Game 56: Venture

Name:Venture
Number:56
Year:1981
Publisher:Exidy
Developer:Exidy
Genre:Top-Down
Difficulty:3/5
Time:1 hour

Here's a game I haven't as much as heard of before. That's not to say the general idea of it is all that different than Berzerk or something, but this weird treasure hunting game didn't really have any sort of clones or the ilk to my knowledge. Venture is a treasure hunting game, where you control a smiley face called Winky, who is armed with a crossbow, shoot monsters, and steals treasure. Its unique in a couple of aspects, firstly, there's a big overworld where you go into the rooms with treasure. You can't shoot there, but you can be killed, because that's fair. The second is that monsters corpses stick around for a little while, before they disappear. They're still deadly.

Its a mixed bag, but one I think that depends on my own choice of console. There are good marks, I could see myself genuinely trying to reach the game's win state, and I'm calling a complete collection of items a win state. Shooting's fun. The treasure rooms have some clever moments thrown in, including rooms where you have to avoid obstacles rather than enemies, and some enemies appear after getting the treasure. If you take too long in a room, unkillable enemies spawn, which I didn't find to troublesome. When you rotate, the crossbow has nice animation. Bumping into things, rather than causing my death, has a nice bumping sound and graphical effect.

But...I have some problems, firstly, this is the Intellivision version, so I do dislike that I have to use the old-fashioned shoot button rather than free aim like Night Stalker, even if I realize that's how it was in the arcade game. Secondly, there's no way around it, the sound design is absolutely trash. Now there are some of the usual Intellvision sound effects, but the music. My god, the music. I hope you live without having to hear a horrific rendition of the William Tech Overture among other classics pieces. I'm not sure that Coleco, who did this port, weren't just trying to sabotage Intellivision by making it so bad.

Weapons:
Generic crossbow. Fun, but not that fun. 1/10

Enemies:
More interesting because of the way they're send up, none of them are that special. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Some clever stuff for an arcade game. 2/10

Player Agency:
Move around, shoot, its not that clever. 2/10

Interactivity:
None.

Atmosphere:
Its hard to give a positive score when everything is searing something or another. 0/10

Graphics:
Its there, I guess, but I don't think any of it is appealing on any level. Which is par for the course for the era. 1/10

Story:
Not even a token plot. 0/10

Sound/Music:
Absolutely horrific renditions of classical tunes constantly playing, with the odd sound effect. 0/10

That's 8 points, but I'm removing 2 because of the music. Leading to a final total of 6. Man, I'm getting a lot of sixes lately. Monster Manor was kicking my ass, but hopefully I'll have enough time this week to get a little progress in Elite.