Pitfall
for PC (DOS)

Johann67:
Company: ?
Year: 1984
Genre: Action
Theme: Abstract / Flight / Unique
Language: English
Licence: Freeware
Views: 19993
Review by Johann67 (2010-05-29)
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Now, before you go “seen that mayan thing already”, this is NOT Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. This is ANOTHER GAME. NO jumping over pits. This is flying-into pits. Why? To get points and test your reflexes.

Complete instructions are given at the start, and I've made a screenshot of them too. The game is very challenging, right from the beginning. You'll be pulling off almost impossible maneuvers from the moment you enter the pit. Luckily, your ship can take a beating, and auto-repairs (5 extra lives for every 3000 points you get). Don't fly into any boulders, though, or you're history no matter how many lives you have.

The graphics are done in ASCII, so don't expect much there. The game has rudimentary sound effects, and gives the impression that it's even older than the 1984 I've put down-which is based on last modification to file date. No publisher is known, and no reference to the game can be found anywhere-making this a Good Old Days exclusive.

So, should you get this game? Well, it won't put a massive drain on you hard drive capabilities. It's 28 kilobytes, unpacked. And it can provide quite a few hours of fun. There is one problem, however, and that's running it on newer PCs. On this one, a P3 1GHz with 256 Mb RAM, I need to slow my PC down 96% before I have any sort of control over the plane. So, if your PC is faster that this (probably, it is) use a DOS emulator like DOSBox, or use a very good slowdown util. Personally, I prefer CPUkiller, but that's just my own preference. The pit is randomly generated, and avoiding everything is a great big problem. In the highly unlikely event that you consider it easy, slow down your PC less.

Though the game has very bad graphics, no color, almost no sound, and gets repetitive after a few hours (or minutes, if you're the impatient type), it's definitely worth a try. Also, I don't know any game that really resembles it, apart from a single level from a Vectrex game called Scramble. Some people may be reminded of Gradius, but without the shooting.

Any other opinions are always welcome. Just join the forum and voice them! Also, try and improve on my current top score. 9432. Should be doable.

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