By 1989, the Atari 2600 was looking seriously long in the tooth; even Nintendo’s NES, which dominated US stores and homes, was preparing to welcome it’s successor in the form of the SNES, and Sega’s Master System, which ruled the roost in Europe, had already been superceded by the Mega Drive/Genesis in some territories.

Yet there were still millions of Atari consoles in the wild; it stands to reason that even a small percentage of owners of the console weren’t bothered about upgrading to expensive new technology, and instead just wanted the odd game or two to play on the hardware they already owned, and was still more than enough for them.

So even though it seems weird that original games were still being made for a console that was originally launched in 1977, and even massively contributed to a mostly-US based video game industry crash in 1983, there was clearly still enough demand for new software to emerge.

Dark Chambers appears to be a dungeon crawling action game in the vein of classic arcade title Gauntlet; in fact, its history is far more interesting than that.

That’s because Gauntlet actually took inspiration from Dandy, the game that Dark Chambers reworked; rather than attempting to be a Gauntlet-esque game, Gauntlet itself was a Dark Chambers-style title!

Which blew my mind when I found out; I definitely thought it was the other way around, in terms of which title inspired which.

Of course, the Atari 2600 can’t possibly handle the overwhelming, simultaneous number of enemies that Gauntlet throws at you at any one time, so it’s naturally a much slower paced affair.

Your character, armed with a bow and arrow that has infinite ammo, explores a dungeon, level by level, looking for treasure, weapon upgrades (including, humorously, a pistol that gives you rapid fire capability), food and the staircase to the next stage.

Enemies appear from generators, just like in Gauntlet, and will keep spawning until you destroy the generator.

When shot, enemies devolve into the next weakest monster form, until they can no longer do so, at which point they disappear.

Dungeon level layouts wrap around and you’ll often spend a lot of time wandering around to find a key to open a locked door, with the exit stairs usually located under a generator or just behind a room, which is securely located behind a locked door itself.

Dark Chambers can be played by one or two players; though slow, it’s a rare Atari 2600 game that feels as if you’re truly progressing through a full game, rather than a cycle of repeating, limited levels, as you play.

Critics have tended to be quite unkind to Dark Chambers over the years, being quite dismissive of its pace, lack of enemies and basic visuals.

Yet I genuinely enjoy playing it; any time I fire it up, I end up playing it for a reasonably long session, much more so than for just about any other Atari 2600 title.

The fact that it offers 2 player, simultaneous co-op gameplay is great too; though it doesn’t hold a candle to the more competitive experiences that players can have on the 2600, it’s unusual to have players working together to succeed on Atari’s console.

The Atari 7800 version is so much better in so many ways that it’s difficult to judge Dark Chambers in isolation, but given how much that cartridge costs to buy (multiple times the cost of the Atari 2600 game), I don’t think the 2600 version is a bad game to pick up at all.

If you had both, and a machine to play each version on, for example, you wouldn’t have any reason to go back to the Atari 2600 version at all, but that’s perhaps unfair to the game.

In case you’re wondering, it works beautifully on the Atari 2600+.

In fact, Dark Chambers may be one of my favourite Atari 2600 games, certainly from the, admittedly limited, games in my collection.

If that makes me out of touch or in opposition to more hardcore 2600 fans and critics, so be it.

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