Getaway!

My first computer was an Atari 800 XL with 64kb of pure power (well, RAM), the first XE tape drive in Dunedin (it was grey and didn't match the computer), an Atari Joystick and most importantly, the game Getaway!

CLOAD anyone?

It all cost $310NZD, which i'm pretty sure was a lot of moolah in 1983, especially for us: mum, my older sister and little old me, and think I gave my mum every excuse why it would help this poor 10 year old with school work but really it was about the games...i'm sure she knew this and over Christmas i'll have a chat to her about that time and post her thoughts on encouraging my early video game addiction.

Now I wasn't new to video games.  I'd been playing in the Arcades for 3-4 years, and hogging my mates 48k ZX Spectrum as much as I could but this monster was different, because this monster was my monster!

Getaway! is an excellent game.  I still boot it up using an emulator with my best mate Bob in Dunedin sometimes and it's really fun for a run through.

Think of it as the very first version of the original Grand Theft Auto, actually sort of a cross between GTA and Pacman, where the ghosts are cops and the dots are dollar symbols.  Its most impressive statistic was that the map covered 35 TV screens!  35! this blew my funny young mind...Here it is in all it's glory.

The premise was simple.  I drove my car over dollar signs (robberies) and the more cash I got, the more the 3 differently-coloured cops would hunt me down, I could hune after a white van for more money and there were bonuses like Chalices and diamonds on the map too, which once all gathered would advance you to a harder level where the colour tones would change (to me) pretty ominously, and the cops were more angry.

The key was that my ill-gotten gains weren't secure until I got them back to my hideout (the 'H' in the middle of the shot below), so you can see from the shot above that my cash is $30 but my stash is zero because I haven't gotten back to safety yet.

The other limiting factor was gas.  My car would run out so i'd have to stop on one of the few 'G' icons on the road to fill up, all the while the cops got closer...also the car would only stop on gas stations and at my hideout so there was always pressure to work out ahead where you were going.  In the shot above, that criss-cross section immediately north-west of my dark green car was always difficult to negotiate, especially when under pressure of cops on my tail trying to get back to my hideout.

This was the only game I had for my 800XL for a wee while and I played the bloody life out of it...but strangely I don't remember a high score which suggests that the gameplay was what I enjoyed the most.

Here's a good background interview with Mark Reid, the guy who made Getaway!