Possible mission

When I was 11, Impossible Mission for the Commodore 64 lived up to its name - it was digital cruelty at its finest.

- 

The game threw legions of robots at you, each armed with electric death. Your character, a slick spy, looked incredible but died beautifully and often. From the moment the villain sneered, “Another visitor. Stay awhile... stay forever!” I was hooked. I stayed forever and died forever, again and again. Dennis Caswell, the game's creator, shifted in my imagination from a brilliant visionary to a diabolical tormentor.

A couple of years earlier, Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan had rewired my sense of what 'impossible' meant. I learned how Captain Kirk swaggered through the 'no-win scenario' – the Kobayashi Maru – by secretly reprogramming it. Rules were for Vulcans! The lesson was clear: if you can't win, change the game.

I lived by that mantra. I jumped bikes over ravines, leapt from moving cars, dove into shallow rivers – acts of adolescent bravado that were, in retrospect, less 'captain' and more 'idiot'. So when Impossible Mission began mocking me, I didn't accept defeat. I looked to upend the 'no-win scenario'.

I was familiar with 'trained' versions of games – hacked versions that granted infinite lives or invulnerability. None existed, as far as I knew, for