From Issue #13
Prehistoric Times
Platform: Atari 2600
Programmer: Blake Leftwich
Developer: Salute Games
Release Date: May 2009
Okay, first things first. I know this might cost me a bit of street cred here, but here it goes:
My name is Peter G, and I LIKED E.T. on the Atari 2600.
The game was ambitious for the system limitations and notoriously tight time-frame. No, it wasn’t the greatest thing in the world, but I did play it and have an okay time with it. And when I see the sheer amount of scorn heaped on it, I just shake my head in stupefaction. There are other, far worse games on the Atari 2600. Why does Howard Scott Warshaw’s suicide mission get the gong?
The reason I bring up E.T. is because I see a lot of similarities with the reception of Prehistoric Times. Like E.T., it’s a game that has its appeal despite its limitations. It’s an okay time to be had. It has some design flaws that a little work and polish would fix. And the vitriol being heaped on it is mind-boggling. There are people saying the programmer is trying to make a quick buck off the community (for $15 – $20 a cart being made by Randy Crihfield? Oh, yeah, he’s filling his bathtub with dollar bills and rolling in it for hours). Others are calling it too simple and will never compare to recent projects. One key difference: unlike E.T., which was based on the released game, a lot of the trash talk started from a screen shot of the first level. And people wonder why I’m not anxious to jump into designing games for classic systems.
Blake Leftwich is an aspiring game designer and programmer from the Carolinas, and Prehistoric Times is very much a tribute to the Atari 2600. It features graphics, sounds, and gameplay similar to first generation titles — you know, before Activision came along and started showing everyone how it was done. Leftwich started working on the game in 2006 (he appears to be using an older version of Batari Basic). It was actually finished in 2007, but there wasn’t anything going on where he could sell the game and get it out there. But with Too Many Games! in 2009, he had his chance, and the game sold out pretty quick.
You play a prehistoric hunter, armed with a spear. The game has three basic stages. The first one, with the much maligned screenshot, has you watching for animals to come onto the screen. Each one moves in sort of a pattern — a little variation, but not too much. Getting too close or touching the foliage chases them off, but give them a few seconds, and they’ll repeat the pattern. If you spear them, you touch them to eat them. Miss, and you have to retrieve your spear before you can throw it again (the quark laser in Gorf is a long way from being invented at this point, you know). Your score display at the bottom of the screen is actually your hit points. Just like in Atari’s Krull, you stay here as long as you want until you feel you have enough points. Trust me, you’re going to want a lot of them. Past this screen, if your hit points go to zero, it’s game over, and there’s no backtracking. So you can conceivably just go to the next screen and buy the farm as soon as the screen updates.
Prehistoric Times - Level 1
Once you are ready, go off the top of the screen. You then have to dodge boulders tumbling down at you. You don’t have the whole playfield available to dodge them (invisible barriers keep you from moving out of their range). It sort of reminded me of Aztec Challenge, although I frankly enjoyed Prehistoric Times with its unrefined graphics over AC. Each successive wave comes faster, and getting hit not only knocks you down, but takes away some of your hit points as well.
Prehistoric Times - Level 2
Then we get to the last part of the game, a lava maze. The lava is instant death, and it starts filling in, forming walls you have to navigate around without touching them. Also, something not mentioned in the game instructions is that your hit points begin ticking down at this level, and if they hit zero, it’s game over. Rough estimate, you burn through about 5,000 hit points in about eight seconds. See what I mean about wanting a lot of them on that first level? The maze changes thanks to the appearing lava and (I suspect) activation regions making you double back and retrace your route through the maze. Grab the treasure, and move on to the next level.
Prehistoric Times - Level 3
Kind of like pound cake, the game is crude but effective, accomplishing what it sets out to do. There are some nods to the players, such as the patterns remaining consistent for that particular animal you have to hunt. The foliage on the first level has blank scan lines that help you track your prey. The game has its flaws, however. The biggest problem is the lava maze — your character moves quickly and there is no pause between the screens when they change, making it very easy to blunder your way into the lava as soon as the screen starts. The instruction sheet doesn’t mention you lose hit points per second on the lava level — it took me a while to figure out why exactly I was dying shortly after the level began and without coming anywhere near the lava. These are all things that could be fixed with a pause, a cue, or something. But they are forgivable.
The bottom line is this: Leftwich did a good job mimicking the Atari games of long ago. It’s just that what he’s mimicking isn’t that great. The game isn’t bad, and it can keep you engaged in its way. But longevity comes from settling into the rhythm of the game. It’s more like a dance — established movement within boundaries that you can anticipate, rather than a dynamic experience.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. The game just isn’t overly ambitious, and there’s no crime in that. The potshots being taken at it are truly disproportionate. Prehistoric Times really isn’t as bad as everyone is saying it is. It’s not that great, but it’s certainly not that bad. If you can truly enjoy the old Atari games with their minimalist graphics and oversimplified depictions, you will find something just fine here.
The real question, the one that will determine whether you will enjoy this or feel ripped off, is this:
How important is it to have games pushing the Atari to the limits?
If you like the bleeding edge stuff like what the guys from Xype do, you will not be able to forgive this entry-level creation Leftwich has cooked up. If you can overlook such things, if they are, in fact, sometimes the whole reason you play the Atari, you’ll find the Atari equivalent of duct tape — it ain’t pretty, it ain’t the best, but it does get the job done.
- Peter G
