Life On The Grid

I originally played Chip’s Challenge on the Atari Lynx (remember those?) back in the early 90s, which was said by the developer to be the definitive platform despite the many ports and re-releases.  This game harkens back to a simpler time in gaming when games were much less complex.  But also much much harder.  You could refer to Chips’s Challenge as the essence of puzzle games.

Back in these days where the difficulty was much higher, you usually had to be very good and have extreme commitment to the game to actually be able to finish it.  Endings of games were something to behold because they were a fairly rare sight.  But ironically,  due to storage limitations, the endings were also usually underwhelming, routinely consisting of just some credits and a message saying “Congratulations!”

Chip’s Challenge follows this tradition being supremely difficult with very little hand-holding throughout other than the odd brief explanation of the basic game mechanics.  Some versions of the game (including this new Steam version) mercifully had an option to skip levels when you just became too fed up with one or were tripped up by a silly mistake right at the end of the level for the dozenth time.  The difficulty comes from a combination of the fiendishness difficulty of the puzzles, one hit kills from everything and a limited birds-eye field of view allowing you to only see a very limited area around you in levels that are often huge mazes where you will not know where to go.

The graphics are of their time – quite simplistic but still colourful and clear so you are never in doubt of your surroundings.  The audio is similarly retro consisting of bleeps and bloops that were designed for a basic 90s PC speaker and not today’s sound systems.

Basic game-play revolves around negotiating mazes in a top down view seeking out and using various items like keys, blocks and other special gear to move your way through obstacles such as doors, fire, water, ice, etc. all the while avoiding monsters and the hazards you do not have the equipment to protect yourself from.  Like most retro games, the concepts are quite simple to learn but take a lot longer to master.

But there’s something still charming about older games like this. True, not all of them hold up that well by modern standards after more than 20 years, but even beyond the nostalgia value there are still classic games that are fun to play. And the brain-teasing Chips Challenge is one of them.

Sadly, while the addition of the level editor for the Steam port was a good addition, controller support would have been good too.  And seeing as the game runs in a tiny fixed size window, a window resizing and/or full-screen option would have also been nice.

Chips’s Challenge Review Summary:

This game remains as brain-bendingly difficult as it ever was and the appeal of the cerebral and reflexive challenge it provides has not dimmed in the 25+ years since its release. The negative is that sometimes it can be too frustratingly hard and with 149 levels to finish, it will take serious dedication to see that ending screen.  It is probably best enjoyed in small spells to ease the sting of the difficulty and repetitiveness.  But because this is such a super-cheap budget re-release on Steam costing only a couple of pounds, it’s an easy addition to any library.

Chip’s Challenge on Steam.

Final Score: 3/5

Thanks to Evolve PR for providing the Steam key for review.