ColecoVision Games #1

Venture (1982)
By: Exidy Genre: Maze / Shooting Players: 1
Difficulty: Easy-Medium First Day Score: 173,800
Featured Version: ColecoVision
Also Available For: Arcade, VCS, Intellivision

I had intended to restrict all of my ColecoVision coverage here to 'Round Up' posts since the games in question are usually very simple and also invariably available on other systems too, but I was recently reminded of Venture while looking at t-shirts on the Redbubble website of all places. A short while playing it later and I decided that not only should I burble about it here but that it should even receive a proper review (not that I've gotten around to many Round Ups so far anyway!). Like many games of its day it first appeared in arcade form but the Coleco was the first system to see a home version, and it was apparently a launch title for the leathery company's spiffing new console too (voontle). I was too young to be among those first few lucky owners myself, but if I had been I suspect Venture would've taken up a lot of my time. Well, that's assuming my parents were kind enough to buy me the console and game, obviously. It was one of the more reasonably-priced consoles though!

I keep thinking of Venture as a kind of maze game but it's not really. I guess it's a shoot 'em up more than anything else, and one which you play through as a red smiley face called Winky (chortle!). I'm not sure why since I've never seen him wink but nonetheless, he is a perpetually happy creature and is somehow armed with a bow and arrow. Using this advanced tech, Winky has either been told or taken it upon himself to raid a bunch of dungeons for the glorious treasures contained therein. This is done by callously executing the hordes of possibly-innocent creatures guarding the treasures and snaffling them. Although since the creatures take the form of serpents, goblins, skeletons, dragons, spiders, two-headed monsters, trolls, genies, demons, bats, and cyclops, there is at least a plausible chance that they are in fact not innocent and may even be rather spooky. I guess we should kill them anyway, just in case.

The dungeons, as far as I can tell, go on forever which makes Winky's pursuit of the treasure contained therein somewhat futile, but they are divided into many levels, each of which contains four rooms. The main levels, known as 'hallways', are viewed from much farther out than the rooms and Winky is a mere red dot about four pixels in size. From here you can see all four rooms as well as the corridors, or indeed hallways, that lead to them. These corridors are patrolled by tentacled green monsters known, very creatively, as Hallmonsters, and these horrendous abominations cannot be shot, possibly because the view is too zoomed-out for your arrows to be visible. So the Hallmonsters must be avoided as you find your way to one of the oddly-shaped rooms, most of which have doorways on two sides. Once you enter one, the view is much closer and shows Winky in all his glory. From here, the object is simply to grab the treasure and get out again using either doorway.

Each room features only one type of scary monster (they are named accordingly - serpent room, dragon room, etc). You don't even need to murder them if you don't want to, although doing so obviously makes things easier. If you plan to, you'll find each monster takes one shot, but beware - their corpses remain behind for a second or two and running into one can still kill you. There is, however, one variety of room that contains no monsters. They are known as wall rooms and feature... you've guessed it - walls! Moving walls too, no less, which will kill you if you touch them. Regardless of the type of room you're in though, if you spend too much time faffing about, one of those infernal Hallmonsters will enter it and hunt you down. Unlike in the hallways, you can shoot the foul beasts here but... it has no effect, and they are fast and ruthless. Eeek! If you survive and collect the treasure from all four rooms, the level is complete.

As mentioned, I believe the levels go on forever too, with the main difference being a steady increase in the speed of the enemies. It's not too difficult though, at least to start with. Even I managed to play for a sufficiently long time that I forgot which stage I got to, but I had great fun while doing it. There are only three or four colours used at once but I still like the graphics and room designs, especially the irregular room shapes which keeps things interesting. The sound is great too, featuring decent effects and some catchy jingles. My only complaint really is that sometimes when entering or exiting a room, you can reappear on top of an enemy and lose a life, but it doesn't happen that often and Venture's treasure hunting is very addictive in spite of this. I'm still honestly not sure if we are stealing or liberating these treasures but whichever it is, I'm very happy to partake. Probably my favourite 2nd Gen game now.

RKS Score: 9/10

Gameplay Video: here's a video of the game being played by one of the talented fellows at ColecoVision Fan (check out their great channel here). Oh, and don't watch if you want to avoid spoilers!