Ah Load runner, 1983 at its finest.
Anyone who doubts the greatness of a game that came out in 1983 and had a stick figure as a protagonist need only look at the box art for the commodore 64 version.
Never sense ED-209 have robots without opposable thumbs looked so menacing. With their grabby crushy claws reaching for his junk as he.... shoots his gun, while... I'm not sure what he is doing. He appears to be half floating half hanging half dropping gold all over the place. But that's what the game is about!
For those that don't know, Load Runner is one of the most sadistically perverse games ever made. Back in 1983 they were already pumping out games that combined the maddening frustration of puzzle solving, with the sadistic glee of torture and murder.
You run around, climb around, and monkey bar around grabbing gold. Why do you need the gold? This is old style gaming, you need gold because gold is there, its treasure. You inherently want treasure because it is treasure. Questioning it is stupid.
How do you get the treasure? You dig holes with a laser gun that can disintegrate about 20 cube feet off bricks in a single blast. You cannot turn this gun on the evil robot/androids/hapless guards wondering why the hell you're blowing up bricks or what you're doing robbing this very weirdly designed gold depository.
Instead, you can only blow up the ground (not the ground right under you, as that would be too simple) and trap the guards inside it. As we all know, bricks are a fast healing meta creature, and so within a short space of time the bricks start to heal, closing up... slowly, ever so slowly... crushing the guard you have trapped in the whole to death.
I find this concept of combat intriguing and horribly terrifying. I used to have panic attacks as I'd realized that I had accidently trapped myself in such a hole, and it was only a matter of time before he bricks started to grow again, sealing me away for all time like the end of the only edger alan poe story that doesn't involve tattle tale hearts people bother to read.
In the end, we could all learn something from Load Runner (the character not the game, not that I know whether or not that's what the protagonist is supposed to be called but uh... come on, he's Load Runner! He runs the load). We should fight the good fight, collect the treasure, build complicated traps to ensnare our foes in horrible traumatizing ways, and do our best not to fall into our own webs of lies and strangle within them.
Wise words. Wise words extrapolated from a badly drawn stick figure.
bossler13
that game was so awesome. I'm gonna go play now
Emptygoddess
As well you should.