Impossible Mission II

The Good
Ah, IM2! I genuinely love this game, for some reason. It was one of the first I ever played.. got it for like $2 (pirated, naturally) from a local computer shop. I fell in love with it.

So what's so great about it? Gameplay! Fun! While the graphics were quite good for the time (even on CGA), great gameplay was what I truly found in this game. It took me ages to figure out (remember I was about 7 at the time), but once I did - I couldn't get enough of it! Rummaging around through the building, searching obscure objects for even more obscure objects, then using the latter to blast open the safe and moving on to the next building... ah, the feeling was awesome.

The opening music is also something I really like. I've always had an affinity for games with digital PC speaker music (because until '93 that's all I heard/had) - my favorites include Mach 3 and Disc by Loriciels and classic Star Control - and this is one of those games. I can't get the opening scene out of my head.

The Bad
Well it has an amazingly - even for the time - shallow story, and pretty lame sound once you're in the game. But to hell with that - it's fun!

Also, once I played the Amiga version I realized that despite a fairly good port (EGA version was far better than the CGA for obvious reasons), the PC version still pales in comparison. The digital joystick controls on the Amiga are also far superiour (I use classic Atari 2600 joysticks with mine).

The Bottom Line
A real classic. The kind of game you just play on and on, despite not actually knowing WHY.