Run For It (Apple II, Atari)

Run For It (Apple II, Atari)
Run For It seems to be one of those rare games that was released for the Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers but not the Commodore 64. At least that seemed pretty rare by 1985 when this game was released. In this game you control a robot as he progresses upwards through a maze. This game is a fixed/flip screen game which was a popular genre before side-scrolling platformers took over the world. In this type of game, all game play takes place on a single screen at a time. You must overcome enemies and obstacles in order to reach the exit, wherever on the screen that may be. In the case of this game the exit would be near the top of each screen. Simply progressing through a maze isn't challenging enough so you have a timer and enemies to destroy or avoid. Your robot has a gun to aid in that task. Time can be increased by collecting tokens or will be decreased when you contact enemies. Your goal is to reach the top of the building before time runs out. This is an okay game if you like this sort of thing but it's nothing exceptional. Like the side-scrolling platformers that came later there were just so many games of this type that it is hard to stand-out. It won't be terribly easy to find an original copy of this one either as this wasn't exactly a game that took the world by storm. Fortunately, it's easy enough to play via emulation. The ad above is from the January/February 1985 issue of Enter magazine. The screen shots are from the Atari 8-bit version of the game.