Following up on my post from “yesterday“, I continue to “march” on with my monthly challenge “unabated”***.
***wibbly wobblyiness not withstanding
*Ahem* Which brings me to the start of what will be at least a thirty part series, as I on again, off again discuss the many titles found within the jam-packed compilation known as Rare Replay, an omnibus of greatest hits from Rare and their endeavors over their several decades long history. Technically speaking, it reaches all the way back to 1982, when the company was developing under a different moniker: Ultimate Play The Game, which was the name they developed their first game Jetpac under. 
An (excellent) game that featured one whole screen
Kids just don’t know how spoiled they are these days
Though, ironically, much like yesterday’s post, which was billed as being about the Castlevania DLC for Vampire Survivors, content of which I hadn’t even downloaded yet, my mention of Jetpac too is equally and utterly full of shit, as I am not even discussing the title today, and really should have started this entire series on, what with it being the first game “Rare” developed, and then thusly became the first game featured on the compilation. Let it not be said Active Time Event is as paradoxically charming as it is confusingly informative on the regular.
Hellishly craptacular attempt at making sense,
I concede
Truth be told, this is all an incredibly flimsy excuse to not-so-subtly stealth brag about having beaten one of the titles on Rare Replay, Knight Lore (1984), which was one of the earliest isometric games ever developed (isometric being a type of perspective, if you didn’t know), though that honor does officially go to Zaxxon. Knight Lore is a tough as nails isometric platformer, and one that is also based on a time limit. If you compound that with the fact this initially came out on a home computer sans controller, I can’t even imagine how much hardware was nearly smashed in the attempts to beat the game in it’s entirety.
An artist’s portrayal of the average Knight Lore players
reaction (Hulk) in attempting to beat the game on their
ZX Spectrum (Wolverine)
Rare was wise enough to include the titular “replay” feature in Rare Replay, as a way to make the old school titles even remotely approachable, as many of their pre-3D adventures are completely fucked in the face in terms of difficulty. We are talking about the folks who brought to us Battletoads after all, and all of the broken friendships that followed in it’s cooperatively nightmarish wake.
What the end of every Battletoads partnership
looks like
I guess I should mention the replay feature is really more like a rewind button of sorts, that lets you manipulate time at will, so you can basically go back in time up to 30 seconds, in case you fuck anything up, which, in a game of Knight Lore, is going to be happening a lot. As I now just start to get into the ebb and flow of my writing state, and ramping up to really delve into the nitty gritty of what made Knight Lore so lauded in it’s day, and some of the harrowing feats involving my epic quest in conquering the trials and tribulations that Knight Lore has on hellish offer, I glance over at the clock and realize in classic ATE fashion, I have run out of time.
Time giveth, and time taketh away.
~Pashford
Active Time Event 