About the Game
History
How to Play
Geneology
Links

Original Release
Atari 2600

Picture Galleries
Coming Soon

Screenshot Galleries
Title
Wedding Interrupted!
The Iron Desert
Widow of the Web
The Black Fortress

Audio Clip Galleries
Here Comes the Bride
Crystal Spider Theme

"Short in Stature, Tall in Power, Narrow of Purpose and Wide of Vision!"

After the debacle of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, one might think Atari was through with movie tie-ins. As it turned out, they weren't, and that was good news for video game fans. The year after E.T. bowed to a furious audience, Atari released Star Wars to arcades, considered by many to be one of the finest adaptations ever made. The year after that, Gremlins became Atari's first and only original game for home computers serviced by the AtariSoft brand. In the midst of these other, higher-profile adaptations came a game for the Atari 2600, based on a fantasy movie named Krull.

The producers of Krull actually seem to have had unusually large multimedia ambitions for the time. A separate arcade game was released by D. Gottlieb and Company, the same year as the Atari 2600 version. Atari actually planned to produce an Atari 5200 version, but lower-than-expected sales of the 5200 prompted them to focus on the 2600 release instead. A pinball machine was also commissioned and prototyped by Gottlieb, though it too was never put into production. That makes four separate projects, two of which became public, all based on a movie released in the days before even one video game tie-in was considered routine!

Whether Atari learned its lesson with E.T., or the game was just lucky enough not to get crammed into a too-short development time, Krull for the Atari 2600 received favorable reviews, and seemed to do a better job of striking the balance between action and strategy that had been sought with E.T.. Unfortunately for Atari, the reviews for Krull the movie were less kind, and the movie did not perform very well at theaters. Poor box office then translated into poor game sales. Consequently, of the four movie adaptations Atari published for the 2600, Krull is among the least remembered. However, it might just be the best of the bunch!