H.E.R.O.

How to play H.E.R.O. online

• Fly up / hover: up arrow key (tap it to hover)
• Move left and right: left and right arrow keys
• Drop down: step off a ledge and let gravity take you
• Place a stick of dynamite: down arrow key
• Fire the helmet laser: Space bar (hold for a continuous beam)
• Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
• Choose a starting level (Games 1–5): F11 (the console’s Select switch)
• Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it

Gameplay

Each level is a mine that goes down through several screens, with a miner waiting at the bottom. Your backpack runs on a power supply that drains the whole time, shown as a gauge on screen. Reach the miner before it runs out; if it does, you lose a life. You only need enough power to get to the miner, not to fly back out.

Walls block the way. You get six sticks of dynamite per level to blow them up, and the helmet laser can also cut through walls, only much more slowly. Walls glowing red with magma are deadly to touch, and in later mines some of them open and close. Spiders, bats, snakes and other creatures kill you on contact, but your laser or dynamite can destroy them. Some shafts are lit by lanterns; knock one out and that screen goes dark except for the flash of your dynamite. Deeper down you meet flooded shafts where you must hover above the water, and rafts that carry you across rivers of lava.

You start with one hero in play and three in reserve, and earn an extra life every 20,000 points. The five game numbers set how deep you start: Game 1 begins at level 1, Game 2 at level 5, Game 3 at level 9, Game 4 at level 13 and Game 5 at level 17. The game ends when you run out of lives, or if you ever reach 1,000,000 points.

Tips

• Get clear of your dynamite. Place it and move away at once. The blast kills you as easily as it clears the wall.
• Protect the lanterns. If a lantern is destroyed, the screen goes dark, and navigating blind near magma is a quick way to lose a life.
• Save dynamite where you can. Each unused stick is worth points at the end of the level, so use the laser on thin walls when you have power to spare.
• Practise later mines with Games 2–5. Starting deeper skips the easy layouts.

The story behind H.E.R.O.

John Van Ryzin had joined Activision after writing games for the Apple II, and he had first worked on Cosmic Commuter there, which came out later, in 1985. During development H.E.R.O. was called “Heli”; Van Ryzin drew inspiration partly from cave tours and from Superman’s heat vision. The Atari 2600 version was released in March 1984, and the game was then converted to the Atari 5200, the Atari 8-bit computers, the ColecoVision, the Commodore 64, the Apple II, MSX, the ZX Spectrum and Sega’s SG-1000.

It was well liked at the time and has kept its reputation: Retro Gamer magazine later placed it second in a ranking of the best Atari 2600 games, and games writer Jeremy Parish has credited its free, multi-directional movement as a step forward for platform games.

Similar games to play next

• Pitfall II: Lost Caverns – Activision’s other big 1984 underground adventure
• Pitfall! – the jungle adventure that started Activision’s exploration games
• Montezuma’s Revenge – room-by-room exploration of a deadly pyramid
• Cosmic Commuter – John Van Ryzin’s first Activision game
• Seaquest – another Activision rescue mission, under the sea