Do you have a favorite game that is totally obscure? That one game you spent hours playing that leaves your friends scratching their heads when you call out its title?
I have to think no matter what the platform is, we all have a game like that. Probably one my all time favorites was on the Commodore 64. It was an Activision title called Park Patrol, and I’m guessing you never heard of it. My Mom bought this home one day after “bargain hunting” at a local store that carried games. At first I wasn’t to receptive, but after playing it for a while it became a favorite. Park Patrol came as a 5.25″ disk, and remember the keeping it in the Commodore manual bag, a leather pouch that I can remember the smell of till this day. My Mom also picked up Toy Bizarre another Activision title and obscure game at the same time but I remember Park Patrol being my favorite of the two, although they are both great games.
The basic concept of the game was that you where a Park Ranger, yes I know go figure in a game named Park Patrol. Anyway, you play as either a male or female park ranger, and find yourself in a rubber raft or perhaps a Zodiac on what I believe is a river. The goal is to save drowning swimmers, while avoiding water snakes and logs. Now, you could temporarily get rid of the snakes by throwing out glowing disks (snake repellent?) at them, of course you also couldn’t get near the drowning swimmers with your boat or you could kill them too. At other times you could leave the raft and venture on land to get food from your rangers station. Of course you would usually find yourself fighting off ants to do this.
Another overall goal of the game was to pick up litter found either on land or in the water. Of course you can’t advance until you collect a certain amount of litter, so I guess litter collecting is the main goal of the game, even though you would think saving lives should be.
One of my favorite memories of this game was playing it one summer night after a long day of working outside with my Mom. I remember her coming to talk to me in my bedroom, where my computer was, and her falling asleep in my bed as we where talking. As she slept I just played this game, it’s a pleasant memory of Summer as a kid, being with my Mom, my old house, my old computer, and a favorite game.
I going to apologize to my readers for having released this article without really carefully proof reading it a few years back, my only excuse was that four years ago I did most of my writing on the small screen of my iPhone 3Gs, and sometimes let stuff slip by. I hope it gets reread though and that you enjoy it, even though its very brief.
