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Enduro (Atari 2600)

Programmed by Larry Miller

THIS REVIEW IS NOT YET PROOF-READ.
When I decided to review games for this website, for some reason I was immediately drawn to Enduro on Atari. The game has some sort of energy that draws me in, to the point where it may be my favorite Atari game that I own (Toss up between Enduro and Joust, but in Joust you ride on ostriches, so that's high praise). Visually the game is obviously primitive by modern standards, but for the 2600 it's pretty impressive. The game attempts a behind-the-vehicle racing perspective like Sega's hang-on would attempt, but 2 years earlier and on hardware that frankly might as well be a sophisticated rock and stick compared to the sprite-scaling monster that Sega's super scaler hardware would be.



Obviously the game doesn't completely succeed in this effort. The perspective is not at all convincing, the vanishing point of the road is clearly visible in a disorienting way, and the size of incoming cars changes in a way that doesn't really resemble an approaching vehicle convincingly. But it works well enough that once you're engrossed in the gameplay the illusion really comes together. Beyond all this, the game has character! If you know the general level of quality expected from an Atari 2600 game, you would know that this is where the story could've ended. A passable approximation of a 3D driving experience is more than enough to impress on the hardware. But in Enduro visuals and gameplay are interwoven in a way that makes the experience more than its parts.

Enduro's gameplay follows this general formula: You start the game, and each in-game day with a certain number of cars that you must pass. The day starts normally, but then progresses to snow (a strange daily weather phenomenon), dusk, night, dawn, and then day again. If you haven't passed the required number of cars, you lose. What makes this interesting, to me, is how these visual changes also effect gameplay. Sure, snow is straightfoward, with grip becoming worse when it's snowy, but the night sections are where I get interested.

Rather than just giving the game a darker palette, the dusk and dawn sections also replace the obstacle cars with just tail lights, requiring the player to avoid the same vehicles but with less visual input to work from. Then, during the night section the entire top half of the road is obscured, requiring the player to slow down to avoid collisions.

The gameplay generally changingething I have a lot to say about. The Atari joystick only had one button, so a "modern" solution of using one button to accelerate and one to break couldn't really have been used. But interestingly the solution that was used I think suits the game much better. Rather than using the fire button as a facsimile of a gas peddle as might be expected, the car in Enduro is in something of a constant cruise-control state, where the fire button increases the cruise speed, and back on the joystick lowers the speed. This gives you greater control over the speed of your vehicle, which is important in a game where passing cars and avoiding collisions is the entire gameplay loop, but also it turns slowing down into a very conscious action, rather than the reaction of letting go of the gas to slow down.

This plays into the risk-reward that really makes this game click as a play experience. The game obviously rewards speed, because going fast is how you pass other cars, but it also punishes speed. The faster you go, the less time there is to react to incoming cars. Especially during the night phase, if you're going to quickly you will be punished for being greedy with your speed.

There are other things I could touch on about this game, like how the limited implementation of the road programming means that sometimes it will feel like you're spending ages driving in a big circle, but ultimately I think what I want the takeaway to be here is that games are art, and not only games that were made after technology allowed them to be visual spectacle. Enduro is a game that took incredibly limited hardware, and created something that was technically impressive for the time, but I think still warrants discussion today. It kind of captures the feeling of a long drive that passes that precipice from day to night, or night to morning, but in a more game-y way. It's got a vibe, it's art, and I think it's good art at that.

In summary, Enduro bangs and you should play it.

But don't take my word for it! Thanks to the power of modern technology, you can play the game here. Although be aware that in my personal opinion, the lack of RF noise really does hurt the experience.