Star Wars is given a lot of credit for its influence on American culture, but Raiders of the Lost Ark had an almost equal impact that is often overlooked. There were plenty of knockoff movies, but games seemed to pick up on the treasure-hunting archeologist motif to a greater extent. Eight-bit classics like Pitfall II, Aztec, and Montezuma's Revenge all featured fedora-wearing adventurers rummaging through trap-filled tombs, and even modern-day heroine Lara Croft owes a debt of thanks to Indiana Jones. Now, more than a decade later, one of the original knockoffs returns. Montezuma's Return is the sequel to Montezuma's Revenge, and it features an engine chock-full of bells and whistles and gameplay that would feel right at home on a console.
Montezuma's Revenge was a side-scroller for systems like the Apple II and Atari 800. In it, you controlled a little guy who ran around, picking up gems while avoiding bouncing skulls and snakes. The new game basically follows in the same tradition. This time it's from a first-person point of view, and you jump around platforms, run under bouncing skulls, flip switches, swim around, and fight the numerous foes who stand in your way. Over its short length, the game remains entertaining. No trick is repeated twice, and the design of the various traps you must avoid and gadgets you must activate stay innovative. One moment you'll be hopping along frogs' backs in a sort of super hi-tech version of Frogger, and the next you'll be jumping from rope to rope over a bottomless chasm.
Technically, the game is quite impressive - that is if you have a 3D accelerator. With 3D acceleration, though, Montezuma's Return has colored lighting, dynamic light-sourcing, and environment mapping. In fact, it's got them everywhere. Almost everything in this game is a light source, and small actions on your part will cause whole rooms to start swirling with colors like some invisible hand is performing an oil light show. It's a bit much at times, and it's hard not to recall games like Yar's Revenge for the Atari 2600, which made every sprite rapidly cycle its colors simply because it was a new technology. Montezuma's Return looks, at times, crazy.
But the game is overwhelmingly silly, and the psychedelic visuals only add to the goofy atmosphere. Other elements add to this atmosphere, such as the effect when you fall from a great height and control goes willy-nilly while stars appear before your eyes. The cartoonish quality also applies to controls; you maintain an inexplicable momentum when turning, making more difficult obstacles an impossibility until you master the finicky maneuvers required. And the combat, too, is silly, as you punch and kick the creatures you encounter with little to no strategy or skill required.
This combat is really the only downside of Montezuma's Return, but a complete list of complaints would have to include the length, clocking in at a meager eight levels - and short ones at that. But this is no Quake clone, nor is it meant to be. Montezuma's Return sets out to be fun in a "high score, beat the boss, get to the bonus round" sort of way, and in that it succeeds with flying (and pulsating) colors.
