Over the previous few years, Atari has been fully revamping its portfolio by releasing new takes on basic video games like Missile Command, Centipede, and Asteroids. The most recent mission on this endeavor is Yars Rising, a brand new tackle a reputation that – regardless of its success in 1982 – possible gained’t engender many nostalgic emotions these days.
The workforce at WayForward appears to have understood this from the bounce, nonetheless, as Yars Rising isn’t a brand new tackle the unique recreation; it’s a full-fledged Metroidvania that occurs to contain the outdated Yars gameplay every so often. It’s a daring and dangerous alternative, however primarily based on the hands-on time we acquired at Summer time Recreation Fest, it’s one which will have paid off.
The demo begins with a neat-looking movement comedian cutscene, which lays the groundwork for who the primary character Yars is and what she’s about. The comedian format isn’t only a model alternative; recreation director James Montagna tells us as we watch that the unique recreation got here filled with a comic book as a way to inform its expanded lore, and the workforce wished to honor that right here.
We take management of a black hat hacker named Emi Kimura – codename “Yar” – to her hacker buddies – who stays late at her job within the workplaces of QoTech to be able to full a heist. We’ll assist her hack her means by the constructing through terminals scattered on totally different flooring.
Hacking is completed by minigames the place we should time an power shot completely to be able to defeat a big bug enemy. These minigames, in keeping with Montagna, are a direct reference to the unique Yars’ Revenge recreation from the ’80s.
“The hacking expertise is a throwback to the unique [Atari] 2600 recreation, however they’re additionally a deconstruction of it,” Montagna says, “and we progressively rebuild it and construct on prime of it to be able to create one thing enormous.” The additional we progress within the recreation, Montagna continues, the “extra advanced” these challenges grow to be.
Our heroine, Yar, botches the job and will get caught, which suggests she should escape from the company’s jail. That is the place the sport turns into a full-on Metroidvania that sees us platforming, taking pictures enemies with a Mega-Man-style power weapon, and touring from room to room to discover the high-rise.
Mechanically, it feels nice, because the controls are responsive and the platforming is enjoyable, if somewhat primary – contemplating it is a transient demo, although, we’re prepared to wager there are many surprises within the full recreation.
“The hacking expertise is a throwback to the unique [Atari] 2600 recreation, however they’re additionally a deconstruction of it, and we progressively rebuild it and construct on prime of it to be able to create one thing enormous.”
Finally, we come to an Increase Terminal, a hackable gadget that provides us an improve if we full the minigame. That is the primary instance of WayForward tweaking the unique recreation’s format, as we are able to now shoot freely to take down a protect defending the bug earlier than we return to the basic timed shot from earlier than. This provides a enjoyable little wrinkle to the minigames, and it creates a way of “you’ll by no means know what you’re going to get” as we discover extra terminals all through the sport.
The love letter to basic Atari video games isn’t restricted to the hacking minigames, nonetheless, as there are references to the historical past of the corporate littered all through the demo. Save factors, for instance, are modelled after the unique Laptop Area arcade consoles of the early Nineteen Seventies, in a neat reference to certainly one of Atari’s first-ever tasks.
Our favourite nod within the demo, nonetheless, comes from one of many bosses: Missile Commander is a huge mech whose first section sees it fireplace missiles from the highest of the display screen to the underside. Leaping to keep away from them is simple sufficient, however once we achieve this, the ground sq. we had been standing on disappears, very similar to how, within the authentic recreation, our missile launcher would disappear if it had been shot.
It’s a novel technique to make an Atari reference – one which carries extra weight than, say, an Easter-egg-style poster on a wall – and it retains us searching for the following huge nod to gaming historical past.
Yars Rising was a powerful a part of the Summer time Recreation Fest lineup, because of the mixture of strong Metroidvania mechanics and pleasant references to gaming’s previous. The core thought behind nonetheless doesn’t compute in our minds, however the finish consequence completely warrants our consideration now that we’ve seen it in motion for ourselves.
Now that we give it some thought, we marvel if we’ll combat an enormous centipede sooner or later… guess we’ll have to attend and see.
Yars Rising is ready to launch later this yr on all consoles, in addition to PC through Steam and the Epic Video games Retailer.