The best game you've never heard of.

User Rating: 10 | Mission on Thunderhead C64
I've got four excellent reasons why this game is one of the most revolutionary games known to date.


First this was one of the first action/adventure games to use CLEAR,SOILD,CONCISE objectives in this form of gameplay. No game so far as even touched base with the form of clear objectives and commands given seen in this game. Games before this had very simple goals such as, go eat some dots and get chased. But this put forth more important gameplay, to me it also added some realism. For instance this was just objectives like, kill such and such, it listed what you have to do in such time and how and where. For instance in the mission Operation Tempest you had various objectives, to infiltrate by such a time to an excat spot, then to move on and uncover a device that would inturn stop your enemies. No other game had did this at that point, once other game developers picked up on it the used it in other games such as Cytron Masters. This aspect of objective making and command issuing was a very strong influence in many games.

Also, this was one of the first game to use the futuristic/sci-fi type game ideas. This games theme, and setting in the future space world has influenced other developers and game makers. One of the games to come out of the influence of this game was Cyborg. This sci-fi type theme enalbed the developers of THunderhead endless possiblities for gameplay with creative ideas with the weapons, ships, and even the creatures. This theme had a major impact on many games as well as movies and television.

Third the developers spent countless hours developing a game you'd never get bored of. The developers put over 100 hours of game play, which at the time (1985) is unheard of. THe developers made 10 preset levels, and a seed number to allow over 1000 variations of play. This is truly amazing. No other game as done this so far. I believe this is a very high standard for games to do. Replay value is very important now days. This game does have it.

My fourth and final reason is that after all the hard packed action you'd get to a very challenging puzzle/maze. Also, the mazes and puzzles were never the same. I'd like to see a Mass Effect where all the mazes weren't the same while you explored. It gave the game another aspect of fun, a fun that was a very hard problem solver. It made it a heck of a lot harder, but I did enjoy it. To me the challenge was worth it. Once the game was over I still had over 999 times to play untill it got the same puzzle over. Example, in the last mission of Operation Tempest you'd have to solve the HARDEST puzzle to get the device to destory the planet and kill your enemy, once you get it you go straight back to heavy combat which I enjoyed immensely.

There are a few minor reason why this game is good.
1.Combat very good, fast paced action.
2.Controls; The were very simple on the Atari.
3.The power-ups and weapons were intersting and many.
4.The creatures were very interactable,which was fun.
5.It's just plain fun.

I do wish there was a more modern version of this, it would be like another Halo.


Thanks for your time
Pat