So it goes, the repeating blunders of pi(lots). I can't help but laugh every time I hit the green & go boom, knowing it's as much a technical choice as absurd design. Believability aside, it's nice to face consequences for mismanaging your velocity & inertia. Just dodging the targets and naught else would get dull, an adjective I simply can't slap on River Raid.
Carol Shaw knew a good role model when she saw one. Konami's Scramble isn't quite as well-recognized today for the precedents it set, both for arcade shooters & genres beyond. Yet she was quick to adapt that game's scrolling, segmented yet connected world into something the VCS could handle. Making any equivalent of a tiered power-up system was out of the question, but River Raid compensates with its little touches. The skill progression in this title really sneaks up on you, much to my delight.
Acceleration, deceleration, & yanking that yoke—combine that with fuel management, plus the scoring rubric, and it's a lot more to absorb than normal for a VCS shooter. I made it to 50k points before feeling sated, having cleared maybe a couple tens of stages (neatly separated by the bridges you demolish), and I could go for seconds. Maybe some extra time & finesse could have added more of a soundscape here, albeit limited by the POKEY like usual. But there's a completeness, the beginnings of verisimilitude in this genre which you only saw inklings of before on consoles. Scramble's paradigm had come to the Atari.
Shaw's coding smarts are all over this, too. From pseudo-random endless shooting, to the play area using mirrored sections to minimize flickering, River Raid pushes its technical tier even beyond the smooth vertical scrolling. Going from 3D Tic-Tac-Toe to this must have felt triumphant. Her later works for Activision across Intellivision & succeeding Atari consoles carry on the pedigree made clear here. Worry not over fears of River Raid's reputation being outdated or unearned, reader. It's a worthy highlight of the 2600 library which I could fire up anytime in any mood.
Carol Shaw knew a good role model when she saw one. Konami's Scramble isn't quite as well-recognized today for the precedents it set, both for arcade shooters & genres beyond. Yet she was quick to adapt that game's scrolling, segmented yet connected world into something the VCS could handle. Making any equivalent of a tiered power-up system was out of the question, but River Raid compensates with its little touches. The skill progression in this title really sneaks up on you, much to my delight.
Acceleration, deceleration, & yanking that yoke—combine that with fuel management, plus the scoring rubric, and it's a lot more to absorb than normal for a VCS shooter. I made it to 50k points before feeling sated, having cleared maybe a couple tens of stages (neatly separated by the bridges you demolish), and I could go for seconds. Maybe some extra time & finesse could have added more of a soundscape here, albeit limited by the POKEY like usual. But there's a completeness, the beginnings of verisimilitude in this genre which you only saw inklings of before on consoles. Scramble's paradigm had come to the Atari.
Shaw's coding smarts are all over this, too. From pseudo-random endless shooting, to the play area using mirrored sections to minimize flickering, River Raid pushes its technical tier even beyond the smooth vertical scrolling. Going from 3D Tic-Tac-Toe to this must have felt triumphant. Her later works for Activision across Intellivision & succeeding Atari consoles carry on the pedigree made clear here. Worry not over fears of River Raid's reputation being outdated or unearned, reader. It's a worthy highlight of the 2600 library which I could fire up anytime in any mood.