I was having dinner with a couple of my gaming buds at GDC last week, and we got on the subject of fondly remembered Apple IIe games. (Such are the activities that gamers are wont to engage in when attending GDC.) Titles discussed were Karateka, Castle Wolfenstein, etc. I can't remember them all. We got on the subject of helicopter games (Choplifter) and I suddenly remembered this game that I used to play for hours -- but what the heck was it called? It's been bugging me all week.
Of course, through the magic of the web, I found it: Rescue Raiders.
This game caused me endless amounts of grief as a kid, but I loved the game anyway. See, I never really knew how to play it. And I certainly never beat it. I don't even know if I got past the first level. I knew I was supposed to control the helicopter, but since I had the -- for shame -- cracked version, I had no instructions (in-game tutorials were a decade away). It was frustrating, but also unbelievably engaging. Like a kid with endless patience and time, I basically pecked away at the keyboard until I figured out how to launch my weapons, create infantry, vehicles and so on. I actually never knew what the point of the game was, but I created scenarios in my head about it, which made it endlessly entertaining. Rescue Raiders was much more realistic-looking than Choplifter, and the combat seemed a lot more true to life. What a cool game!
Now having discovered information about the game on the Internet, I realize this was one of the first real-time strategy games, albeit from a 2D sidescrolling perspective. As it turns out, seems the idea was to march your troops and vehicles across the map while pulverizing your enemy's caravan in order to make it to the other side. Huh. Seems pretty obvious in retrospect. Perhaps some day I'll play the game again in my Apple emulatior (try AppleWin, folks), but I don't think it can ever capture the magic of plugging away at those chunky gray IIe keys.
