Okay, here's the story: you're rescuing your buddies who are trapped inside a deep, dark cavern. You have a helicopter pack strapped to your back, a finite supply of dynamite and a pistol. As you lower yourself down into the cavern, you must avoid or destroy such foes as bats, snakes, spiders and other nasties. There are also walls of the cavern that you shouldn't touch or else you'll fry until you die. And, using that trusty dynamite, you have to strategically decide which walls to remove from your path via explosion and which to go around so as to conserve your fire power. Oh yeah, there's a time limit, too. If all this sounds like your cup of tea, then you're ready to take on this vintage yet relatively obscure Activision Atari game called H.E.R.O.

H.E.R.O. is a quirky, non-typical Atari video game, produced by a company known for non-conventional, breaking the mold type videogames. The graphics, while very blocky & Atari-esque, are just enough to give you that feeling of forboding and gloom while on this desperate mission to save your foolish pals who have somehow ended up at the very bottom of the cavern. Activision lulls you into thinking it's going to be easy what with a couple fairly simple beginning levels. But then you realize that you can easily run out of explosives, underestimate your foes and conceivable find yourself in the same predicament as those who you were supposed to save.

Other Activision games shared this diabolical sense of paring down the rules and limiting your arsenal so as to force you to think strategically. In Seaquest, you have to be careful not to run out of oxygen as your sub battles evil in the ocean. In Megamania, you had to watch out that you didn't overheat your spaceship while shooting like mad at your mindless, never ceasing to descend foes. In Enduro, you may have thought the first "day" of play was a walk in the park, but then when they increase the number of cars you're required to pass, you realize that it's white knuckle driving or the loser's circle for you, baby.

-Ad for H.E.R.O.

H.E.R.O. remains a favorite of mine, not only because of it's playability and stunning retro good looks, but because it's a game I don't think I can really beat and see the very end of it. I'm not sure how fast and how relentless this game can get because it continues to trip me up just when I thought things were going okay. But I guess if I knew I could defeat it once and for all, I wouldn't necessarily be here raving about it.

-Doug Chapel