M.U.L.E.
82K plays 1985 #Others
M.U.L.E. is a 1983 strategy video game written for Atari 8-bit computers by Ozark Softscape. Designer Danielle Bunten Berry (credited as Dan Bunten) takes advantage of the four joystick ports of the Atari 400 and 800 to allow four-player simultaneous play. Published in 1983, M.U.L.E. was one of the first five games from Electronic Arts, alongside Axis Assassin, Archon: The Light and the Dark, Worms?, and Hard Hat Mack. M.U.L.E. is primarily a turn-based strategy game, but also incorporates real-time elements where players compete directly, as well as aspects that simulate economics.
The game was ported to the Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and IBM PC compatibles (as a self-booting disk). Japanese versions were also released for the PC-88, Sharp X1, and MSX2 computers. Like the subsequent Atari 8-bit models, none of these systems allow four players with separate joysticks. The Commodore 64 version lets four players share joysticks, with two players using the keyboard during action portions.
From Wikipedia's article M.U.L.E., licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Controls
This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.
Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.
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Controls
This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.
Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.
3.0 Good job
Players 71 · 147 votes
No critic scores found for this game: this is the players' rating.
Review scorecard
- Graphics 3.0 out of 5 Overall fallback
- Sound 3.0 out of 5 Overall fallback
- Control 3.0 out of 5 Overall fallback
- Fun Factor 3.0 out of 5 Overall fallback
Overall fallback: Players 71 · 147 votes. The same 71/100 overall rating fills missing categories using the face scale; these are not separate category scores. Player rating; no critic scores available.
What the reviews talk about
Key wordsfunstrategiccreativefrustratingexcitingplayable
What the critics said
Computer Gaming World described it as a "fascinating and very enjoyable game which comes to its very best point with four human players".
— Computer Gaming World
John J. Anderson wrote in Creative Computing, "I should also mention that there is no shooting to be found anywhere in the game. How positively refreshing... Mule belongs on every Atari software shelf in the world: in every home and every school, near every Atari."
— Creative Computing, 1983 (John J. Anderson)
He wrote that it would have "incredible lasting power, just like the best of the board games" and stated "I learned more about the economics of the marketplace from M.U.L.E. than I ever did in college".
— InfoWorld, 1983
Orson Scott Card in Compute! in 1983 gave M.U.L.E. and two other EA games, and Worms?, complimentary reviews, writing that "they are original; they do what they set out to do very, very well; they allow the player to take part in the creativity; they do things that only computers can do".
— Compute!, 1983 (Orson Scott Card)
It was named #5 of the "Ten Greatest PC Games Ever" by PC World in 2009.
— PC Games, 2009
From the Reception section of Wikipedia's M.U.L.E. article, under CC BY-SA 4.0. The words are the critics'; their full reviews are on the publishers' pages.
Scores
- Computer Gaming World 5/5
From the review table of Wikipedia's article. The face takes, first that applies: the Metascore for this platform, GameRankings' average, our average of the critics (one number per publication, a panel averaged), one review alone, the players' rating. Critics and players are never mixed.
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