Let's give Pitfall a respectable showing!

[Great Hierophant]

Pitfall was an amazing game on the 2600, make no mistake. Some of its elements are not original, rolling over logs can be seen in Donkey Kong, scavenger hunts in Adventure, etc. The screen did not scroll in any direction. Others, like the countdown and the warp tunnels, may not have been seen in many games beforehand. But Crane certainly knew how to take all these elements and put together the prototypical side-scroller. Its excellence has made it justly influential, but I don't know how well it was received in Japan, where most of the platformers for the decade after the crash came from. Did Miyamoto play Pitfall before creating Super Mario Bros.?

 

But consider Final Fantasy. The original NES game is rather derivative, or "Dragon Warrior with a Party." I observe no particular innovations it ever gave the RPG genre, except for airships. The party system had been done long before in Ultima III-IV and Wizardry I-III. Its plot was non-existent, its battle system slow and shallow, and progressing through the game was as speedy as Pluto revolving around the Sun. I doubt it influenced many outside of Square. However, it did its share to make RPGs on the console viable, especially in the US. It saved Sqaure from ruin, helping to establish it as the console RPG maker, eventually ensuring the Playstation's dominance. Console RPGs in the Final Fantasy vein are still being made in numbers. Platforming games are a rapidly dying art.

[Stingray]

I'd rather have a '69 Z28 than any Viper. Babe Ruth is the greatest athelete of all time. The original King Kong is a classic and the '76 version was garbage.

 

Of course these are all just my opinions, much like my view of Pitfall is also just my opinion.

 

-S

[tantone56]

scogey for your first post I dont think your looking to make many friends here

What? He made a good point, what is your problem?

 

He's saying that technology improves over time. Cars get better, steroids get better, games get better. Appreciating the historical significance of anything is a different issue than judging total quality.

 

I was joking with him.

[ziggystar]

So... Let's do some comparisions then.

 

1982 Pitfall

 

What other game in 1982 was similiar and better then pitfall.

 

When did Pitfall Exactly come out? We have to go by that too, it wouldn't be fair to compare Pitfall if it came out in January 1982 to a july or august 1982 game because they could have stolen the idea/concept.

[raindog]

Well, it's on to the first Zelda vs. Atari Adventure... and unlike 95% of the voters I voted for Adventure

 

Of course if it were any other Zelda game after the first one I'd have gone with Zelda. I just thought Zelda I was a little raw.

[sku_u]

It's futile to try to argue that Pitfall will beat FF in a gameFAQ poll. Most people who frequent that site weren't even born in the 1980s. If this same poll was posted here, where the majority of audience consists of 20 and 30 somethings, the results may be different.

 

Personally, I'm biased towards Pitfall because it was the most amazing game of it's day and the first game I ever played that allowed for multi-screen side scrolling, but then again I can't stand FF or any other RPGs.

[NovaXpress]

Okay, Pitfall and FF were far enough apart in concept that some kind of argument could be made.

 

But Adventure-Zelda? Is this a joke? The poll is for which game is BETTER, not which game was FIRST. No one in their right mind thinks that Adventure is a better action-adventure than Zelda was. There's no defense for this one.

[moycon]

I voted for Adventure (missed the pitfall poll) but yeah that ones getting slammed as well. Truth be told Zelda is pobably the better game... Nostalgia aside, there's just plain more fun stuff to do in the newer games, In fact they shouldn't be pitting two games from different eras to begin with.

[NovaXpress]

Yes, the comparison is ridiculous. I know some of us oldsters like to vote for 2600 games just to counteract the kids (proving a point to a bunch of trolling teenage net posters - good use of our time) but we can't even pretend that this is realistic anymore.

 

We're old enough to appreciate history. We may have played and loved Adventure more than Zelda, but its not better than Zelda in any concievable way. And we all know this, don't we?

 

It's all good. We're like the historians who bust a nut over some ancient scratches on a cave wall. Sure, its valuable history that deserves to be appreciated and great art in its own right but its not BETTER art than Da Vinci.

[sku_u]

Yes, the comparison is ridiculous.  I know some of us oldsters like to vote for 2600 games just to counteract the kids (proving a point to a bunch of trolling teenage net posters - good use of our time) but we can't even pretend that this is realistic anymore.  

 

We're old enough to appreciate history.  We may have played and loved Adventure more than Zelda, but its not better than Zelda in any concievable way.  And we all know this, don't we?

 

It's all good.  We're like the historians who bust a nut over some ancient scratches on a cave wall.  Sure, its valuable history that deserves to be appreciated and great art in its own right but its not BETTER art than Da Vinci.

 

I absolutely agree with you. How could anyone make an arguement for Adventure over Zelda? Just because Adventure came first, doesn't qualify it as a better game than Zelda unless I somehow slipped into that odd parallel universe where everything's pixilated again.

[moycon]

Well put NovaXpress, And yes I'm in complete agreement.