 October 29, 2004:
I've already reviewed the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Atari game, an infamous "adult" title made by Wizard Video in 1983. With graphics, sounds and schematics that seem perfectly laughable by today's standards, it's hard not to imagine a kid being freaked out at least by the idea of Leatherface slicing up their character in a video game. Perhaps even more unsettling to those who formulated opinions based on misleading promo art was Wizard's other horrific Atari game, Halloween. Very rare and yet not totally unattainable, most of those who've played the title have only done so recently and on an emulator. The actual cartridges sporadically pop up on eBay and garner outrageously high bids, because Michael Myers historically collects fans of a nature highbrow enough to be able to afford really rare twenty year old Atari games. But was the game any good?
Difficult to say. It's certainly better than Chainsaw, with more reasonable controls and a goal driven by some seeming semblance of a point. Whenever Myers would appear in the game, he'd be ushered in by a neat theme that mimicked the movies' classic piano torture well enough. The gore was ever-present but nominal; the real coup was knowing that you'd found such a rebellious video game, something to brag to your friends about. Halloween wasn't purchased in toy or department stores very frequently -- if you found it, you at least went through a little trouble first. In such prehistoric examples of home gaming horror, it was nice to see a character so familiar and beloved, even if he looked like a shitty pile of wrongly colored blocks.
Shown above is the game synopsis as printed in the manual. Notice how no characters from the movie are ever directly named, either the result of poor research or simple thriftiness with the licensing budget. It's commonly accepted that players portray Laurie Strode. (that's Jamie Lee Curtis for the whosawhatsit folks) Still, key elements from the film survive: you're a teenage girl, you've got a murderer in a jumpsuit chasing you with a knife, and there's a couple of bratty kids to shake shit up a bit. The game is endless as far as I know (but probably isn't; let's say there's a black screen with some misspelled congratulatory message after the 268th level), with players saving as many children as they can in the span of three lives, each life denoted by a sinister pumpkin graphic near the top of the screen. If you did well, the realism of the game's plot was undeniably weakened because there's no way to explain why you were single-handedly babysitting 4,000 kids.
I'll give you some more intimate details on the game in a bit; first, let's meet the characters and make fun of the crude graphics because we today are better than these terrible cavemen of yesteryear, ur-urgahing this and club-bashing that.
 Possibly Laurie Strode:
In the first movie, Laurie Strode wasn't as much a hero as someone who just lasted longer. On the positive side, the character was resilient and able to look halfway decent even while wearing the same nightie my grandmother died in. We'd later draw a bloodline between Michael and Laurie, providing Strode a rich history that could only be captured in the Atari game by giving her a huge brown ass and a body shaped like a can of ginger ale. As Laurie, a player must save endless amounts of children, stab Michael Myers countless times, all the while humming the Almond Joy song.
 Michael Myers / The Shape / Unnamed In Manual:
Vaguely identifiable, you'll have to use magic alien sunglasses to separate Michael's head from the flesh colored knife he wields. As in the movies, Myers sole derivative is to kill kill kill, and that he does. Popping out from odd corners, Myers' attempt at being inconspicuous is lessened by the damn music that plays whenever he's about to try something crappy on you. You can't actually kill him in the game, but stabbing Michael slows him down just long enough for you to drop off another kid in the secret black rooms scattered throughout the most ugly house in Atari history.
 Helpless Disfigured Children:
The most mandatory yet least attractive aspect of the game involves Laurie's quest to save stupid children from Michael's grasp. Basically, you grab a kid as you would any power-up, lead 'em to a doorway and deposit them for bonus points. Complicating matters is the fact that, while leading the kids, Laurie can't snatch the knife and is absolutely at Myers' mercy. The game developers chose to make the hapless children appear particularly well endowed, because when you're getting an "adults only" sticker stamped on your product regardless, you might as well give the kids big bulging cocks. Now that we know the players, here's the game they all had fun playing together...
The two story house features dozens of rooms that all look the same save for one room's color scheme being uglier than the previous. Really gotta feel for Laurie on this one -- when you take a babysitting assignment, the lure of raiding some near-stranger's fridge and personal belongings is just as thrilling as the four bucks an hour. No such luck in this case -- the house is veritably empty, without a single vase, television set or liquor cabinet to sift through with trembling fingers. And oh yeah, a killer is running around inside. That's what she gets for babysitting on Halloween -- who would ever want to do that?
Your primary goal is saving the children, and to accomplish this, you position Laurie above a kid's head, locking 'em in and forcing them to tag along as you literally drag them to cold dark rooms. The children vanish after being deposited, because that's what kids do. There's a few stairways and ill-defined secret passages, but what you see above is pretty much it. Occasionally, the upper level will experience a blackout, forcing you to dodge Michael in absolutely darkness. It's one of the more annoying aspects of the game, but it admittedly creates a sense of urgency that'll make you play with much more heart. After all, Michael stalks at slug-speed. The few other obstacles provide the game's real intensity.
Course, anyone who played Halloween only wanted to battle with the big man, and to do that, you're gonna need a weapon...
The black thing shown on the lower level is the knife, which appears on the floor in different parts of the house throughout the game. After grabbing it (a remarkable feat since it's taller than Laurie), you're free to chase Michael down and prick at his eyeballs. Remember, you can't save kids while holding the knife, and you can't grab the knife while saving a kid. Laurie Strode is so bad at multitasking. If you're able to stab Michael, he'll flee the room only to return moments later as if nothing happened. JUST LIKE THOSE MOVIES HE'S IN! Players can only advance to higher levels (which look the same but grow progressively more difficult) by either stabbing Myers twice or rescuing five kids. I'd opt for the double stabbing -- less work and more fun.
I'm not prepared to call Halloween a great game, but in as far as Atari land, I've played a Hell of a lot worse. The gaming industry hasn't exactly been kind to Myers and his bloody franchise, and I'd rather have a crude, half-assed weirdo freak Atari game than nothing at all. Wizard Video's wares live on in infamy not just for being officially licensed horror games on a console of which there were so few available, but because of the alleged gore factor. If you bought a title like Halloween, you expected a little bloodshed. Sadly, you had to lose one of your lives to see it...
 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It's not easy to die in Halloween, requiring you to be both thoroughly distracted and directly in Michael's path. The payoff for your idiotic fumble is worth it, as Laurie's head vanishes with a flick of his blade, leaving her goofy body standing there with blood squirting. Fun. Amazingly, Laurie can afford to lose her head three times before being completely wiped out, showing the kind of durability that made her bruddah famous.
There's really no reason to track down the cartridge unless you're an absolute Atari/Halloween fanatic. It's not the kind of game that plays much better on the old joysticks than on the keyboard arrows most commonly associated with emulators. I won't offer the download in fear of people asking me how to get the game working properly, but a quick search on Google should provide no less than 50,000 sites with the zip files you're looking for.
- Matt (10/29/04)
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