As intrepid explorer Jake Peril, you search caves, catacombs and jungles, with one bounty on your mind: gold. There's only one problem - pesky alien Bungelings have their sights set on all that glitters too, and if one of them catches you as you pursue this mutual goal, they'll kill you. The catch is that Jake isn't loaded for bear, he's prepared for prospecting, and thus all he has with him is an energy beam which temporarily melts away part of whatever surface he's walking on. The surface will heal itself quickly, so it's imperative not to let Jake get trapped, and to make cunning use of the beam to lay traps for the Bungelings without trapping yourself in the process. Grabbing all the gold reveals a secret passage that will take you to the next gold-filled maze - and the next pack of murderous Bungelings. (Natsume, 1998, for Playstation)

Lode Runner was one of those games that made the Apple II computer part of the first high ebb in home computer gaming. It was also one of those products that made Broderbund Software a powerhouse publisher, a claim they can still make to this day despite casting off their prestigious game division (which also brought us Choplifter!, among others). After Broderbund's license to publish Lode Runner expired, Douglas E. Smith - the game's creator - was free to shop around for other publishers for new platforms. A better-than-expected Game Boy cartridge surfaced, back before the handheld went color, and the N64 got a 3-D version which just didn't have the striking originality of its precursor.

For the most part, however, this Playstation version - ostensibly packing two games into one (really more like an extra set of levels with more bells and whistles) - gets it right. The characters are in the right proportion to the screen (if anything, they're actually a bit small), the action is strictly 2-D, and it's a return to the kind of subterranean action that would make Dig Dug faint dead away. At its heart, the new version of Lode Runner is still a puzzle game that just happens to use a lot of 2-D level-and-ladder game conventions. And look ma - no cutscenes! No cinematics! No CGI movies trying to build a backstory to explain everything away as some kind of revenge drama. There's some of that in the opening pages of the manual, but that's the manual...not the game. Booting the game up does offer a nice little retrospective by Doug Smith on how the game was created, complete with vintage Apple II graphics.

Audiovisually, Lode Runner and Lode Runner Extra jazz things up with colorful but mostly unobtrusive) background graphics and catchy music loops. Lode Runner Extra messes with the game play a bit by adding new offensive options (to a game which, it can be argued, doesn't need them), but its courses are also experts-only fare. I recommend you wait a while and log a good deal of The Legend Returns time under your belt first.

Also preserved, bless their hearts, is the Construction Mode, a level editor which gives budding world-builders a means to create their own impossible obstacle courses. Where the original Apple II version gave you control of placement of several distinct types of tiles to build a simple map, the Construction Mode here gives you additional control, letting you determine background graphics, music, and even lighting style (full daylight or a limited spotlight around the player). The player-crafted levels can be saved to a memory card and played (or re-tweaked) later. As much as the game play itself made Lode Runner what it was, so too did the tools to make your own games, and Natsume thankfully recognized that as one of the game's integral elements.

Rating:  Four quarters - a couple of minor irritants, but mostly a compelling and addictive game.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster