Impossible Mission

Elvin Atombender - an evil genius - is on the loose.  He's sequester himself inside his high-tech stronghold and you, as an acrobatic secret agent, must find a way in.  It won't be easy.  Elvin locked himself in a lair that can only be accessed by finding and assembling puzzle pieces he's hidden in his furniture.  Further complicating the mission, Elvin's maniacal robots are ready to dispatch you if you walk anywhere near them.  And thus begins another six hours of fun with one of the Commodore 64's finest offerings: Impossible Mission.

Epyx box-art was always awesome.

When you start the game, you find yourself standing in an unassuming elevator shaft while being greeted by a sinister voice welcoming you to "stay awhile - STAY FOREVER".  It's time to get to work.  Heading to the first room, you catapult yourself over a hole where the lift would normally rest.  Just clearing it, you find yourself at the business end of a robot's laser.  Dust yourself off and try again, knowing that ten minutes has just been deducted from your time limit.  Too many deaths and Elvin wins.  Best be careful.

You, missing the toilet.

You finally exit the room, with a couple of puzzle pieces in your hand.  You open up your pocket computer and try to make sense of it.  You rotate it, flip it and recolor it - no use.  You need to keep searching.  Time to move onto another room.  You find yourself facing robots that are "jacked up to eleven" and will not let you move a single inch without frying you into sizzling bits of pixels.  Good thing you found a password to put the robots to sleep.  You walk over to a terminal, use the password and now you can search without fear of being zapped... for a short time anyway.

After searching all the rooms, you realize you have enough pieces to get the letters needed to open Elvin's door.  You rush right over and stop him.  Crisis averted.   That is until you restart the game and you suddenly realize the game re-arranged all the rooms, puzzle piece locations and robot behaviors.   You realize victory may not be so assured this time before sighing and heading into the first room again.

Enjoy this screen.  You won't see it very often.

Epyx's Impossible Mission was one of the games that turned the Commodore 64 from a "computer that can play games" to a "computer that can play phenomenal games".  It really pushed the limits of the simple computer with fluid sprite animation and voice synthesis (falling into holes is especially fun) that only serves to enhance the brilliant game play.  And while many C64 have aged poorly rather quickly, this is one of the few titles that still holds up today.

Impossible Mission was eventually ported to other computers and newer consoles such as the Sega Master System.  But in a successful attempt to make the title literal, Atari released a version for their 7800 that was unwinnable due to a bug that hid puzzle pieces behind computer terminals.   Doesn't matter, you should stick with the Commodore 64 version anyway.