Written by: Mark

 

 

 

25 years ago a game by the name of "Lode Runner" was released on the Commodore 64 to massive amounts of praise. In the days of home computing becoming more popular as a games platform any release needed to have unique gameplay and Lode Runner quickly became known as the first puzzle/platform game that actually needed thought.

 

To celebrate the game marking it’s 25^th anniversary, developers 'Tozai' and 'SouthEnd Interactive' have given this classic game a High Definition make over and released the game on the XBLA service.

 

Priced at a high 1200ms point price it becomes obvious that questions will be raised as to whether a retro re-make represents good value.

 

 

 

"Lode Runner" can best be described as a cross between a platform and puzzle game with the game taking on more of a platform game in it’s appearance.

 

The game sees you take on the role of a treasure hunter who has to work his way across five worlds spanning a total of a very impressive amount of different rooms. These take on the appearance of underground mines and ice worlds which are presented well if not lacking a little in graphical greatness.

 

Each of the levels take place on single screens which is very much a throwback to the days of old although personally I welcome this style of gaming and it has certainly proved successful with other XBLA releases such as N+. Despite this the game flows well with each screen inter-connecting to give it more of a flow and lead to it becoming less of a stop start affair with no loading times between each.

 

 

Each screen may look basic in it’s presentation with the majority made up of blocks, ladders, ropes, treasure to collect and the obligatory enemies such as robots and yeti’s whom are attempting to stop you in your tracks. It must be said that the enemies are fairly intelligent creatures and have a good amount of artificial intelligence and seem to anticipate your characters movements pretty well. In many ways I feel that the enemies in Lode Runner may have taken inspiration from the ghosts in the classic Pacman games in the way they roam about levels and pursue the main characters.

 

Although the game so far may sound basic and in many ways it is, but it does not take long to realise what a clever game this is and that it is going to take a lot of thought to complete the full game. The opening levels are pretty run of the mill to ease you into the experience but it does not take long for the difficulty levels to massively increase and this soon makes you realise that the game is going to have a lot of replay ability which is key to any successful XBLA game.

 

 

To add to the cleverness the main character who cannot jump which certainly adds a tactical aspect to the game in how you used ladders and ropes to avoid enemies. In addition the main character is also equipped with a gun attachment which can only be used for destroying blocks. This is refreshing to say the least and certainly adds to the amount of thought needed to how the weapon is used to trap enemies and reach certain treasure within each level.