This month was a no-brainer, as Unchartered 2 has been on high rotation it got me thinking about Tomb Raider and of course Pitfall!.
The Atari 2600 was in its last year of production in ’82, soon to be replaced by the ill-conceived 5200, when Pitfall! hit the streets. Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark was almost certainly a massive inspiration and the creator David Crane (Activision co-founder and creator of Ghostbusters and Freeway) has said that the game was devised in only a few hours.
Pitfall! is one of the first ever side-scrolling platform games, produced even before side-scrolling was supported by the hardware. All the conventions of platforming are here − jumping, climbing and swinging with crocodiles, snakes and tar-pits.
It should be pointed out that Atari itself released a licensed Raiders game in the same year but it was a cryptic mess of a game, devoid of all the high action adventure of the film.
Taito, who created Space Invaders, also released a Tarzan/Indiana-type game too, with running and jumping.
It even has swimming too
but didn’t have the style or depth to compete with Pitfall!.
Pitfall! is a wonderfully tight, well-paced game and sold a lot of cartridges. Activision (only three years old) knew it was on to something and had some TV commercials created for the UK and US (both on YouTube). Even the cover of the game
was well designed.
Recently I listened to a podcast (RetroCity by Levi Buchanan) where Pitfall! is compared to Unchartered 2. It’s a wholly incompatible comparison, not just because of the gulf in graphics or even the lack of combat but because these two games, both as good as each other, demand something different from the player. One is an interactive story with a solid shooter where are the 8-bit classic is a game of timing with no story to speak of.
There were plenty of sequels but it’s only the original that
is remembered now with Tomb Raider accepting the mantle and taking it in to the
third dimension.
Pitfall! was the first scrolling platformer that made me sit

up and take notice with the genuine thrill of swinging over a crocodile infested pool. For my money Pitfall! is the best Atari 2600 game ever made.