Mission Impossible (1979)

The very first Mission: Impossible video game, albeit an unofficial one, came out in 1979. And no, that’s not a typo. Scott Adams (no, thank god, not the Dilbert one) and Irene Adams made a series of text adventures after being inspired by Scott’s colleagues who created the seminal Colossal Cave Adventure in 1976. Widely considered to be a joint founders of the entire genre, the Adamses made a series of text adventure games (what you kids now call Interactive Fiction) for the TRS-80 in the late ‘70s, one of which was originally called Mission Impossible (without the distinctive colon that’s officially in the title of the TV shows and movies)

Things were a bit of a wild west back then, given that there wasn’t really a vast home gaming industry. The game featured a spy called Phelps after the main character of the original show, who begins sat in front of a tape recorder containing a message that begins much like those on the show often did. “Good morning Mr. Phelps. Your Mission (should you decide to accept it) is to prevent this automated nuclear reactor from being destroyed by a saboteur’s TIME BOMB!” Perhaps it’s not surprising that the owners of the TV show threatened legal action.

This led to all manner of names ending up attached to the game, the most common being Secret Mission, which was added to the already-printed boxes via a cheaply produced gold sticker. It’s something of a joy that one of the first ever popular text adventures should be such a brazen rip-off.