I. Like. That. Bat.

After all the years of playing this game since 1982, knowing it backwards and forwards and being able to maneuver even the "dark maze" with my eyes closed and the volume down while Journey's Escape album turned on the record player -- I never knew that there was a secret room. At least, I don't remember any secret room. Maybe I... did? But my memory isn't what it used to be. I'll have to ask my brother Cullen, who remembers every detail with Rainman savant-like accuracy. Heck, he probably has old notebooks filled with obsessive sketches of the contents in that room after just one glimpse. Yeah, it's been interesting to say the least, growing up with an autistic little brother.

But I really was hooked on Adventure back in 1982. With me being the only kid on the block with an Atari 2600 my friends would pour into my house to plop down on the floor beside me and help me work my way through those mazes while Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" cranked repeatedly in the background (and "Apache" by the Sugarhill Gang, which also got played a lot while this game was on the screen). And sure, the graphics are as rudimentary as they come, with a little square with a "sword" (which we all through looked like an arrow) and dragons that resembled something between a seahorse and a duck (that hyper-aggressive red dragon would nearly make me pee my Ocean Pacific shorts every time). Plus whenever Cullen would play and the bat would steal his key or sword, Cully would always mumble "I like that bat.", a sort of in-joke between us taken from an episode of The Flintstones where Fred would continuously chant "I like my mother-in-law." in a useless attempt to convince himself.

But you know, it was a fun game. A game that convinced me forever that it's not the snappy graphics that make a game actually pleasurable to play, but the nature of the gameplay itself. That infectious little mind-tickle that makes you want to keep coming back to scratch that itch over and over. Not like we obsessed over Tetris because somebody sunk a million dollars into the graphics department. Dang, I want another Atari 2600 again. With the original joysticks. The ones on the Atari Flashback just don't cut the mustard.