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River Raid: The Awe of Infinite Levels
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One Game Feature by MAtt Dujnic, 12/17/07
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Most Atari 2600 games are unplayable in this new millenium, if they haven't simply been superceded. In the future, perhaps the pantheon will be entirely obsolete. But if that ever happens, River Raid will be the last to fall.
This game had infinite levels, thanks to some sort of polymorphic waveform duality particle linear accelerator algorythm. Even today, this remains fascinating, because the graphics of a 2600 game are, at best, symbolic. Another new gourd-shaped island wouldn't even qualify as worthy background scenery in your new-fangled 'Unreal 3 Engine' games. But on the 2600, and viewed through the requisite imagination-filter, it is an unexplored frontier. And how could endless frontiers not be fascinating?
The big problem, though, was successful exploration. Even at the height of my Activision-patch-earning skills, I never made it more than, say, 20 bridges in. Each bridge destroyed marked the end of a level. Beyond the bridge, a new frontier. But run out of lives, and it's back to the start to retread the same path once more.
What could the river possibly look like in the impossible distance? It's a question that has nagged me for over two decades. I had long given up on an answer, until the internet. Until ROM hacking. River Raid Plus has answered our prayers. It starts on bridge 2002. For those of us with our imagination-filters still entact, this is the moment we've been dreaming of. Impossible future river, here we come. Click below.
River Raid Plus
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'The Awe of Infinite Levels'
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#&rendershop#
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