H.E.R.O. - Atari 2600

H.E.R.O. is a unique game about a guy, his helicopter backpack, his laser beam shooting helmet, his desire to blow stuff up with dynamite and his sense of bravery to constantly rescue helpless idiots who somehow got stuck at the bottom of dangerous caves.



Graphics 10

The amazing thing is how great and varied each room can look. (Considering that this is an Atari 2600 game.) Your hero is well drawn and decked out in a red, white (well, more grey than white) and blue uniform with yellow helicopter blades.
All the critters can be easily identified. Room lighting can vary, depending on how deep you are or if you blew out the room's light, then lit dynamite to see by.
Even the liquid can be seen splashing around in some rooms. And, that guy who needs to be rescued and seems to always find a corner to hide in...he, too, looks very much like a guy in need of help.

It is hard to believe that this is a game playing on an Atari. Everything is well drawn with plenty of colour. Except for the occasional thin line passing for a standing platform in the drink, you can easily tell what is what with a simple glance. And, yet, the game does not get overboard with unnecessary eye candy. (Like Atari games ever did that...)



Gameplay 10

Our hero has quite a game on his hands. And, his game world consists of underground caverns. Caverns full of barrier walls that he must blast through with his trusty load of dynamite or melt with his mighty laser eye rays. Caverns full of deadly creatures who crawl, fly or burrow through the ground.
Caverns full of deadly liquids, waiting to add him to its substance. Caverns full of strange dirt substances that are more venomous than any snake known to Man. And, caverns that get longer... And longer... And longer, as you clear stage after stage after stage.

These caverns are actually a series of "rooms" that the hero walks through. In each room, there can be walls, creatures, liquids, deadly soil, wall lights, choices of routes and exits that can go in any one of the four directions.
You can literally retrace your steps and return to the first "room", if you wish to. This game is just that open for exploration. Though, there is one thing stopping you.

Your helicopter backpack thingie is very short on fuel/electricity. When it is gone, you are stranded and commit suicide. (Or, something.)
Our hero controls pretty well... But, he does have an intentional flaw. When on solid soil, you can press left and he walks left. Tap left and he takes one step to the left. Pull down and he lights a stick of dynamite. Press right and he walks right. (And, away from the blast zone.)
The intentional problem comes from using the helicopter flight controls. Hold up and the thing "whirls up" until it has enough lift force to make the hero lift his feet off of the ground.

Controlling the hero in flight literally requires learning a whole new control technique. (And, trust me, levels 10 and up require some pretty tight use of that unique flight control.) While this was designed to make the control a little more realistic to the spinning up and down of the heli-blades, it really just makes an otherwise excellent arcade control situation frustratingly hard. There is really not much way to explain this control without actually having the game in front of you as an example.
If you can master the flight controls, this game will become easier.

This game actually has many levels to it... (I've made it to level 35.) and each level has its own unique cave "rooms".
The first level literally has the hero blow away a single wall, drop down one "room", shoot a deadly bat and grab the idiot victim.
Stage 2 introduces a couple more rooms and another critter. Each stage after that gets a little more complicated and introduces more and more elements. So, the game does have a nice learning curve. But, the real challenge comes from mastering that flight control. The later stages demand it.



Sound 5

As usual in 2600 games, the sounds suffer a little. There is no music to speak of. And, what sounds there are pretty much come from what the hero is doing.
Light the dynamite, it goes Ssssssss.... BOOM! Fire the laser eye beam and it goes EeEEeeeEEEeeeEEee. Use the helicopter backpack and you get Choopa-choopa-choopa-choopa. Step on a deadly critter, and our hero produces this weird surprised chime sound.
I guess that for the time it was pretty good and it did it's job, but I know that the 2600 was capable of better sound, not by much but I know it could do it.



Story... I'm sure there is one. So, I'll say 7

It's not every year that you hear of the "Boy in the abandoned well being rescued by a single guy with a micro-helicopter strapped to his back" story. And, that is precisely what this hero dude is all about.
And, even if the story isn't that complicated, it is still better than the story about an Italian plumber going after a big ape with a hammer to save some chick or an alien attack whose method of invading the Earth is to march slowly back and forth in the air while letting some land vehicle take pop shots at their invasion force.
Forget protecting the Earth from aliens! We got idiots cowering in holes to save!
It's basic, it's basically non-existent, and even with this guys gadgetry it's believable. BUT! Do you play Atari games for believable realism? HELL NO! The gameplay is the true star here!



Conclusion 8.5

This is a game that was made before its time, and made well.
While it did have ports to the Atari 5200, ColecoVision and the Commodore 64, (I have played the 64 version... It looks and plays exactly like the 2600 version.) this game still did not get the fame and attention it should have gotten that unfortunately instead went to Pitfall Harry and his vine swinging, alligator jumping, scorpion hopping adventures in the classic game, Pitfall.

H.E.R.O., you are indeed a hero, simply for not grabbing Harry and shovelling some of that toxic dirt into his face, and you are well deserving of your excellent rating.