Rare Replay: The Review: Part 1: Jetpac, Lunar Jetman, and Atic Atac.

The 1980s. A video game company was born. Rare. 2015, Microsoft, and the Xbox One. The Rare Replay Collection is released. It is a selected catalog of games from Rare over the years. Several are omitted (due to licensing issues, mainly) on the surface, it looks like a wonderful deal. Thirty games. Thirty years. Are they still good, are they worth it?

Read on, as I play every game on the disc like some sort of video game junkie. This review, due to the number of titles involved, will come in several parts, as I play through titles and gather my thoughts. We're going in chronological order of release.

Jetpac

This is an example of why I grew to dislike games with platforming elements. Ignoring the fact this game was created four years before I was born; it is absolutely primitive. The gameplay does not translate to the screen anymore, and the looping difficulty plays on the classic arcade elements of we'll make it so hard that you'll keep playing to try and beat what is impossible, due to the fact that the computer's loop(); function is more enduring than any human could ever be.

This is mainly due to the frustrating controls and nonreactive player. When my brain can work faster than the game, that's not an enjoyable death.

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Lunar Jetman

More frustrating than Jetpac! You're on the moon now, apparently after having completed the impossible in Jetpack. You've got a lunar lander, and debris flying all over the place. You still have your gun and need to shoot stuff to survive, only the issue is, the controls are slightly better, but this is cancelled out by the fact that its still a platformer, just with nothing to jump or hover over. This 'replay' is criminal at the moment, with no engaging gameplay yet. I know that games were a different breed back in this day, and I'm glad games like this are now dead!

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Atic Atac

A top down roguelike without any rogues, choose between a knight, wizard or serf. My first play through was with a Wizard. I got an alarming 13% by the time my chicken dinner that presented my health disappeared. Te second time, I opted to be a knight, and throw axes at everything. I found some keys and explored some different looking rooms. That time, 33%. The controls are definitely better than the last two game that I've looked at, and in addition, the gameplay feels musical.

One more time, this time as a serf - dude seems the most aggressive of the lot that I have tried so far. I'm starting to understand more about the keys - they unlock doors of corresponding colours, and there's treasure hidden there that unlocks other sorts of doors. There's no real narrative spelled out by the game, but it is much more playable and enjoyable than the two prior titles in the collection.

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In the next installment of Rare Replay, The Review, I'll be sharing my thoughts on Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, and Knightlore. Follow @holoz0r to not miss the next installment of the review!