Cave in to retro
Spelunker HD Deluxe (PEGI 3) PS4, Switch HHHII
It’s been a tremendous year so far for the resurrection of retro games.
And what could be more vintage than slipping back all the way to the 1980s?
The decade was a real mixed bag for gaming. The early part of the decade saw a booming arcade business, until the rise of the home computer and a lack of quality games led to an implosion that nearly wiped out the industry.
The year 1983 saw some true classics debut on the gaming stage, Mario Bros, Dragon’s Lair, JetPac and Timothy Martin’s Spelunker.
The platformer saw you playing as a plucky caver who needs to navigate his way through a colossal cave system to reach the treasure at the bottom.
It’s much harder than it sounds, as you have to face countless tricky obstacles on your journey, often wiping out miles from the promised gold.
A number of sequels and ports followed, but none quite had the charm of the original.
More than two decades later, 2010 saw the arrival of Spelunker in glorious HD – the adorable 2D 8-bit graphics replaced with modern artwork that gave real depth and texture to the paths and cavernous tunnels you explore.
And now that game has been revamped and re-released as Spelunker HD Deluxe for the next-gen consoles.
It’s the work of ININ Games, a studio which has a fierce reputation for releasing feel-good retro and arcade games.
Packaged with a number of different modes, it’s also now got co-op mode so you can share the adventure with equally intrepid gamers.
Spelunker HD Deluxe is not for the faint of heart, it’s cutesy graphics disguise just how challenging it can really be – it’s almost unforgivingly hard at times.
The further you move through the cave system, the more things you encounter that want to kill you.
There are your standard giant lizards, spiders and poisonous snakes, but you’ll soon encounter robots, underground sea creatures and bats that rain acidic guano down from the cave’s roof. Then there’s the dangerous landscape itself, with caveins, Indian Jones-style rolling boulders, steam geysers, and rock falls – plus the occasional ghost popping up looking to steal your soul.
And if it’s not your surroundings trying to wipe you out, then sometimes it felt like the game itself wanted to. The number of short jumps or platforms I missed that led to my caver turning up his toes, got beyond a joke at one point.
The maps themselves are really quite varied, with the fearless little caver travelling through abandoned mines, traversing underground lakes, discovering ancient ruins, and slip-sliding across glaciers.
All four of the modes included in Deluxe – Adventure, Competition, Championship and Random – support up to four players for local co-op, and six if you’re sharing the fun online.
Co-op adds a great extra level to the game, especially Endless Cave Neo, which sees all players sharing the same, auto-scrolling, screen. This puts the pressure on all team members to keep up the pace, for fear of being scrolled off the screen into oblivion.
But if the shiny new look of the game gets too much, you can always fall back on the original – which comes complete with its chip-tune soundtrack that I can still hear as I sit writing this.
The true genius of this game is that, even though you will repeatedly wipe out, you’re always raring for one last try... inevitably finding yourself playing it into the wee small hours. Oh go on then, I’ll give it just one last go.