Day 99: Adventure II

Before there was Link, there was Yellow Square. Yellow Square had to retrieve the Enchanted Chalice, which had been stolen and hidden away. The Enchanted Chalice was very important to the people of the kingdom, as it had the power to keep beer cold indefinitely.


Like all good video game sequels, Adventure II stick with the basic premise of the original game and just spruces up the graphics and adds a new wrinkle here or there. Once again the Enchanted Chalice has been stolen and once again it's up to Yellow Square to find it. Also once again there are three hungry dragons roaming the countryside.


So you get the idea, right? There's a lot of the same. There are a few power ups now and a minotaur roams the maze, but most of the differences between Adventure and Adventure II are cosmetic.

Day 60: Kofi - Yellow Kopter

Anyone who puts in the time necessary to make a game for a 25 year old system that even in its heyday was overshadowed by its predecessor must have a great love for what he does. Just for today, let's say that, and not the end result, is what really matters.


That way I can spend more time working on some other things I need to get done and less time writing about a goofy cartoon helicopter saving a bunch of forest creatures from an angry cloud.

Day 27: Zenji

I think this game paralyzed the creative centers of my brain. I can't think of anything to write.


Nope. Still nothing.

Day 21: Zone Ranger

I suppose I could be grateful. I could say "Thank you , Activision. Thank you for making the closest thing to Sinistar I'll ever play on a classic system." But I'd much rather dog on them.

As the first generation of video games was winding to a close, Activision, a company which had made a name for itself with original games like Kaboom and Pitfall, ran out of ideas and resorted to producing carbon copies of other games.


You see those equal signs? That's math, brother. Math don't lie.

Zone Ranger isn't an exact clone of Sinistar, but it looks and feels like it until the signature cry of "I live" doesn't happen and Sinistar doesn't chase down my ship and eat it.


I'll take Zone Ranger over any of the dozens of ill-conceived rip-off games that flooded the video game market of the early 1980's. It looks good and plays good, though it does at time suffer from a bad case of "what the fuck just killed me" syndrome and lacks that sense of shit your pants urgency that comes with knowing that at any second a nearly indestructible space juggernaut could be bearing down on me.