Archon (1983)

Look: 6/10 Technically mediocre/2600-esque but decidedly functional and very fitting for the Chess-with-action-sequence concept.

Sound: 6/10 Mostly annoying, tho kinda nice to feel like I was playing a 2600 console game again at times.

Play: 7/10 I bet the later ports of this are so amazing, mind you, I was playing the very original Atari 8-bit version. This was absolutely fascinating. I played 3 full games tonight against the computer. It was particularly interesting how it seems the computer "learns" you, which thank goodness it does, because this is one of those games that reminds me how bad I am at gaming. Still, as much as I ascribe it to my lack of skills, the gameplay is very clunky. The controls are responsive but almost to a fault because you'll end up shooting the opposite direction etc etc. I sorta got the hang of it by my 3rd playthrough and defeated the compute more handily/knowingly, rather than it basically handing the win to me near the end (which allegedly, from what I read, the computer learns you and tries to allow you to win lol smh). It was nice to see that it had diagonal controls and shooting (believe it or not, that's still hit or miss on a lot of the console and microcomputer games in late '83), tho again, successfully controlling them took almost an hour and even then it was still clunky.

Feel: 8/10 This was just so exciting. Even if it was quite frustrating and the gameplay itself was technically rudimentary/clunky, the concept and most of the execution were excellent. I thought joystick controls of a Chess-esque board would be frustrating but not really. And the action sequences left a lot to improve in terms of controls, but were full of such great ideas like different pieces having different functions which complement or work against each other (e.g., some can only do damage around it, while others have range with their attacks, etc. so you wanna pick your battles wisely).

Attachment: 7/10 This is definitely worth a play, I want to play this 2-player with my brothers. But also, I recommend all of you play this (tho probly one of the later ports or sequels etc., I'm really only playing this rudimentary original version as part of my project). As exciting as the concept and most the execution were, it was mostly frustrating to play. The fact I was driven to try it several times (and mind you ,the tale that the computer "lets" you win isn't true, tho I did feel like it held back near the end sometimes haha. maybe that was just confirmation bias tho... because I lost 2 of my 3 playthroughs heh) says a lot about the game. How often I will play this version, tho, is doubtful, except to try 2-play and perhaps to show others.

Completion: Defeated the computer once Playtime: ~1 hour