Shooting folks and sneaking through secret Soviet bases is fun and all, but I’m getting way too distracted by this fully-playable Pitfall arcade machine I found in Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War’s campaign. It’s actually one of many I’ve played so far, most of which are sitting in this dusty Ukrainian arcade.
I’m going to talk about Cold War’s campaign a bit, so if you’re shy about light spoilers, look away (or scroll down and watch the neat gifs).
I know Black Ops tends to take itself less seriously than Infinity Ward’s games, but I didn’t expect to hear Frank Woods roasting my platforming skills while enemy soldiers patrolled around us. So far, I’ve found six playable arcade games.
The first was an Enduro machine stuffed in the back of a German electronics store and the rest are in a Soviet base built to simulate an American city block, arcade included. That’s the mission “Redlight, Greenlight,” if you’re interested.
Here’s every game I’ve found so far:
- Enduro (1982)
- Pitfall (1982)
- Barnstorming (1982)
- River Raid (1982)
- Grand Prix (1982)
- Fishing Derby (1980)
At this rate in the campaign, that’s probably not an exhaustive list. As a 90s baby with little time spent on 80s Atari games, it’s been a treat to taste test the best that Activision had to offer in 1982. Pitfall certainly lives up to its reputation (those pits are intense), though my unexpected runner-up is Enduro.
Enduro is the thinking man’s Grand Prix. With a realistic over-the-head camera angle, hazardous turns, and aggressive opponents, every moment I wasn’t crashing into another car felt like a miracle.
Then there’s Barnstorming, a game about a pilot with a serious death wish. I enjoyed this one on my first few runs, but it started to remind me too much of Google’s T-Rex runner game that pops up when my internet craps out. That was a bummer, so I went back to Pitfall.
Anyways, I should probably get back to infiltrating this Soviet base. Woods is yelling at me and I think he just stabbed a guy. In other Cold War news, a few clever settings should make stream sniping a lot harder in multiplayer.