After playing the game for a few nights, I have to admit I feel a little disappointed. By trying to combine a puzzle game with a platform title, MicroProse seems to have fallen between the two stools. This game just doesn’t have the charm or excitement of the original, but perhaps fond memories have clouded my view. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad game, it just gets tedious after a few goes. It may have been souped up for the nineties, but it belongs in the eighties.
Boring boring boring! Yes, as you have have gathered, THIS GAME IS BORING! I’d love to give IMP 2025 a good review as it lumbers along in front of my nose, belching nostalgia like a Thames Barge, but it’s the sort of game that looks very nice and all that […], but just leaves you completely blank after a couple of hours playing. […] At the end of the day, you eally have to ask yourself how long people are going to want to run around searching inanimate objects for, and if my experience is anything to go by, the answer’s “not very long at all.”
Thoughts by Mr Creosote (12 Apr 2025) – Amiga (AGA)
“Remasters” are not an invention of our decade. In 1994, Impossible Mission was already an oldie. The “more of the same” sequel of 1988 had not moved anything forward. A good game, but looking like 1985 still. When the remake was released, the audiovisual leap was immediately apparent. As I’m writing this, about thirty more years have passed since this remake. And it might as well be released today as an indie game on a current-generation console or handheld. Tells you something about the speed of technological evolution then and now…
Choose a cool character. Gameplay relevance: zero.
So, yes, this is one nice-looking game with a trendy cyberpunk theme. At heart, it is still the same: infiltrate a level, search the hidden circuit board parts in the scenery, but keep an eye on the robots chasing you across the platforms. Mini-games, such as Simon or a short Space Invaders interlude, promise bonuses. Of which some are now even of offensive nature: guns, grenades etc. can be used to counter the robot threat.
This is, however, where one of the game’s two issues strikes. Selecting and activating the power-ups is done through the keyboard. The joystick button triggers the famous somersault jump to avoid the robots. The “up” direction is completely wasted on just controlling the lifts. In the heat of the action, coordinated operation of the stick and the keyboard is problematic to say the least, resulting in a very high difficulty level.
Jump!
This difficulty level is further increased through another bad reason. The levels are no longer single-screen. Turns out bigger is not always better. The spatial constraints of the original lead to rather tactical challenges, finding the right timing to squeeze through, to just finish that search of a desk. In 2025, the robots randomly spawn off-screen and then run like hell. Tactics are gone, this is really a reaction game. An unfair one at that, when for example jumping over a robot only to crash into one which has just spawned where you’ll inevitably land.
The playability therefore deteriorated rather than enhanced, it doesn’t help all that much that the sprite animations are still flawless, built from many frames. It’s just that this, as well as so much else, is really just coating. There are three playable characters to choose from. Each has a different sprite, a different somersault animation. But gameplay-wise, the choice makes no difference at all.
Mini-games interrupting the main game flow
The original comes nicely bundled on the two floppy disks. Very nice, because the original had never been ported to the Amiga. The 2025 version is not a catastrophe, either. It just doesn’t manage to set itself apart from the hundreds of mediocre platformers available by the time anymore. Neither does it manage to take the rather simplistic gameplay of the original to a new level with the careful, but not even that good additions.
It is difficult to imagine how a really good “re-imagination” of the original could play like. Without it become a completely different game, that is. Maybe Impossible Mission is just one of those classics which belong to their time, but which don’t need a remake. With that in mind, I guess the developers of 2025 did their best.
