He's gonna take you back to the past
to play the shitty games that suck ass
He'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in his ear
He'd rather eat the rotten asshole of a roadkill skunk and down it with beer
He's the angriest gamer you ever heard
He's the angry Nintendo Nerd
He's the Angry Atari-Sega Nerd. He's the Angry Video Game Nerd!
Once upon a time, video games were more than games. They were adventures.
I'm talking about the SwordQuest games for the Atari 2600.
They were based on the four ancient elements of the Cosmos.
SwordQuest: EarthWorld, FireWorld,
WaterWorld...we're not talking about the Kevin Costner movie. And at last there was going to be AirWorld.
In these games, the player navigates through a series of mystical chambers in search of hidden treasures
but you weren't just playing a game, you were on a real adventure searching for real treasures.
Atari was giving out prizes, and we're not talking about cheap plastic little things you get from a McDonald's Happy Meal. No man.
This was real stuff.
Here's how it worked.
First, you'd have to buy the games which all came out one at a time, if you became a club member
they'd mail you a t-shirt along with the games as soon as they got released.
Not to mention each game came with a poster and a DC comic book.
The games were all about finding clues,
so you'd write down all the clues and send them to Atari.
Those who found the most would go to Atari Headquarters to compete in the finals.
Here they'd have custom-made versions of the game which the players had 90 minutes to finish.
Whoever finished first, would win the prize.
The winner of EarthWorld got a Talisman made of 18 carat solid gold
studded with 12 Diamonds and the birthstones of the 12 Zodiac signs.
The winner of FireWorld got a Chalice made of platinum and gold
studded with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls and green jade.
The winner of WaterWorld would get a Crown made of Gold
decorated with Diamonds, Rubies, Sapphires and Aquamarines.
The winner of AirWorld would get a
Philosopher's Stone, a large piece of White Jade encased in an 18 carat Gold box adorned with Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds, Damn.
According to Atari's advertising campaign, these prizes were valued at $25,000 each.
But that wasn't all,
the four winners would come back for one final competition
and the winner of that, would win a jewel-encrusted Sword with an 18 carat Gold handle and a Silver blade covered with Diamonds, Emeralds, Sapphires and Rubies,
the Sword was valued at $50,000 dollars.
In total, that's $150,000 worth the treasures and this was 1982 and 83 so you can balance that out.
Not since the Medieval times have I heard of a treasure quest of this magnitude. It gets you really excited to play the games
so that's what I call a promotion.
You'd be wearing your SwordQuest t-shirt, with your comic books and posters drinking out of your Gold Chalice with your Crown
Philosopher's Stone and Sword and not to mention your SwordQuest video gaming cartridges exclusive from Atari.
Well too bad the contest is all over, so there's not much point in playing the games today, if you picked up one of these
games right now with no instruction manual and no explanation,
you wouldn't have any idea what to do. Every time you go to the next room it sounds like an explosion.
That's what's so great about Atari, something as simple as going through a door is an event.
Every room is a different color and there's no end it just keeps going and going
if you look at the manual, you'll see that each room
represents a sign from the Zodiac and if you keep moving, you'll come around full circle.
But there's only so many colors, so it's easy to confuse Aries with Libra or Capricorn with Leo.
Each room has a hidden chamber where you find treasures,
but sometimes before you get to the treasure, you have to pass through a nuclear waterfall or jump on laser rafts.
These kind of games you got to use a lot of imagination. When you get to a treasure chamber
you can pick up items or drop them by putting the right combination of items in a certain room, you'll trigger a clue.
Whoa!
Now what could that mean? Hmm, 16-4. The comic book.
Page 16, Panel 4. I don't see anything. Wow!
There's ten hidden words, and they're supposed to make a sentence
but five of them are bogus.
The only way to figure out which are the right words is to find a subliminal hint on the first page.
The words Prime and Number are a different color than the rest, so this means you only use the clues that are prime numbers.
Let me tell you in 1982, people had a lot of time on their hands and a lot of creativity to figure this out.
Out of 5,000 entries, only eight gamers got the right sentence. The winner was 20 year old Stephen Bell. Good work, man.
The second game FireWorld was basically the same principle, except this time the rooms are laid out to follow the tree of life.
The only things that are very different from the first game are the action sequences.
What are we doing here? Hitting birds with a pole? Throwing knives?
Now you're actually steering knives into a Turkey Club Sandwich.
This part, you're like a black Eagle shooting bullets at Snakes. All with glorious Atari sound effects.
I think this game was a little easier than EarthWorld, because this time over 50 gamers found all the clues
so Atari had sort of a tiebreaker where they made everyone write down what they liked about the game.
Damn, that's a good game. Gee-whiz I sure loved that game.
And somehow based on those answers
they narrowed it down to 50 contestants. Michael Rideout was the final winner and received the Golden Chalice.
The third game WaterWorld, is when the shit hit the fan.
The infamous Video Game Crash of 1983 was taking effect and WaterWorld was released in a limited quantity
making this an extremely rare game.
It had only 7 rooms,
significantly less than the previous games. This time, it was based on the Chakra structure.
Appropriately, its action scenes all had something to do with water
either you're trying to swim around Sharks, dodge Squids or hop on Icebergs.
The contest never happened,
Atari's financial problems led them to sell the company and pull the plug on the whole thing.
The fourth game AirWorld, is just what it is, Air.
It never got made, though a prototype has been rumored and even hoaxed.
It's a very sad end to what could have been the greatest gaming event in history.
An adventure series with rooms based off mythology, came with comic books, a chance to win real treasures?
And then it all vanished.
The biggest mystery of all is what ever happened to the remaining treasures?
Eyewitness accounts and pictures prove that they all existed, because they were on display during the competition, but where are they now?
The guy who bought Atari was a guy named Jack Trammell
some comments online from people in the business have said that they've seen the Sword hanging in Trammell's living room.
There's no pictures or any hard evidence to support this, but if he does have the Sword
it's most likely he has the Crown and the Philosopher's Stone as well.
Somebody's got to find out, the real SwordQuest is the quest for that Sword and the other
treasures they belong in the hands of gamers who earn them.
You know, everybody who put those games in their Atari's had a chance of winning
it was something to dream about, but that dream has been thrown down the toilet.
It's 30 years later.
But I say the contest must go on.
Finish the last game! You can't have Earth, Fire and Water without Air.
The balance of the Cosmos must be restored, the true bearer of that Sword must be found. The kingdom of Nerdom depends on it.