Impossible Mission Review

By Peter Parrish Published 26 October, 2007

Try not to stay forever.

Version tested: Retro

From moment Impossible Mission begins you know it's something special. Possessing one of the most memorable introductions in videogaming history (Professor Atombender's ominous verbal greeting), it subsequently delivers a devilish duel experience of platform-leaping and puzzling. As noted by programmer Dennis Caswell, players would sometimes breeze through one of these facets only to struggle with the other.

Only through dedication and understanding can the game's title be revealed as a misnomer. To begin with it seems overly hard, unfair and, frankly, just out to destroy you. Yet with time, observation and practice the impossible can be achieved. This is one of the game’s most prominent strengths - that the player who can correctly react to every nuance and attribute will quickly start to reap the rewards.

Each individual aspect contributes to the satisfying whole; the superb rotoscope-like agent animation, the lonely sound of footsteps in the corridors, the whirring hum and blazing charges of security robots (not to mention their fiendishly tricky behaviour), and, of course, more of that unbelievable speech. All in all, the game's flash pants are hiding quite a package. Err, so to speak.

'Impossible Mission' Screenshot 1

Even when the necessary level of skill to beat the game into the ground has been met and surpassed, it's still as enjoyable to play through as when the AI was doing all the beating. This is partly because room and elevator arrangements, puzzle piece locations and even the various flavours of robots are randomly distributed upon each restart, providing immense replay value.

Further to this though, there's a timeless quality to the password-assembling, droid-dodging antics; one tinged with perfect controls and an absence of unfairness which amazingly, save for the odd sequel or remake, haven’t been copied since. Quite simply, it's a game everyone should play at least once.

10 / 10

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About Peter Parrish

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Comments (10) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • neuroniky #1 4 years ago

    I've almost manage to finish Impossible Mission 2, but the first one was really too hard for me. Still, it is one of the best games I've ever played, and one that I would like to see revamped and playable on my 360 just like Prince of Persia...

  • jlaakso #2 4 years ago

    Mission Impossible II may have been the first game I ever completed. God, this brings back such vivid memories of me translating the manual with a dictionary in hand on a hot summer day. Man!

  • Skurmedel #3 4 years ago

    Played this as a kid, but I was really young (like < 5) so I didn't understand a squat, the aura sucked me in though.

  • NinjaWilliams #4 4 years ago

    "Another Visitor, stay a while, stay foreverrrrrrrrr!!!"

    Awesome game, managed to complete it on the C64 and Master system - pure unadulterated fun, genius of a game infact! :)

    Like said peops, bring back this and other countless classics to the HD era:
    Another world, Flashback, IK+, Exploding fist, Last Ninja etc! ^_^

  • Stoatboy #5 4 years ago

    Finished this on C64 a couple of times. One of the codes was Albatross IIRC. Top game.

  • monkie_king #6 4 years ago

    Destroy him, my robots!

    I remember spending ages playing that memory game on the surreal giant checkerboards in order to score a couple of extra snoozes to search that one last bathtub.

    Definitely a game made easier by emulator quicksaves =)

  • tonynibbles #7 4 years ago

    Better than Gears?

  • Blerk #8 4 years ago

    It took me over 20 years to realise that the bouncy-ball thingies are missing from the Speccy version. :-/

  • Killerbee #9 4 years ago

    Completed this on both the Speccy - took hours to get "Amsterdam" what with all the shuffling of those punch cards to do, but the sense of achievement at completing it was incredible.

  • siro #10 4 years ago

    I really don't see this being a 10 despite other WAY BETTER games getting a 9. Or an 8.