02
Legends for the Atari 2600
Release: Full version to release soon
Words: Carl Williams
Interesting: Different take on the horror movie genre
Improve it by: Adding more movie monsters
Annoying Because: We have to wait for the final version
Who doesn’t remember
the first time they
watched a horror movie
as a child? Whether it
be Chucky, Nightmare
on Elm Street or Friday
the 13th, they all had a
lasting effect on our
young psyches. Horror movies take on the audience by
using our basic fears against us, fear of the dark, nightmares, people in hockey masks, little dolls coming to life
and trying to kill us. You know, the normal fears of
growing up.
into watching these
horror
movies,
an
aficionado
of
the
macabre.
Similar to the idea behind Halloween III:
Season of the Witch
where the fourth wall is demolished, though Legends is
set to have a much better go at it than that atrocity of a
horror movie.
With a similar premise, Legends tells the story of Chip
who we have established knows horror movies inside and
out (without parental permission of course). One day,
Chip receives a new game in the mail, another dream of
every kid is free games so you know he opened it without
reading anything about it and plugged it into his console
and well, that is when life goes downhill for young Chip.
The Atari 2600 had a few horror games based on various
properties including Texas Chainsaw Massacre and
Halloween. There were a few original horror titles such
as Haunted House and Frankenstein’s Monster but they
were scary for reasons other than a license that evoked
fear by name alone for many.
This game is not just any game, it is a game that opens a
portal into the worlds of the horror movies that Chip
loves so much. Talk about breaking down the fourth
wall. Time for Chip to don his favorite hockey mask and
striped sweater and enter the world of living horror.
Since the Atari 2600 is quite open architecture, probably
an accident beset out of overall cheapness, the homebrew
community has been able to run rampant on the, long,
defunct hardware. Legends is just one such homebrew
title that is being worked on by a small team of homebrew
developers, artists and audio engineers. What sets
Legends apart though is the setting.
Each level is headed by a major horror icon such as
Leatherface, Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger just to
name a few of the included horror icons. More are being
added. Traversing the levels requires avoiding traps and
denizens such as bats that are just as annoying here as in
other games. We will have more information on our site
for Legends as it becomes available.
You are put in control of a little kid named Chip who is
probably about the same age as most of us were when we
first discovered what “slasher flick” meant. Chip is really
19