The dreaded videogame backlog, I'm sure every gamer has one. I am no different. My own backlog is daunting. Oh sure, I could go through my backlog, but then I'd have to see how big it is, I'd have to clean up and organize the mess. I have over 140 games in my personal backlog, that's more work than I can to deal with, so I just ignore it and wait. But today I decided, I'll put that to an end this is the first entry of the Shelf Life series, in this series I'm gonna go through the games that have just been sitting on my shelf my whole life or any games I've just had for a long time but never beaten, and I write about my experience. Sort of like a backlog diary. The first game I'll be clearing is simply called Adventure I first got this game about 2 or 3 years ago. The total run time of the game is 15 minutes so what's my excuse for never finishing it? I kind of suck at it. Adventure was released in 1980 exclusively for the Atari 2600 in my opinion it's the best exclusive the console has to offer. You play as a noble hero traveling through labyrinths fighting evil dragons to recover the coveted enchanted chalice of the kingdom. The goal of the game is to retrieve the enchanted chalice and return it to the golden castle. There's two types of enemies in the game. Dragons which can swallow you whole or bats which can steal any item in the room and run away with it. If you get eaten by a dragon, you need to press the reset switch on the console to respawn but be careful, when YOU respawn so do the dragons. There's five types of items in the game the first is the sword, which you can use to kill the dragons, the second is the keys which can unlock labyrinths and castles the third is the magic bridge which lets you walk through walls, the fourth is the magnet, which will attract any of the other four items, bringing them closer to you, and the fifth is of course the enchanted chalice itself, which you need to return to the golden castle. If I had to pick anything that could have been improved about the game, I'd say make a better sprite for the sword, everyone says this but it looks like a spear if they only made the hilt visible I'm sure it would have been a lot clearer what it was supposed to look like. This game was amazing framework for future games of it's genre. The Legend of Zelda, releasing decades later is essentially a beefed up version of Adventure, you play as a hero collecting items to help retrieve a magical artifact. Adventure has a lot to stand out still. It's unique fun gameplay, it's mazelike labyrinths, and it's 3 different levels. With level 3 being randomly generated, adding TONS of replay value. I found this game pretty fun and it's easily my favorite on the console, I'll give it a 10/10 for gameplay, 8/10 for story, and 9/10 for atmosphere.
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