Impossible Mission was released for the Commodore 64 in 1983. Developed by Epyx, the game sees you playing as a secret agent as you attempt to stop an evil scientist (Professor Elvin Atombender), who it is feared is tampering with national security computers. The gameplay has you searching for pieces of a puzzle, which when gathered together must be entered in the main control room, thereby thwarting the Elvins nefarious plans.
Simple you would think, and of course you would be right, if it weren’t for the platforms, lifts, hidden codes, robots, music puzzles, 32 rooms and a heart massaging race against the clock (6 hours to finish the game).
The Commodore 64 version is notable for its early use of synthesized speech, the (at the time) jaw dropping animation of the main character and the all too familiar utterances from Elvin to “destroy him my robots”.
One of the best platformers ever conceived for the C64, Impossible Mission was ported to the Apple II, Atari 7800, ZX Spectrum, Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, NES and Sega Master System.
Wikipedia reference
Mr.Creosote review
Classicgaming review
ZZap magazine review
Game manual
C64 game walkthroughs (scroll down for impossible mission)
C64 emulators and games (yes of course it includes impossible mission)
List of Epyx games
PSP c64 emulator (a PSP port complete with a Level Editor)
The ending, from naisui on Youtube (BIG spoiler)
elderly tags C64 commodore 64 impossible mission epyx emulator free games retro review psp
47 comments:
Apparently a post that contains absolutely everything related to this classic little gem of a game, I've never actually played.
And of course, another brilliant article Mr. Elderly! An invitation to more (refined as usually) time wasting too.
By the way, it seems the C64 has had quite a price-drop since the 80s. Nice. Hmm...
Now if I could only find a bit of unoccupied space in my humble dojo-lair-thingy...
(elderly assumes an air of expertise and knowinignessity, not admitting he had only discovered this very fact this very evening)
some of the C64 games (incl imp mis) are also available packed in a retro shaped joystick pluggable straight awayable into any standard television
You could start gluing things to the ceiling!!.....just a thought...!
thank you for your encouragement!
You are generally the one providing people with encouragment dear Mr. Elderly, while also being the one that's blissfully oblivious to a huge fan, some lamps and other stuff hanging from my ceiling... No room for a C64 there.
A joystick on the other hand can come in quite handy... I'll guess I'll have a search for this joystick, in physical, cyber and astral worlds... Shadowrun style!
PS Why don't you submit this brilliant article to the Retro Carnival?
At this rate i'm never going to get over to my favourite blog Gnomeslair, you may have heard of it.....
Anyway back to the subject at hand, indeed you are correct, sticky out things i tend to blissfully forget, till i wake up the next morning with mysterious bruising.
Forgive me i assumed your ceiling followed conventional gaelic tradition, with only one bulb in the centre of the ceiling.....
Retro carniva.....i am humbled you think my amateurish predominately plagiarised post would be worthy of inclusion, however methinks a passing visitor spotting such a post would assume the originating blog, was worthy of further investigation, and quite abrubtly discover to their disapointment it was a disapointment on the retro front.
no i know my strong points, and come nowhere even close to the worthiness of your esteemed,entertaining and expertly researched blog.
(wonders how a comment turned into an epistle)
Unfortunately gaelic traditions aren't commonly encoutered in Greece. We do have quite a few rural rituals/traditions of our own though... Our vilagers for example used to love shooting immigrants. Think they still enjoy the sport, but they're now too busy indulging in incest. Precious people they are...
Anyway. I guess you really should submit the post to the Carnival. Quite more intersting than any retro stuff I've ever posted. After all it'll be a rather small/new Carnival after all... I'll be submitting one too... And I don't know if you've actually noticed, but you do feature quite a bit of retro content, which is admittedly great!
And you could also mention ceiling-joysticks...
indeed the greek islanders seemed to have turned their attention to fleecing rather than skinning immigrants. Luckily however special deals can be reached for gaelic types, which makes me smile....
I having listened to your straight talking Gnome persuasive argument i will follow your encouraging advice.......
thank you Mr.Gnome
Welcome (on behalf of humanity and the retro-blogging community) and thank you too Mr. Elderly.
Surprisingly -and as you've already wisely noticed- greeks aren't hostile to the gaelic people.
Cheers Mr. Elderly!
Thank you sir! I am honoured......
(elderly stands to attention and salutes Gnome)
Oh, plese, sit down... You're off duty know. No need to get all official 'n stuff!
:)
The Carnival (I believe) is honored!
(Steps down, shoulders keyboard) Looking forward to it now, great idea and thanks again for the heads up
are you sure you have never kissded the Blarney stone....or maybe your wearing your charisma+20 bracelet
charisma enhanced :)
i shoulda known....... excellent, looks at smiley pendant hanging from Gnomes neck, heirloom or something you picked up in your travels......?
Won from a Gnoll actually... Right after destroying an orc-mindead bugbear.
a much treasure item indeed,
I thought gnolls were extinct?
(considers whether gnome had slain the last gnoll......)
Nope. It had family and a penpal, but I'll grind them too.
May I, on a sidenote, say how much I really enjoyed thiss post?
Thanks.
Well, really. A lot!
(elderly blushes, dosen't know where to look)
ger away outta that ya charmer
ya know therd be no retro post if it werent' fer ye.
(directs gnome to the newly installed gnome shrine. Gnomes portrait smiles down over a marble altar lit with white candles and aromatic lillies)
Awww... you're so kind, again! Thanks a lot, but yours is definitely the better blog...
:)
:)
no no no (leads gnome to the technorati top list, points to gnomes entry) see even technoratti knows your blogs exceptional........ I agree with them....
Hmmm... lets talk traffic then, should we? You get at least 10 times the visits I do... Think all tose are crazy people?
(who f*cks technorati.. useless piece of junk)
traffic it is then, mine are google searches, not regulars, blogs or steady traffic. google searches can disapear like
"poofffffff"
a wisp of smoke....
lets take wine, my blog is like a supermarket, cheap, cheerful, no quality, your blog is a conossieurs cavern, rare, select, and full of quality.....
(pours some of gnomes vintage wine..)
hope you don't mind.......
Don't really mind, not at all actually, as long of course as it's not too expensive. That would make me feel kind of bad...
Oh, apparently my traffic is basicaly google-search based to
:)
So I guess the supermarket-cavern analogy rather falls to the ground (along with stuff like ashes and a broken glass I'm currently gawking at)
And I definitely prefer reading your blog... Really... Besides I can't help but constantly lift ideas...
at the rate we're going we could start a comment blog.......
(brushes supermarket analogy off table, piles loads of ideas on top of Gnome)
Your more than welcome to anything here (opens up arms to include the entire room, pours a drink a shares some secrets with gnome)
(whispers....)
furl...... and walkthroughs and intially 4 posts a day)
(whispers...again)
yahoo buzzlist
http://buzz.yahoo.com/video_games/
(whispers evenly quietlier(?))
shhhhh!......
i have a suspicious feeling my sidebar from hell helps, but don't ask me how....
shhhh!....
Hic! sorry........
Thank you very much for the tips mr. Elderly, but all I've got to offer back are Blog Carnivlas and digg (where I have already submitted quite a few of your posts)...
Can't say I fully understood what to do with furl though...
The other link simply shows what's pop, right?
Oh, that's ok. (the hic bit)
thank you I went to post the impossible mission and I couldn't understand how it knew about my blog already.
(runs and kisses gnome on the forehead.....) Thank you, thank you
the buzzlist is indeed just that, the most popular searches on Yahoo.
Google (no proof just hunch) normally follow suit in terms of search word popularity. Ergo buzzlisted games, get a bit of traffic, but for very short times.
On Furl, i "up" my own posts as good or fair, into my favourite items. Furled posts get posted on the main page, and may from time to time get picked up on a keyword search.
Ah, I see, it's a bit like digg, right?
Oh, and look what I found...
(just combine the links' pieces)
?url=http%3A%2F%2Fekstreme.com%2
Fseo%2Fsocialbookmarking
code.php&title=Digg%2C+Furl%2C
+del.icio.us+posting+in
+PHP+and+Javascript
cant figure what to do with it, but seems pretty interesting...
(Gnome humbly thnaks Mr. Elderly again...)
cant get the link to work (even after combining the pieces) not to worry,
another thing ive noticed is that my content gets included on other sites thanks to feedburner (once you open your feed free to developers)
see me here
http://xoblab.com/
cant say i was overly chuffed to see someone else putting up my content, but hey why should i own it......
Oh my god.... they are f*cking robbing you silly... Sue them.. crash them.. Kill burn destroy!
Of course it didn't work.. there was a bit missing!
http://ekstreme.com/socializer/
?url=http%3A%2F%2Fekstreme.com
%2Fseo%2Fsocialbookmarkingcode.php
&title=Digg
%2C+Furl
%2C+del.icio.us+posting+in+PHP+and+Javascript
This should do it...
Oh and on furl..I just click furl it and save the page right? If I furl an elderly page is it of any help to you?
wow that social bookmarking link is the best thing since sliced bread.....thank you....... (elderly thinks of the saving on his aching wrists)
correctimento on the furl click and save, thank you for the kind offer, but as i furl nearly all my posts i dunno if a double entry helps or not.
why do you think technoratti is no good? mind you i only rarely get a link from them, but according to some of the blogger tips i've read there appears to be some correlation between them and google search......
Guess that a double entry would count as an additional "furl it"... Right?
Oh, and (from the social bookmarking list thingy) I've already used linkroll. Doesn't seem to bring much traffic... Perhaps 1-2(max) visits per submission. not that furl is that impressively better...
Oh,and technorati... Totally unimpressed... Brings almost nill traffic...
no i agree neither furl or delicious bring much, but i wonder how google rates a site when it sees it's content on furl delicious technoratti..... which is really a daft question cause we'll never really know. Tags help somewhat I think, and links to big sites i think. problem is i don't really know..... i get maybe 10 links a day from
http://www.feeds4all.nl/
though the site traffic is by no means impressive
(scratches head) maybe its constantly mentioning angelia..... (shrugs)
Or getting people addicted ;)
My only serious traffic came a) when I made it on the digg frontapge (around 40k hits) b) on BoingBoing and c) on Joystiq...
Digg though (even when not on homepage) used to send a lot more traffic, but now they 've made tech the default option.. Huge difference...
:(
wow 40k thats.....mind blowing, of course we could talk about the shinyness factor and refraction of new game discs, that would get a mention on the tech page. We could talk about how a new release didn't have the same rainbow colours as another and such.
(takes tablets)
sorry, I lost it there for a moment. best i got was a rocketboom mention on the 10 christmas present for elderly gamers and an apology posted by nintendo......even then it didn't top more than 2,000. 40K damn
Unless of course I start offering crack cocaine with each post, how do we get people addicted, which neatly moves us to originality, which you have in spades.
I also have small gnomish feet in spades (and out of shape)...
But really...Digg can send huge ammounts of traffic. And so I hear Slashdot... As for keeping people addicted... It's almost impossible I think.
i agree, must have a look at slashdot (stares at gnomes feet).....handy for digging though
huh?
"small gnomish feet in spades" (pointing at gnomes feet) handy for digging......
:)
Ah yes... But, I'm.. eh.. using them you know... Walking, typing, this sort of thing... Mostly, that is, but...
err...
hey it's nothing to be ashamed of i've got five fingers on my left hand, a bald spot the size of a basketball, and a belly the titanic could have used as a flotation device.......
Yes, but can you be used as a digging tool?
Anyway, let's welcome our carnival friends. Hats ready... Go!
jing jing jongle.. jignn jinllg .... i dont' see anybody yet... jing joaann .... in fact theres only .. jingg ginnng the two of us.... jingg
maybe the bus is late..jingg jjlllgyy jinnggg
Everything is fine! oh look, a fortune telling daemon! whoa!
i don't see him..... jingl ... jin no seriously (looking over at the uneaten sanwiches and stale beer), when does it start the carnival?
I believe it's pretty much over now...
:)
:( (the elderlies head resembles a nuclear test area)
over.... like it started..... I knew i should have posted a retro lingerie link.....
:)
I cngratulate you on an exquisite idea!
Bravo!
:)
:)
Just want to say that many many years ago. i owned a c64. And I did finish the game. It took about 3-4 hrs. but it was well worth it!
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