Rick Dangerous, the original Tomb Raider
25 years ago, one of the greatest platformers ever hit the market; it was called Rick Dangerous and the older gamers amongst you will certainly recognise the fedora wearing hero with the revolver and remember his adventures fondly.
Eurogamer has whipped up an article about the game, filled with gaming memories and stories about the first game Core Design (which later brought you Lara Croft) ever built. Here’s a small part to get you started:
If you’ve spent any time at all with Rick Dangerous, it’s this sound effect that will bring it all flooding back. At first, the memories will likely be fond ones: here was a game that seemed to combine the best of eccentric 8-bit character and game design with cinematic 16-bit sparkle. (My experience was on the surprisingly well-reviewed Amiga version, and the various 8-bit adaptations mostly scored well with the gaming press.) Rick Dangerous may have borrowed heavily from an existing intellectual property – and it probably didn’t hurt that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade came out in that same golden summer of 1989 – but it gave those elements its own cheeky, cartoonish spin.
The beautifully crafted box artwork may have echoed Drew Struzan’s iconic Indy posters, but the in-game sprites followed a very different artistic tradition: that of the classic British comic strip. All the characters are squat, chunky and have their headgear pulled down so far over their heads that all you can see is a toothy grin – Rick himself looks like Bully Beef from The Dandy gleefully cosplaying as Doctor Jones. From the fanfare menu music to the tongue-in-cheek newsreel that introduced each level, it was a game brimming with fun, character and confidence, and made the world of Rick Dangerous seem like a pleasingly fully-realised place.
You can check out the rest of the article here.
