Jupiter Mission 1999 (1983)

Name:Jupiter Mission 1999
Number:261
Year:1984
Publisher:Avalon Hill
Developer:Scott Lamb
Genre:Space Simulation
Systems:Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64
Country of Origin:USA
Difficulty:5/5
Time:1 hour
Won:No (115W/88L)

Avalon Hill is one of the stranger publishers I've covered games from. It's been a million years ago since Voyager I as one of the first FPS games, and most of their oveure have been very strange. Especially since Avalon Hill is the computer arm of a board game publisher. That they keep coming up is just so odd to me. Here we have a space simulation, multi-game adventure. At least, this is how it's been described to me.

The game was released on the Atari 8-bit range and Commodore 64. Both are very unwieldy to play. I'm not good enough at Atari BASIC to figure out the former and the C64 version has a lot of loading. A lot. I hope I'm getting the authentic experience and not the sped up version, because otherwise, I really wonder how this sold anything at all back in the day. 

Shockingly, unlike most games from this era, not only is the story in-game, it's more than you get in the freaking manual. Not quite a wall of text, but dozens of pages of four lines of text. It isn't an improvement. It's a small story detailing how I was awakened one cold night to more or less shanghaied by government agents to a space port. I've been selected to go on a manned space mission to Jupiter. As in, the moment we arrive, they're injecting me with stuff and handing me manuals for space flight. Which is at odds with the cheery tone the game's prose takes, because this seems less triumphant rando gets the chance of a lifetime and more random schmuck gets used as a guinea pig.

The ship the game will be on, the Space Beagle, has an artificial intelligence of some fancy, schmancy classification which I'm sure I'll remember two minutes after I stop typing. The important thing is, it's a true AI, which I would think would be the bigger step forward compared to going to Jupiter. There are two other people on the ship, the commander, along with the navigator/engineer.

Now, the game doesn't start yet, because the trip to Jupiter takes place in the prose. Instead, we get the backstory of why this trip is happening. A strange signal was received back in '97, one that was obviously sent by intelligent life. Not from some faraway star, but from Jupiter. Two of the best astronauts would be sent along with some rando, which feeds back into game feeling at odds with what's actually happening. Because I'm being told this by the AI, who could either be told a lie to keep it docile, or it could be lying to me because it doesn't want to spook me. Considering that I'm supposed to be a wildcard and the success of the mission might hinge based on my reactions, it feels like someone isn't being completely honest. 

Finally, we get some gameplay. The ship is rocked by explosions, because we're in an asteroid shower. The initial attack was so damaging that it killed the two astronauts and destroyed the Beagle's command circuits. I have to do manual control. Manually control the ship's defenses to prevent further asteroid hits. I'm reasonably certain there's nothing in the solar system like this, except if the ship is deliberately trying to kill us. You could have altered our course a million miles back so we don't get smashed to pieces. Fuel is at a premium, but dying isn't going to help our mission.

This works like most Missile Command style games, except there's only one missile spawning in at a time. Oh, and you sort of shoot missiles back. It's a giant asterisk, so it might be a plasma blast. Lead your target, and shoot them down. Survive long enough for the ship to get out. Sounds easy, right? Right? Right? Right!?

I hope you went to the rest room before playing this section, because when I completed the section, there were 91 meteors. The second time I played this as a test, I was wondering what the hell was going on by the 30th. How long do you plan on sitting in the middle of a meteor shower, Beagle? You said command circuits were disabled, not that the ship was lying dead in space. Are you trying to kill me Beagle?

I hope you went to the rest room before playing this section, because when I completed the section, there were 91 meteors. The second time I played this as a test, I was wondering what the hell was going on by the 30th. How long do you plan on sitting in the middle of a meteor shower, Beagle? You said command circuits were disabled, not that the ship was lying dead in space. Are you trying to kill me Beagle?

Because merely being tedious and long wouldn't be enough, the whole experience is difficult too. Aiming the cursor is as fun as any joystick aiming exercise. Which is to say, it isn't. Whatever, some games can make it work. Except that the cursor is inaccurate and the way your blasts arc is...well, you see that dot at the bottom? That's your gun. Shots come from that and there are multiple places where shots don't work the way they should work. Worst of all, the hitboxes of your shots and the asteroids are confusing and difficult to understand. I've seen multiple shots just fly past an asteroid.

After abusing save states and finally making it through, the Beagle congratulates me for somehow managing to survive. I took two meteors, less because I wanted to and more because I just couldn't kill them/suspected I needed some damage for the next section. (No one is getting through this without getting hit, no one) Because his command circuits are damaged, I now need to manually select which sections the robots will repair.

This is slow work, but at least at this point, you can save. Slowly move your cursor to the right, repairing any systems that were damaged. At first this seems simple, but no, it's a very bizarre mini-game where you have to match colors. You selection one color to match to the primary flashing color which...doesn't actually make sense since the colors aren't flashing, they're changing. Which one's the primary color. The keys in this section are not quite registering, so I really don't know what it is I'm doing here.

To help, the game issues a series of tones, which tell you roughly how long you have before you either win or lose at this particular mini-game. It's very annoying. Very, very annoying. It's not the worst thing I've heard or the worst thing I've played, but it is aggravating. As I tried to figure the game out, the only thing that seemed to happen was the sound slowly getting higher and higher. The sounds seem to be roughly tied into the colors, but after every action you need to relearn which sound goes to which color, so this isn't any help. Nothing I do seems to work, so I eventually just take the opportunity the game provides me to just ignore this and go onto the next section. Sure as heck not doing the first one again.

Section three is all about navigation. That is, the computer's down, so you have to do everything. To say I wasn't expecting to manually do this particular task or that I'd get so much data that I genuinely wonder if it's useful or not, is an understatement. That said, in order to advance to the next section, you need to scan the system, so Jupiter shows up, simulate your trajectory, then, using eyeballing it, change your course in the burn menu, hoping you get it right in one whole action. Assuming you don't save in-game, this will take about ten seconds each menu change. Which is every button you press.

The intended method of doing this, therefore is to slowly and methodically burn through your fuel hoping to find the right course to Jupiter. You could, of course, also just abuse this, then reload when you find the right path. Or get lucky like I did and get it in one. The game doesn't automatically advance when you do this, you also have to select the next section you play.

I picked science lab, because why not? I'm now told I need to send a probe to Jupiter in advance of my arrival. You get some scanning and programming functions, but all of them are useless before you fire off the probe. Even setting the course, which I would think would be the most important. You fire it off, then place it near one of the many orbs that pop up and have it scan. At which point, what I do next is not easy to understand. Because the data doesn't transmit back automatically, which is realistic, but not very fun.

At this point, when switching to another "program" so to speak, the game asks me to switch to side B. Unfortunately for me, because I'm playing this in Denise through WINE, this is not actually possible. Every time I enter the menus, when I exit, the game just doesn't reload. (Previously, Linux emulators for the system haven't worked and VICE has...issues with a lot of games) I can edit the settings so that the other side appears in another drive, but since this is a one floppy game, this isn't going to work. Since I really wasn't doing much shooting or really playing a game at this point, I'll leave it here.

Weapons:
A basic gun. 1

Enemies:
Uh, rocks and the interface, I guess. 1

Non-Enemies:
None.

Levels:
Treating each little minigame, or program as the manual calls it, as a level. I appreciate what the game is trying to do, but each one felt like I was fighting against it in new and unexciting ways. It says something that the only one I was able to understand was a badly designed asteroid defense mission. 2

Player Agency:
It's rare for a game's menus to be so unusable as to be tedious to sort through, but somehow, Jupiter Mission 1999 manages. Nothing ever worked right, and I think even in 1983 this would have been unpleasant to work with. At least the game always tells you what you're supposed to be doing. 2

Interactivity:
I guess some of the stuff in the menus is nice for flavor. 1

Atmosphere:
There's certainly a dark mood to the game, starting from the off as a dark and moody game, something aided by how little information the game actually gives you. (despite the game telling you the contrary) 2

Graphics:
Crude and brutish. I at least understand what I'm looking at, but often times it fails to properly give the scope of what I'm looking at or generally just provides a laughable image. 1

Story:
Despite the game not being very good, it's neat that the game tries to deliver a cohesive story and set it up with individual sections. I do wish that the story didn't come off quite as creepy as it does though. 3

Sound/Music:
Loud brutish and noisy, for the most part. There's a moody intro tune, but it doesn't last long enough for the extreme length of of the opening text crawl. Otherwise, the game just uses the C64's SID chip like something off an Atari 2600 game. 1

That's 14. Not bad for a game which seemed quite lax on the actual shooting.

I don't know yet if I'll be covering the sequel, since I didn't exactly know what I was doing here and that promises to be no easier. I have gotten an actual working Linux C64 emulator now, which should mean that all future titles will work. Should, but I know there'll be a problem sooner or later. Next time, the first Spear of Destiny expansion pack, because at least there I won't have any issues figuring it out.