✩Heather Ashley Chase✩

Way back in the day, I was a video game junkie. I’d play all day long, solving crimes with Sherlock Holmes, rescuing rings and dolphins in Ecco the Dolphin and trying to get out of the first stage of NIGHT TRAP.

These Sega Genesis CD games would occupy most of my day. I did have a few modeling acting jobs back then, but it was a flexible one and it allowed me to immerse myself into this awesome world of video games.

My first husband got me completely hooked into them. It all started with an old Commodore 64 that I bought at a garage sale, with my allowance. (15.00!). Boy was I a happy girl. This was before the internet. Before dial up. When you had to PROGRAM your OWN games. Yup, and a list that came with the computer, with all the perfect code and floppy disc’s were soon to take over my all of my attention. Atari was also found in my neighborhood, when some much older kids I knew, were heading off to college and that family had a garage sale. I was 13, and putting in this damn near impossible to see straight code into the commodore 64. No help from anyone else, as an only child growing up, I did this all myself.

But the satisfaction of pressing ENTER and seeing it start to play, and music start to whirl???? Sheer delight!

Fast forward to 1993 where I am playing my then husbands sega genesis CD all day. There was only ONE game that I could not break. Could not crack.

Night Trap.

Ohhhh how I had a love hate relationship with that game. Even refueling on Nachos did not help my quest. (I used to eat like CRAP! I’m told by doctors that it definitely explains my body’s metabolism quirks now, but, really, I/we ate a lot of Nachos ala Bevis and Butthead). This was before ‘cheat’ books came out and told you the tricks on how to get past levels. This was before the internet where there were a lot of web pages that did walk through’s for each and every walk through game out there.

Each time I’d pop it in… I’d have to stare at Dana Plato. That’s right. “Different Strokes” Dana Plato…and each time I’d FAIL, Dana would make a sad face….

Here’s a surmise of the Night Trap ‘hel’l I lived in:
You are a character in your own suspense movie. The mystery surrounds five teenagers who go missing. You’re the special agent from Commander Special Control Attack Team in charge of making sure this doesn’t happen again. You work alongside undercover Agent Kelli Meda (Dana Plato) at keeping the peace, which doesn’t last. Using real actors and not computer generated characters; you can control hidden cameras in eight different rooms of this mansion. Lives are on the line if you mess up, but you also have control over a series of trap doors that you can capture anyone trying to get in and threaten the safety of the others. DigiChrome and InstaSwitch combine the virtual reality of real actors with an instantaneous response.

Yeah. Sounds cool right? Let me tell you, back then it was cutting technology. In my book, this was the neatest thing in the world.

As one reviewer of the game put’s it:

This is the game that got me to buy a Sega CD. I bought the game used at a flea market with hopes of catching some nudity (it had a reputation as the Basic Instinct of video games). Well, 250 dollars of paper route money later I discovered that there was no nudity in the game. What was all the controversy over anyway?

This game and the SEGA CD system are hallmark items of the 1990’s.

So now maybe you can understand why I was so in love with the idea of solving this game. It was ahead of it’s time. It was awesome, and I could never get past the first level.

I just found it on Amazon.com and by golly…… by golly…. I am putting that and the Sega genesis cd 199.00 console (that’s now $21.00!) on my wish list.

I’m going to try real hard to solve Night Trap, and finish what I started years ago.

For some real brilliant acting…… watch the first segment of Night Trap that someone recorded… It’s hysterical..