Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

One of the largest and most successful games ever created for the Atari 2600. Made possible by custom hardware built inside the game cartridge. Programmer David Crane designed and patented a component he called the Display Processor Chip (DPC), which could greatly enhance the 2600’s graphics capabilities and could process music in three channels plus drums.

You control Pitfall Harry as he makes his way through an underground Peruvian cave in search of the valuable Raj diamond, as well as his lost niece and cat. Once all three have been found, the game is over. The gameplay is fundamentally the same as Pitfall!, but with a few new twists. The environments are no longer limited to a horizontal plane, so navigating through the complex maze of corridors becomes a matter of puzzle solving and timing. Harry has also gained the abilities to swim and float across chasms using a balloon. The scorpions make a return appearance, but there are many new creatures for Harry to avoid, such as frogs, bats, electric eels, and condors.

The PAL version of this game doesn’t show a second rock on the left side of the first screen and also lacks the sunset sky of the NTSC version.