Playing this game is actually depressing. But it is fun to watch someone else suffer through it.
I got spelunker as a present on my birthday. Now, getting a video game as a birthday present now seems to be a pretty good proposition. Even for those of us that are uninformed about video games there is the internet and even specialty stores just for video games. In 1985 most people didn’t have a computer powerful enough to run a 2400 baud modem and even then you would probably only find precious metal predictions and company in-service memos. Even video game stores were few and far between. So what I’m saying is that getting a video game back then as a birthday present was as precarious a situation as a Roman bath house.
Story
Twenty years ago video games didn’t have stories unless they were in the manual or printed on the side of an arcade machine. Therefore, I will fabricate one based on my game play experience. A spelunker, let’s call him Harry Portman, has decided that his six figure income as a financial consultant with a large but corrupt law firm has done little to guarantee his place in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Because of a javelin toss accident in high school his misguided plan to gain entry is to venture deep into dangerous caves. Because of his fear of actual caves he decides instead to adventure into mine shafts with all the associated hardships like elevators and mine cars to ride around in. Before exploring these “caves” however he gains the unique ability to die at the drop of a hat. By gathering bags of money (possibly left behind by rich miners), gigantic pills (possibly left behind by likewise adventurous gigantic pharmacists), bombs, flares, and ammo for a gun that is as dangerously inept as his ability to continue living, Mr. Portman seeks to gain exposure to Bud Selig.
Gameplay
Let me say this right now. One of the only reasons to play this game now is for shock value. It is easily one of the most frustrating games you’ll ever find. I know it was made almost 20 years ago at this point but the game play problems stem from ideas that the developer had to make up. They don’t seem to be from lack of technical ability. There is no way that common sense or experience can tell you these things. Let me begin. The many ways to die are just unexplainable. If you fall from a distance that is greater then or equal to your own height, you die. When you shoot a flare you must shoot it straight up. If you have the grave misfortune of still standing there when it lands, you die. Some holes have a gentle slope to their bottoms that you can even walk down but if you take that last step, you die. Bats fly in place dropping loads of what is presumably guano. Touch base with the filth and you die. Puffs of steam? You die. If the game had microwave popcorn poor Mr. Portman would meet an untimely, buttery end. Honestly, the fleeting days of Harry are just some of the frustrations. A lot of times you have to climb a rope and then jump to a higher ridge. No problem, right? Well you have to press the direction and jump buttons at exactly the same time. If you press the direction pad first then Sir Portman falls five feet to his death. Have you ever played a game where you get to design the levels? Now have you ever designed those levels specifically for your friend so that he died in the most humiliating ways possible? Well I’m certain that the designer, Tim Martin, made this game with that intent, except that, Mr. Martin, you are no friend of mine. One of the best testaments to the infuriating nature of the game is surprisingly the attract mode. You know, when the game plays itself and shows you how fun it is? Well in this attract mode Harry explores the cave for no less than five seconds then gets hopelessly confused and stuck until a ghost, because of the time limit, mercifully takes him. And that is the most plausible way you die in this game, by poltergeist.
Graphics
They’re from 1985. They’re probably older than you are.
Sound
The music is jaunty enough to make you jump off a cliff, or in Harry’s case jump down from the driver’s seat of an SUV.
Conclusion
In the 1920’s, Mussolini’s fascist group took to torture as a national policy in dealing with opposition. They would insert a hose down the throat of an offender and pump castor oil directly into to their stomachs until they were more receptive to the cause. That was until 1985 when they adopted a substantially more gruesome method.
~Chef