Whimsical Phil
Ninja School will help you
Epyx's classic Impossible Mission has been mentioned a few times in the epic Commodore 64 thread, and understandably so. It's a fantastic game, and it was always one of my favorites on the machine.
For the uninitiated, you play a very James Bond-ish secret agent in Impossible Mission. Your mission (which is said to be quite impossible) is to infiltrate the elevator-filled fortress of the evil Professor Elvin Atombender, avoid his army of killer robots, and hack into his computer system. Before you can do any hacking, however, you must first conduct searches of all the furniture in the lair to find password pieces, that will eventually need to be reassembled like a puzzle.
The room layout and the location of the puzzle pieces are randomly generated each game, giving it a ton of replay value.
The combination of the fast-paced action, smooth animation, maze-like map design, and weird puzzle elements made this unlike any other game that I could play in the mid-80s. Toss in the amazing sound effects (your agents footsteps on the metal floors; the robots' electrical attacks) and the amazing digitized speech (the thread title, "Destroy him, my robots!," and your agent's blood curdling scream as he falls down a pit), and you have a game that blew my 11-year-old mind.
Recently, London developer System 3 and Codemasters released updated versions of the game in the UK for the PS2, PSP, DS, and Wii.
Last November, the DS version was released in the U.S. as a Gamestop exclusive. It's still available through the company's website for only $10, and chances are you'll be able to find it in most stores as well (a quick search of the stores within 50 miles of me showed that each store had 1-3 copies, with many stores having 4 or more in stock).
In a completely unadvertised move, the Wii version was recently released in the U.S. as well. I found my copy (for $20) at an FYE. I had gone to the store to pick up the fairly scarce Wii version of Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, and was surprised to see Impossible Mission sitting alongside it on a display of crappy Wii shovelware.
Both of these new versions sport three modes: Classic, New, and Merged.
Classic is, of course, a recreation of the C64 original. New sports gussied-up backgrounds and character sprites. You can also choose between three different agents: the guy, a gal, and a robot. Despite the different appearances, they all play the same. New mode also features updated voice samples. Merged is exactly like New mode, but replaces the agent graphic with the original sprite. It would have been nice had this mode sported the classic robots as well, but sadly it does not.
I've put a bit of time into both versions now, and here are some random, unorganized thoughts:
DS version
* Quite nice, especially for $10. Classic mode seems rather faithful to the original, and the New mode looks pretty good.
* Using the stylus on the puzzle assembly screen is nice.
* Being forced to use the stylus on title and character select screen is stupid. Why can't I just select "New Game" with the d-pad and the A button?
Wii version
* Very disappointing, especially for $20. Classic mode looks very ugly, and the agent's sprite has a weird black outline around him.
* The controls are a bit awkward. You only use the Wii Remote (sans nunchuk), but you can't hold it NES-style. Using the d-pad while holding the Remote normally isn't terribly comfortable. You can use either A or B to jump...B works much better.
* The hit detection is WAY off while jumping. Normally, the robots aren't too difficult to jump over, but in this version you must be EXTREMELY precise or else you'll get zapped. Jumps that work in the original and DS versions are lethal here.
* This version doesn't include the original digitized voice samples, even in Classic mode! The DS version does, why not this one?
If you're only going to get one version, definitely go with the DS one. It's half the price and a significantly better game. I'm still glad that I picked up the Wii version just because it seems like it's going to be fairly rare, but otherwise, I'd pass.
For the uninitiated, you play a very James Bond-ish secret agent in Impossible Mission. Your mission (which is said to be quite impossible) is to infiltrate the elevator-filled fortress of the evil Professor Elvin Atombender, avoid his army of killer robots, and hack into his computer system. Before you can do any hacking, however, you must first conduct searches of all the furniture in the lair to find password pieces, that will eventually need to be reassembled like a puzzle.
The room layout and the location of the puzzle pieces are randomly generated each game, giving it a ton of replay value.
The combination of the fast-paced action, smooth animation, maze-like map design, and weird puzzle elements made this unlike any other game that I could play in the mid-80s. Toss in the amazing sound effects (your agents footsteps on the metal floors; the robots' electrical attacks) and the amazing digitized speech (the thread title, "Destroy him, my robots!," and your agent's blood curdling scream as he falls down a pit), and you have a game that blew my 11-year-old mind.
Recently, London developer System 3 and Codemasters released updated versions of the game in the UK for the PS2, PSP, DS, and Wii.
Last November, the DS version was released in the U.S. as a Gamestop exclusive. It's still available through the company's website for only $10, and chances are you'll be able to find it in most stores as well (a quick search of the stores within 50 miles of me showed that each store had 1-3 copies, with many stores having 4 or more in stock).
In a completely unadvertised move, the Wii version was recently released in the U.S. as well. I found my copy (for $20) at an FYE. I had gone to the store to pick up the fairly scarce Wii version of Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, and was surprised to see Impossible Mission sitting alongside it on a display of crappy Wii shovelware.
Both of these new versions sport three modes: Classic, New, and Merged.
Classic is, of course, a recreation of the C64 original. New sports gussied-up backgrounds and character sprites. You can also choose between three different agents: the guy, a gal, and a robot. Despite the different appearances, they all play the same. New mode also features updated voice samples. Merged is exactly like New mode, but replaces the agent graphic with the original sprite. It would have been nice had this mode sported the classic robots as well, but sadly it does not.
I've put a bit of time into both versions now, and here are some random, unorganized thoughts:
DS version
* Quite nice, especially for $10. Classic mode seems rather faithful to the original, and the New mode looks pretty good.
* Using the stylus on the puzzle assembly screen is nice.
* Being forced to use the stylus on title and character select screen is stupid. Why can't I just select "New Game" with the d-pad and the A button?
Wii version
* Very disappointing, especially for $20. Classic mode looks very ugly, and the agent's sprite has a weird black outline around him.
* The controls are a bit awkward. You only use the Wii Remote (sans nunchuk), but you can't hold it NES-style. Using the d-pad while holding the Remote normally isn't terribly comfortable. You can use either A or B to jump...B works much better.
* The hit detection is WAY off while jumping. Normally, the robots aren't too difficult to jump over, but in this version you must be EXTREMELY precise or else you'll get zapped. Jumps that work in the original and DS versions are lethal here.
* This version doesn't include the original digitized voice samples, even in Classic mode! The DS version does, why not this one?
If you're only going to get one version, definitely go with the DS one. It's half the price and a significantly better game. I'm still glad that I picked up the Wii version just because it seems like it's going to be fairly rare, but otherwise, I'd pass.
