Review: Lode Runner

By Mike Bantick
Sunday, 17 May 2009 06:52

Entertainment

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Lode Runner was enjoyed by earlier generations of Apple ][, Commodore 64 and Atari ST owners, amongst others.  Now the venerable game makes its way to the Xbox Live Arcade.

Lode Runner has been reborn for a new generation of gamers.  The 2D gold hunt and game of tag has surfaced on XBLA and is pretty much the frantic fun of yesteryear that nostalgia fans should like.

Lode Runner
	Developer	Southend Interactive
	Publisher	Microsoft
	Rating	G
Xbox 360 (XBLA)

With a history stemming back to the early eighties, and countless ports, sequels and spin-off’s one thing has remained with this new XBLA version, and that is the core game-play.

The player is tasked with collecting all the gold loot on screen, by traversing the ladders and blocks of the 2D platform maze.

Chasing after him is a number of foes that can also carry gold if they come in contact with the precious metal lodes.  They will also end the Runners life if they catch him.

But the Runner is armed, not with a direct shooty style gun, but a digger-gun that can temporarily remove blocks to the Runners left or right depending on which trigger is pulled.

Removing blocks serves a number of purposes, firstly the enemy monsters will fall into the created pit, dropping any gold carried in doing so.  They can crawl out, but whist in the hole, the Runner can jaunt across their head.

Unlike the monsters chasing the Runner, he can free fall through any gap created by his gun, thus evading the chasers. 

Learning the art of pit creation is also essential to solving the puzzles of each the 220 levels that comes with this new version of the game.  Knowing when and where to blast a hole and then understanding the timing of when that block re-appears is the key to success in the game.

And that is about that for the core game-play.  But what does this new version add to the Lode Runner lore?

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