages to be scary in the sense that it’s a bit startling when the creatures start teaming up to hunt your ass down and there isn’t a pulsating power-up in sight. It offers several choices of difficulty which affect how fast the xenomorphs move and how many lives you start with, but otherwise its only redeeming feature is that it manages to be better than the original 2600 incarnation of Pac-Man.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1983, Wizard Video Games)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Wizard Video Games might have been out to court controversy in the 1980s home video game market, but they were smart enough to avoid the sex and nudity route taken by third-party developer PlayAround. Instead they went the other ‘not for kids’ route and started making games based on R-rated films. And while most video games of the time put the player in the role of the protagonist, trying to stave off the alien invasion or recover the treasure, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre holds the distinction of being one of the earliest games where you play as the bad guy. Yup, you get to be Leatherface, one of the all-time iconic bad guys ever committed to celluloid.

Unfortunately the novelty of this wears off about as fast as your chainsaw runs out of fuel. Texas Chainsaw Massacre has you running through fields, dodging fences, tumbleweed, wheelchairs and an inexplicably large number of cow skulls in pursuit of some surprisingly-agile victims. Like many 2600 games, it’s timed in that you are limited to the gas in your saw’s tank, and lose one life every time your petrol runs dry. The kids you’re chasing can only take one hit from your saw, but every time you hold down the button to cut, it’s random as to whether they get sliced up or dodge behind you, forcing you to continue pursuit. Getting caught up on obstacles obviously slows you down, and while you can rev up the saw to slice through a fence, doing so eats up precious petrol and leaves you less time to harass your prey.

While you can’t fault Wizard for trying something new, Texas Chainsaw Massacre isn’t novel enough to sustain your entertainment for more than about ten minutes at a time. It’s fun to pull out at parties where people might have never played it, but it’s nowhere near as violent as its premise makes it out to be and its replay value is nonexistent. Once you’ve heard the same scream issuing forth from the same character sprite for the tenth time, you’ll be reaching for the power switch. Since the only thing your victims can do is outrun you, and you’re already playing the bad guy, there’s nothing here capable of even raising the hairs on the back of your neck. Play this one for laughs, not for the scares.

Halloween (1983, Wizard Video Games)

Halloween

While Wizard might have been tempted to cast the player in the role of Michael Meyers, they made a much saner choice for their release of Halloween, based on the 1978 John Carpenter film of the same name. This time players take up the mantle of babysitter/survivalist Laurie Strode who must protect the children under her care from the knife-wielding intruder roaming her house. The first question you might ask is, “How am I supposed to defend myself and the children I need to protect?” The game’s response: cold, mirthless laughter. You’re not going to find any pistols, shotguns, or baseball bats laying around. There are no places to hide. There aren’t even any phones so you can call the police, but if there were Michael would have cut the line anyway. It’s going to be a looooooong night, Laurie. Hope you took a nap after you got home from school.

Halloween is unnervingly good for a 2600 game, especially one based on a licensed property, and plays very similarly to games in the Clock Tower series. In true horror film villain style, Michael can appear anywhere at any time, and will doggedly pursue the player from screen to screen. Laurie is generally fast enough to out-maneuver Michael, but the edges of the screen and doorways are quite dangerous: if the Shatner-masked psycho shows up there, you have almost no time to react and can quickly kiss one of your lives goodbye. Thankfully there’s no time limit–you play and rescue kids until you’ve expended all your tries.

It’s also one of the most violent games you’ll ever see for the 2600, and while it’s nothing compared to what gamers have grown up seeing in games like Resident Evil or Grand Theft Auto, it’s still pretty shocking the first time you see Michael decapitate Laurie, which leaves her dashing off screen with blood spurting from her neck like a chicken with its head cut off. Michael likewise has no problem slaying the kids you’re supposed to protect, leaving the little body on the floor with red pixels fountaining up from the wound. It’s not likely to cause nightmares, but it’s certainly something you don’t expect to see from this era in gaming.

Unlike the other two entries on this list, Halloween actually succeeds in bringing the scares. The music only plays when Michael is on the screen, but it’s an Atari-fied version of Carpenter’s legendary film theme which is very well rendered. The fact Michael can show up anywhere means the player is always on his or her toes, and approaching the next room, especially if you haven’t seen him for few screens, is always a little unnerving. Finally, in one of the greatest triumphs of this title, a few rooms in the house have electrical problems which periodically plunge them into darkness. Not being able to see your character under these conditions when halfway across the room, only to hear that ominous music start up is genuinely freaky, and waiting for a short flash just to find out which side of the room he’s on will get your pulse racing.

The good, the bad, and the mediocre: we cover it all, and more, every week on “Revenge of the License.” Further proof that I need a life? Only time will tell…Happy Halloween, gamers. We’ll have some more bloody goodness for you next Sunday!

Michael Crisman

In 1979, Michael Crisman was mauled by a radioactive Gorgar pinball machine. After the wounds healed, doctors discovered his DNA had been re-coded. No longer fully human, Michael requires regular infusions of video games in order to continue living among you. If you see him, he can see you. Make no sudden moves, but instead bribe him with old issues of computer and video game magazines or a mint-in-box copy of Dragon Warrior IV.


If he made you laugh, drop a tip in his jar at http://paypal.me/modernzorker


(If he didn't make you laugh, donate to cure his compulsion to bang keyboards by sending an absurdly huge amount of money to his tip jar instead. That'll show him!)