Platform: Atari 2600
Developer: VSS/MicroGraphicImage
Publisher: Wizard Games
Release Date (NA): 1983
Genre: Survival Horror
Nerd Rating: 3 out of 10
Reviewed by Nero0o
Nothing says October like Halloween, and what better way to celebrate than to take a look back at Halloween for the Atari 2600. The game was released in 1983 by Wizard Video Games and was based on the 1979 film of the same name. Far ahead of its time in the gruesome category, Halloween featured death and gore at a level previously not seen in the video game industry.
Graphically Halloween provided excellent detail compared to the other Atari 2600 games at that time. You play the character of babysitter (Jamie Lee Curtis’s Lori Strode) who must save the children she’s babysitting form the homicidal maniac (Michael Myers) who has broken into the house. This is accomplished by leading the endless amount of children to the last room on either side of the house. For some reason the rooms are magic as Michael Myers somehow can’t find a way to enter them.
The game isn’t incredibly difficult as you are easily able to outrun your psychotic killer who just pops out of nowhere in almost every room stabbing continually at the air as to intimidate you. Don’t be too worried about being caught by surprise as the game gives you a nice little warning by playing the theme song from the movie every time Michael appears. While the song sounds surprisingly good on the Atari 2600, it does get old very fast.
Y
ou will find yourself muting your television within the first 5 minutes of gameplay. The only real challenge you have in the game are the rooms on the top floor where the light flickers on and off making it difficult to see Michael when he first appears, but is far from impossible and after a while of playing it’s really not that challenging either. The gameplay becomes boring and pointless very quickly you’ll find yourself dying on purpose just to find some sort of excitement. Dying is actually the most entertaining part of the game, all that’s needed touch Michael and your head pops right off leaving your body running around as you spew blood from your neck.
The game actually takes it one step further by actually allowing Michael to kill the children. That’s right Halloween breaks that unwritten rule of not showing children getting murdered. Instead you get to stand there and watch as the child falls to the floor blood spewing from their heads. Maybe this is where they lost the rights to use the characters names as the movie was much tamer only killing promiscuous teenagers. Imagine trying to pitch that game today “and then he stabs the small child right in the forehead” there would be outrage from parents everywhere, but hey it was the early eighties parents were too concerned with Dungeons and Dragons turning their kids into Satanists and not their ability to sacrifice a child as a means of escaping a killer in a video game.
Now don’t you worry if the kid you are escorting gets killed (or left to die) because it has no negative impact on you whatsoever, you don’t even lose a life. All in all Halloween is a pretty crappy game but I do give them props for stepping out of the kid friendly games that dominated the market at the time.
Reviewed by Nero0o
