Bailout!

Anyone who started gaming with the SNES or later can just turn away and go about your business right now. This is not the game for you, and you are unlikely to understand how it could hold any appeal. For those who spent years gaming on 8-bit home computers, though, this nouveau retro game could be right up your alley.

Sure, the graphics are nothing that would ever have been considered wonderful, but they do bring on the waves of nostalgia. Same thing with the music (although it would have been considered impressive to even have music on many 8-bit home computers.) The game itself is also rather basic.

Dodge falling stock brokers while collecting pennies (and bills, and gold bricks) from heaven (if the government is your idea of heaven.) Deposit your “earnings” in your vault, and beat down the poor folk who try to raid it to pay for medical treatments. This would have been right at home on the Atari 2600.

The thing that makes this game great, then, isn’t the nostalgic retro-standards for graphics and sound, nor is it the dodge-about gameplay. The thing Bailout! does that would have made it a classic were it released a quarter century ago is the same thing every great game does: it makes the player feel empowered, in control of his destiny, and able to game the system to his advantage – whether or not it’s true.

Whenever you collect three of the same item, the amount of money you deposit will be multiplied. You can purchase bigger wallets to hold more items, increasing your odds of scoring a multiplier or two. But collecting all those items takes time, and the levels are over quickly. So, you can purchase more time for the levels. Sometimes it’s impossible to collect items or avoid stockbrokers without dashing, but your dash ability is limited. So you can purchase more dash power. The game ends if you get hit by a stock broker, but you can purchase an umbrella to give yourself a second chance.

Notice how all of your improvements involve purchasing? That’s right, the money you’ve been working so hard to score must be sacrificed to make it easier to score more money. But the game still ends the moment you get hit (sans umbrella). So if you drain your account and fail to refill it you’ve screwed yourself right off the scoreboard. This creates a risk/reward mechanic that is as compulsive as gambling.

And that’s what gets this simple little game a recommendation.