Atari Poop

Atari Poop – Frostbite

In 1983, the video game world was introduced one of its first environmentalists: Frostbite Bailey.  Years, even nearly a decade, ahead of it’s time, Frostbite is a cautionary tale painting a clear picture of what the future might hold for planet Earth if humankind continues down it’s destructive path.  It warns of global warming and climate change long before these concepts became well-known to the general population and demonstrates the real-world problems these events would eventually cause for both humans and animals.

Though apparently Alaskan, I always envisioned Mr. Bailey as a fellow Canadian living way up in a part of the Northwest Territories now called Nunavut.  Anyway, in the world of Frostbite, it seems everything is melting.  You constantly need to rebuild your igloo… like, every single day.  That’s the whole point of the game.  You need to jump on the white ice floating from left to right or right to left.  When you land on one row, it turns grey and one block is added to your igloo.  Once you’ve stepped on all 4 rows, they turn white again and you continue until the igloo is completely built.  So, the once ice-covered landscape of the Arctic is now so fractured it is more water than ice, and this is only part of what has made Bailey’s life so fraught with danger.

You see, it’s not enough that he has to rebuild his house every day, which has made the guy thin as bones (seriously, that is not what a normal Eskimo, or Inuit if you’re from Canada, looks like… then again, it’s not what a normal human should look like either), and that the once serene and icy landscape he calls home is now a melting deathtrap, but the worst is what has happened to the wildlife.

You see, global warming is messing up Frostbite’s environment in more than one way.  Yes, the ice and snow are melting, but this has given those in the mining and oil industries easier access to all of the minerals and oil found underground.  Sadly, it doesn’t stop there.  The melting ice and snow creates surface runoff, which carries all kinds of toxic residue from these industries into the oceans and rivers.  Do you see why Bailey doesn’t gain any weight even though he eats ginormous green fish?  Think about it: Have you ever heard of ginormous green fish before?  This isn’t a case of “My copy of National Geographic containing a photo essay on the Ginormous Green Fish of the Arctic” must have gotten lost.  It’s because they don’t exist, or at least they didn’t until perfectly normal little grey fish mutated.  Turns out, this was a case of “My copy of the National Geographic containing the photo essay on the Ginormous Mutant Fish of the Arctic” must have gotten lost.

But it’s not just the fish.  In case you didn’t know, clams aren’t usually yellow, but that should be the least of your concerns, since they aren’t usually human sized carnivores that can swallow you whole either.  The same goes for the crabs.  The birds are another story.  They’re so messed up on mutant fish, clam, and crab meat (which they get by dropping them on the recently exposed rocks …global warming strikes again), they’ve become the kings of nature’s douchebags.  They don’t even eat you!  They just knock you off the ice and into your icy, watery grave because FUCK YOU, that’s why.

 

Also, the bears have nothing to do with all of this. In the game, they freaked me out as a kid, but polar bears don’t hibernate, so global warming isn’t the reason they’re running around in the middle of winter and climate change certainly hasn’t effected them in any way whatsoever.

Anyway, Frostbite is by far my favorite game for the Atari 2600.  I can play it for hours, which says a lot when it comes to this console and others from this generation. There was just something in the combination of sound, visuals, and gameplay that made this game just so relaxing and rewarding to play.  Being able to change directions in mid-air played a large part in the latter of those. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, you should check it out.