H.E.R.O. - 1984
By John Van Ryzin
Published by Activision
Released for Atari 2600

Initial descent down the deadly caverns of this helicopter-cladden spelunker’s rescue operation is tense, but doesn’t stay unfamiliar. No two stages are the same, but every encounter with enemy and obstacle within maintains on reset. The adventure begins with an awkward tumble down initial screens as opposed to heroic dives and elegant acrobatics. And getting caught in the blast radius of your dynamite is an inevitability. The goal is simple: Make the unfamiliar, familiar. Be mindful of your resources. Become a hero for those trapped below. And where H.E.R.O. excels in this tee-up is within the exciting push-pull dance of authored imprecision, firm rules and our place between them.

Acceleration is abrupt. Nearly too fast, even. Inching towards obstacles is a task more dangerous than making room for dynamite. And with full directional movement, the possibilities of where to go – and what to crash into – are endless. Pressing down on the up-directional of the controller to whirr your copter-pack to life is laborious, and each release of the control demands immediate press-down follow up to hold control over climb and descent as each passage grows ever-narrow. The repetition of the similarly-constructed chasms, with their multicoloured walls and environmental abstractions, dull out memorisation. The friction is subtle, as to not lean too far into imprecision and unfair design, and calculated enough so that a perfect run is lost to overconfidence and carelessness than at the hand of faulty programming. Maybe you forgot that a snake pops out of a specific wall just a few stages in. After that, maybe you misjudged how narrow the passage between two hazard walls were when falling down. Got a bit too confident with blasting bats right above lava? That will cost you if you get too close. It’s in that push-and-pull of the immovable and faultless game against the unrestricted, but fallible player where H.E.R.O. shines as a chase towards a perfect run. Learn the rules, throw yourself at them, and fail then overcome.

Mechanically for a game on the 2600 this kicks ass, you could have released this on NES with a mild graphical/control facelift and it would have fit in. It's an action platformer with 20 levels to go through of increasing length and complexity. You have an inspector-gadget-ass helicopter helmet that you can use to fly around levels, a laser cannon to destroy enemies, and bombs that you can place to break walls, and there's a power meter that serves as a level timer. My only gripes come from the controls and the level design; I had to pretty much immediately switch to a mega drive controller instead of a 2600 joystick because its really easy to misinput down on the stick and drop a bomb that kills you instantly (i need to buy some new atari controllers ngl...). The way you hover and fly is really weird too in that you have to hold up for like a whole half second before you start flying, and tapping up holds you in place for like a half second if you are falling. Considering the fact that roderick hero over here has a rather swift movement and falling speed, the delay between flying and falling can and will absolutely fuck you up at points. I wish they went for a more like lunar-lander style of physics and momentum system with flight instead of the 3 phases of flying, hovering, and falling that you can slugglishly toggle between. The level designer is also an asshole starting from like level 7 onwards, with levels that know exactly the limitations of your moveset and will capitalize on your weaknesses in a very dirty way. You can't shoot things below you, so there are lots of holes with enemies under them that work as dead ends in a sort. There are also enemies placed precisely where you'd go if you need to charge up your flying ability, and so many holes where your high fall speed will launch you into a block of lava before you can even register what is going on. It's difficult, but in the way of just needing to memorize the whole level layouts to mitigate any of the designers nonsense. The point threshold to become part of the Order of the H.E.R.O. is honestly pretty low at only 75k, which on a decent run you'd get that much by level 13. Honestly pretty crazy to see a game of such solid quality right in the dark year of 1984 between the big Atari Shock and the release of the NES. Makes ya wonder what other games could have existed to expand upon early 80's hardware if everyone didn't panic pull out from the market then.