Reviews

1984 Activision (UK)
by the Software Conversions team

This conversion starts off promising, with it's simple but cool atmosphere somewhat faithful to the original but rather simplified.
Once I start playing it I soon met with its faults. The jumping routine is bad, not the worst I've seen but not good either. Going up and down ladders can be a nuisance and it's hard to get out them when you most need, which may cause you losing the game. There are several other examples of bad programming. But it's the whole lot that really gets on my nerves. A pity really, because I remember trying to load this game back then, and 95% of the times it crashed, so coming across it again in an emulator was my change of finally playing it. There are a few details that save the game from being a wash out. For instance, the "looks" of the game, which were already outdated for 1984, but work fine for me. And the exploration part which is probably the best part. But in all honesty, I've dug deep into the game and I can say that it's also a bit of a disappointment. Except for the waters, maybe. If only the game had a better jumping and movement routines this could have been way better.

Don't get me wrong, Pitfall 2 is a great game, this is just a really bad port. The gameplay has high annoyance with his dreadful jumping which makes it very difficult to progress. This should have been better.