Game Review

Airlock from Data Age is an Atari 2600 original and one of the many games companies were churning out to try to jump on the video game bandwagon. This awful title looks like it's not much more than a starting point or even just a programming exercise than an actual, complete game. The goal is to have your man escape a sinking sub; starting at the bottom, the goal is to climb up multiple floors before the rising water catches up. Not a bad concept, but it goes downhill from there. For starters, there's not much to the game — if you make it to the top, you win and the game is over. If you don't, the game is over. There's no real variations, or continuing on to more difficult levels, scoring, or anything at all to keep you wanting to come back to the game; once you make it to the top that's the entire game! Graphically, the game is unimpressive. If you're playing the U.S. version, there's not even any animations to your character as it moves. The European version is a little better looking with a running animation for your character, but that difference doesn't affect the gameplay. This lack of animations applies to the water also; you have limited time (10 seconds) to make it through each floor, and then the water instantly jumps up to fill the entire floor (if you're still there, game over). If you get knocked down by one of the torpedoes, you are temporarily stunned — recovery isn't impossible but it can be very difficult, especially if the torpedo reverses direction and almost instantly knocks you down again. The barriers you need to jump can be annoying when there's more than one near each other. They knock you backwards costing time, and the timing for when to correctly jump over them is a little twitchy. Sound is, well, present; there's some bings and buzzes, nothing noteworthy.

All around, this title is a terrible effort for the 2600, especially in 1982 when there were plenty of fun games available; definitely a D-. I like the unique concept, and had the developers taken the time this probably could have been turned into a decent title. But as it is, it's an annoying and dull game to play, and there's no reward for it all if you win other than a simple man jumping up and down animation.