Raiders of the Lost Ark

The Good
For those of us looking to blow our early 80s rainy saturdays via video games, few games grabbed hold as strong as Atari's rendition of Raiders of the Lost Ark. An early licensed game before such licenses were a sure sign of shoddiness, RotLA was multi-facetted and complex in a way that no previous game had ever achieved, and which future games would mimic and perfect. There were just so many PARTS to the game- the spider, the gold monkey, the black market, the grappling hook, the PARACHUTE!!! With its games within the game, RotLA may be the ancestor of Grand Theft Auto and its many, many knock offs!

The Bad
Since it was designed for the 2600, you just have to forgive its blocky graphics. What you CAN'T forgive is that when you finally got to the actual Ark, you could NEVER actually get the ladder-jack-thingamajig to get all the way up to it no matter how perfect a run you'd just spent 4 hours achieving. That, and it's semi-sequel "E.T.", which was so bad that you almost wished they hadn't made Raiders, just so that they couldn't botch the engine with that ugly blob of a game.

The Bottom Line
A rollicking adventure story with so many more facets to it than any other 2600 title, before or after.