#299 – The Immortal

Will Harvey pulls no punches.

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Electronic Arts

DEVELOPER: Sandcastle

GENRE: Action/Adventure

RELEASE DATE: November 1990

The Immortal is an old-school dungeon crawler of devious proportions. You play a wizard who must walk cautiously through a series of rooms. The occasional fight transports you to a “battle screen,” which gives you the options to fight or dodge your opponents attacks. The latter is a fantastic respite from what is otherwise an unforgiving game. Progression in The Immortal is slow and, ultimately, meaningless unless you have the patience (and underlying masochistic tendencies) of someone who relishes dying repeatedly in video games. The game isn’t really hard, per say. It just desires to kill you and ensure that you stay dead. Each room conjures up new ways for the Main Wizard to die, whether it be trap floors (never marked), skulls spitting arrows, or bats you can hardly see because the pixelated rendering is borderline abominable.

To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how to feel about this game. I certainly admire the gleeful enthusiasm that went into making it. Each room’s deathtraps were labors of obvious love. Still, call me old-fashioned (or new-fashioned, I suppose) but I like to progress through my video games and get to the end without dying a thousand times. Unless you have passwords, which come from beating each level, you start over at the beginning of the level every time you die. This is pretty standard stuff for most games, but most games also reward the player for trying to progress. The Immortal– incredibly ironic title aside – hopes the player will take part in the murderous madness contained within its cavernous walls. I couldn’t, but for the right person, it could be worth it.

B-