In Gauntlet, four brave souls (or just you with an overworked space bar) hack, slash, and gobble food like medieval Pac-Men. This 1986 dungeon crawler is basically a family reunion gone wrong: everyone wants treasure, no one shares health potions, and someone inevitably shouts, “Wizard needs food, badly!” at least once every five minutes. It’s chaotic, endless, and oddly addictive—kind of like being trapped in a fantasy IKEA where skeletons and ghosts keep spawning from wardrobes. Simple? Yes. Fun? Absolutely, if you don’t mind dying because your buddy shot the food again.
Compute! Gazette Issue 58 (1988): "Gauntlet offers fast action, multiple screens, and the opportunity for additional players to join the game at any time. That sort of camaraderie was, and still is, rare in arcade games, and it is nicely reproduced by Mindscape in the home computer version. Gaunitlet's heroes are assailed by all manner of villains, including ghosts, demons, sorcerers, and even Death itself. The vil- lains have different capabilities and pre- sent the heroes with various challenges and perils. Select your hero from these legendary characters; Thor, who possesses great strength, as well as a battle axe that can destroy monster generators, and who serves well in hand-to-hand combat; Merlin, whose mastery of mag- ic makes him a powerful weapon against monster generators, but whose physical vulnerability makes him an easy target for the enemy; Thyra, whose Valkyrie prowess with the sword and moderate magical ability make her an effective weapon; and Questor, an elf who is capable of working strong magic."
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