Digging Your Own Grave- Spelunker HD Review

In 1983, MicroGraphicImage developed Spelunker for the Atari 400 computer. Over the following four years, the game was ported to the Commodore 64, MSX and even the arcade, but it wasn’t until Irem published a Famicom port of the cave crawling adventure that Spelunker earned its place in gaming history as one of the most impossibly frustrating games ever made. Spelunker on the Famicom is synonymous with gaming frustration, thanks to fatal 2-foot drops and the ability to casually walk off of a rope, but it also holds a dear place in gamer hearts everywhere as a shared experience. In the same way soldiers might reminisce about the worst days of their lives, players often commiserate with tales of a Spelunker twisting his ankle on a 3-inch ledge, 3 miles below the surface of the earth.

Now, it would hardly be prudent of me to pass judgment on a 27-year-old game. I’ll warn you now that if you were frazzled by the constant stream of death that was Spelunker, then you will feign absolutely zero enjoyment from the remake. Spelunker HD follows all of the rules of the Famicom title, so don’t expect the “flaws” to be ironed out. However, if you are patient to a fault, like yours truly, and don’t mind playing the same stage over and over and over until you have every jump, climb and flare-shot committed to muscle memory, there might just be something here for you.

As remakes go, Spelunker HD is a pretty standard package. The game can be played with classic 8-Bit Famicom or new HD visuals, but unfortunately, those are the only visual options. It would have been nice, from a strictly historical standpoint, to be able to switch between Famicom, NES, C64 and Atari graphics, since each SKU was dramatically different, but as most Spelunker enthusiasts hail from the land of the rising sun, the additional filters might have seemed arbitrary. Besides, the HD graphics are really the best way to play: each type of game ending blunder is now accompanied by its own unique animation, which makes understanding what you just died from in later stages just a little bit easier.

Other additions to the Spelunking additions include the addition of online multiplayer and leader boards. Leader board integration is well done, if not a little behind-the-times. A stream-lined interface makes it easy to compare your high-score and lowest depth with your friends and complete strangers, but in the days of instant gratification, it would have been nice to have alerts when I have out-Spelunked someone on my friends list. Mulitplayer supports up to 4 miners exploring at the same time. In addition to voice chat, players can use simple emoticons to communicate with one another, which work surprisingly well. Although each player can explore with relative independence, there is an advantage to sticking together, as players can resuscitate one another to prevent the game from ending. It’s a fun way to play, but I don’t recommend playing with strangers.