Expected at the end of the 80s, but never released, the Atari 2600 game “Save Mary” finally arrives on the market in 2023… but through a collector’s version which is now out of stock.
AlongsideAssassin’s Creed Mirage and others Alan Wake 2, Save Mary promises to be one of the great video game releases of this fall 2023… and if the name of this game doesn’t mean anything to you, that’s normal, our generation should never have known about it. Announced on the Atari 2600, the title arrived on the console more than thirty years late, in the only possible form, that of a cartridge.
A small event for fans of retro gaming, but also a sign that anything can definitely happen on the video game market… even if it is already too late to pre-order the title. Priced at $60 on the official Atari website, and sold with a collector’s edition silver box and a color manual, the 500 units available have indeed found buyers.
An ambitious title (for the time)
If its pixelated appearance now seems ridiculous in the age of ray tracing, the game looked promising in its time. Designed by Tod Frye (who was notably known for the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man, or via the series of Swordquest), Save Mary had remained in development for two full years… a veritable eternity for a title of this generation, underlines Engadget. Most blockbusters of the time took just a few months of development, or even just a few weeks.
In any case, the game smacks of the 80s: the principle consists, as you will have understood… of saving a woman named Mary, stuck in a canyon which is rapidly filling with water. Using a crane, the idea is to build platforms quickly enough to help him get out. During an interview published in 1989, the founder of Atari explained that Save Mary was the ” first game in which you have to rely on construction rather than destruction to save the princess “. A whole era.
For context, Save Mary is not the only Atari 2600 cartridge recently launched by the brand. Through its Atari XP range, the firm offers its fans titles vintage “ manufactured to exact standards » of yesteryear, but with some modern improvements like beveled edges (to prevent damage to the pins) or even gold-plated connectors.