#0028 Venture

I have to admit, when I saw my first screen shot of Venture, my first thought was, “oh look, a nice relaxing adventure game on the 2600?” Not only is it not a 2600 game (graphics are way to good if you can believe that), or even a computer game. This is an arcade game made by Exity, the genius' behind such amazing games such as “Football”, and “Circus”. And this isn't a slow dungeon crawler either. There's a reason it's an arcade game and not a computer game. Here, see for yourself.

In this game you play as Winky. That's right, THE Winky. We have another character to add to the growing list of timeless video game icons, first Pac-Man, then Mario and Donkey Kong, now Winky. Your goal is to collect as much treasure as you can. You're equipped with the slowest bow and arrow ever conceived, and you must roam a dungeon with rooms and hallways. The hallways are plagued by the aliens from Space Invaders it seems and cannot be killed, injured, or stopped in any way. Once you're in a room, you must avoid the monsters including slimes, skeletons and even sperm (No joke, check out 1:14, I think they're supposed to be snakes, but you an I both know better). You can kill the monsters, in theory, but that's a lot easier said than done, you're mostly better off avoiding them anyway, as their corpses are poisonous I guess. Just a single touch of a monster's corpse will kill you. If you stay too long in a room, however, the hall monitors will phaze through the walls and try to kill you, so you can't joke around, you have to get your treasure and get the fuck out! That's really all there is too it. When you complete all four rooms in the dungeon, you'll move on to the next level.

Question is, however, is the game good? Yeah. For all my bitching and moaning I have to say I enjoyed it. If only because of the faster pace than most dungeon crawlers, and the surprisingly good music. Yeah, this isn't the first game to have back ground music, but this is probably the best so far. Even better than Donkey Kong because let's face it, as much as I love Donkey Kong, and I loved having back ground music that wasn't just a heartbeat, it was only five or so notes repeated over and over again. So yeah, it was good. It wasn't a classic like some of the others I played, but it was still enjoyable.

Next up: Ms. Pac-Man