The heroine of the game, Dot, is back for her third adventure. This time around, the developer’s ARVORE goes even further back than his Pixel Ripped in 1989 and his 1995. Now we are back in his 1978, immersed in the glory of the Atari era.
Not only does the game deify and satire Atari projects of all kinds, the 1978 title doesn’t even need you to talk and dance about a particular game. Atari is explicitly involved, even revealing the title. It’s really cool to interact with Yar and find and seek out sets of wings, revenge, This game strikes a good balance between reference material and original ideas. It’s one thing to inspire many gamers’ nostalgia, and it’s one thing to be insanely “remember this?” moment. ARVORE avoids the nostalgia-fueled trap and instead crafts a clever meta-history about a hardworking developer inside Atari.
Your character, Dot, must once again fight Lord Cybrin. It’s up to you to follow him through different eras and defeat him to reforge a series of energy crystals. The environments are all visually different from each other: a traditional RPG land, a disco town, a graveyard, to name a few, but the level design is homogeneous apart from a very memorable boss fight. Each area has a series of checkpoints and secrets, but aside from visual diversity, none of the areas are indistinguishable from each other. This also applies to gunplay, which hasn’t changed at all since the beginning of the game. You unlock new abilities to interact more effectively with your environment, but those abilities are mostly stagnant.
It’s the game-within-a-game vanity that doesn’t get obsolete. You control his Dot via his Bug (his Atari employee mentioned earlier) and end up playing a traditional side-scrolling game at your desk. You guide Dot, unlocking alternate pathways and abilities in this world that you can harness when you return to Dot’s control. It’s a very unique way to approach level design, and it helps improve the overall experience in a way that wouldn’t be possible if each component were on its own. A lot of the game’s great humor shows up even when you’re in the office, allowing you to answer a phone call with a really exciting cameo appearance or hear a chilling conversation about his missile command. The Atari office offers a glimpse into a very specific point in this medium, and its environment is completely littered with gaming history.
The gameplay isn’t advanced enough considering the game’s runtime, but it’s still a fun experience. And for those interested in the history of this medium, there is much to love.
