25 years ago, one of the greatest platformers ever hit the market; it was called Rick Dangerous and the older gamers amongst you will certainly recognise the fedora wearing hero with the revolver and remember his adventures fondly.
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Eurogamer has whipped up an article about the game, filled with gaming memories and stories about the first game Core Design (which later brought you Lara Croft) ever built. Here’s a small part to get you started:
If you’ve spent any time at all with Rick Dangerous, it’s this sound effect that will bring it all flooding back. At first, the memories will likely be fond ones: here was a game that seemed to combine the best of eccentric 8-bit character and game design with cinematic 16-bit sparkle. (My experience was on the surprisingly well-reviewed Amiga version, and the various 8-bit adaptations mostly scored well with the gaming press.) Rick Dangerous may have borrowed heavily from an existing intellectual property – and it probably didn’t hurt that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out in that same golden summer of 1989 – but it gave those elements its own cheeky, cartoonish spin.
The beautifully crafted box artwork may have echoed Drew Struzan’s iconic Indy posters, but the in-game sprites followed a very different artistic tradition: that of the classic British comic strip. All the characters are squat, chunky and have their headgear pulled down so far over their heads that all you can see is a toothy grin – Rick himself looks like Bully Beef from The Dandy gleefully cosplaying as Doctor Jones. From the fanfare menu music to the tongue-in-cheek newsreel that introduced each level, it was a game brimming with fun, character and confidence, and made the world of Rick Dangerous seem like a pleasingly fully-realised place.
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You can check out the rest of the article here.
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