When I was in school back in the 1980's, my musical tastes leaned heavily towards the pop and emerging new wave acts of the decade. There were a few local FM radio stations that played "the hits" of the day, but one in particular that I remember seemed to always be first in introducing new bands. It was exciting hearing music from the likes of Madness, Howard Jones, A Flock of Seagulls, Cyndi Lauper and Men At Work (to name just a few). In fact, that last band mentioned was the first concert I ever attended.
However, I also remember realizing when entering high school that rock, and even more so hard rock, was very popular. Led Zeppelin (the Godfathers of heavy metal to many) always seemed to be the king at my school, while groups like AC/DC, Def Leppard and KISS were also lauded, as were bands who are today considered "classic rock" like REO Speedwagon and Journey. But of all these groups, only the last one mentioned had their own video game back in 1982. Yes, thanks to the good folks at Atari 2600 third-party developer Data Age, home video game players could personally assist "one of the world's hottest groups" in Journey Escape.
It's worth noting, before I begin discussing the game, that the early 1980's was a time when both Atari and many third-party developers were licensing all sorts of things to turn into video games. For example, two notable movies licensed by Atari were Raiders of the Lost Ark (the first game based on an official movie license), and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. And movies licensed by third-party developers include Alien, Buck Rogers (Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom), Flash Gordon, Tron (Tron Deadly Discs), Fantastic Voyage, Ghostbusters, James Bond 007, Star Trek and Star Wars (no less than three games were produced based on the Star Wars films). Other intellectual properties made into games included television program characters from Sesame Street (Alpha Beam with Ernie, Big Bird's Egg Catch and Cookie Monster Munch, all from Atari), cartoon characters (Snoopy and the Red Baron), television shows (M*A*S*H), and superheroes (Superman and Spider-Man). Additionally, there were games based on promotional characters such as Kool-Aid Man from M-Network and Chase the Chuck Wagon from Purina, as well as titles created having seemingly little to do with entertainment in general. The rarities Tooth Protectors from Johnson & Johnson, Tax Avoiders from Dunhill Electronics, and the religious title Red Sea Crossing come to mind for this latter category.
The game Journey Escape begins after a concert has ended, when you have to help the five members of the band get to their scarab escape vehicle in order to proceed to the next show. In this timed task, you must maneuver each band member (signified by their initials in the upper right of the screen) one at a time past various obstacles. These include Love-Crazed Groupies (giant hearts with legs), Shifty-Eyed Promoters (shifty looking characters), Sneaky Photographers (giant light bulb characters), and stage barriers. Contact with any of the characters costs you both time and some of your starting $50,000 (presumably revenue from the previous show), while the barriers simply slow you up.
However, you do have some help in your quest. Making contact with your Loyal Roadie (a funny-looking little blue character) will render you invulnerable for a short time, while your Mighty Manager (who looks like Kool-Aid Man!) will provide unlimited vulnerability plus $9,900 in cash. So, when these folks make appearances, definitely don't miss them because they are worth their weight in time and money! The game ends when a player fails to reach (or passes by without touching) the escape vehicle before the time runs out.
Those Love-Crazed Groupies are seemingly everywhere in Journey Escape
Journey Escape is a vertical scrolling game that moves at a fast, crazy pace and is a lot of fun overall. Technically speaking, the graphics are in line with what one would expect from an Atari 2600 game, with colorful characters and snippets of the band's music providing a nice additional touch. The background is meant to represent a "kaleidoscope of strobing stage lights", but reminds me more of the look of a space shooter starfield (such as in Galaga). This is fine though, because it fits nicely with Journey's futuristic Escape album art.
This is another game that has a nicely balanced difficulty progression (which is of course further affected by difficulty switch settings). That is, the action starts with a moderate level of difficulty and slowly increases. However, that being said, I realized after a couple of VERY quick games that it is necessary to push the joystick upward immediately and hold it there. This puts your band member near the top portion of the screen, which makes him move faster, while leaving less reaction time to dodge obstacles. If one stays at the bottom of the screen (allowing more reaction time), the clock will usually run out before the escape vehicle arrives. So, Journey Escape is all about the challenge of having fast reflexes and quick maneuvers, in order to avoid the aforementioned characters that will eat up time from the clock with each collision.
A promotional poster from Data Age for Journey Escape featuring the band members
It is worth noting that third-party developer Data Age released fewer than a dozen Atari 2600 games before going out of business, with Journey Escape being one of their more well-known titles. And as mentioned by the Wikipedia page linked above, it was a commercial and critical failure, despite a large advertising campaign. However, I find this game to be great fun, primarily because of how challenging and addicting it is. It’s one of those games I play often by continually hitting the reset button, despite how frequently my band member gets tangled up with those obsessive groupies, ultimately leading to the clock running out. And I’m also always intrigued by a pop culture oddity such as this, with a level of uniqueness or novelty to it. So, despite Data Age being short-lived, it’s great that Journey’s most iconic album and song (at least in a short musical snippet of Don't Stop Believin') were immortalized again in this title from the early days of console gaming.
Check out this Journey Escape TV commercial, as well as a short interview with band members about the game.
