Here is a scan of both TV School House I and II for scale comparisons. (In case you've never seen one of the RCA "longboxes".)
I didn't even try to coax my son to play this one because it isn't a game and it requires knowledge that he does not yet posess.
Remember your SATs? If you are not old enough to have taken them yet, then try to remember any standardized test you've ever taken. This game pack is like those tests -- except the questions are a lot less interesting.
The main co
Videocart #16, Dodge-It, Fairchild Channel F, 1978
We really enjoy Dodge-It. Simple concept: You and your second player (optional) are in a box. A red ball (square) bounces into the box and you have to avoid its many rebounds off the walls of your enclosed space. Avoid it for long enough and it is joined by a second and then a third and then a fourth and so on up to nine bouncing balls. The highest we got was six balls at once. A counter on the left increases as you play and stops wh
Videocart #17, Video Pinball, FCF 1978
I wasn't able to find instructions for this one, but the label has enough guidelines for use that we were able to figure it out for the most part.
It's not really Video Pinball at all. It's Video Breakout, which is the same as saying Breakout (licensing issues aside), since the "video" part of the name is assumed.
We do enjoy some of the variations on Video Breakou-er-Pinball as presented on this cart. The game variant ca
Old people: "Play new games but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold"
It's me. I'm Old people.
There's a game we play our entire lives called "Explore vs. Exploit". When seeking to entertain ourselves we are faced with the decision to Explore something new that we might enjoy, or to Exploit something we already know we enjoy. This idea is talked about more broadly in a book called "Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions" by Brian Christia
Above is the Überlay from Shootout. Shootout involves moving your little white square from window to window (starting at the upper left to the upper right, cross the street to the lower right then make your way to the lower left) while your friend, parent, spouse, offspring or other loved one tries to shoot you. The person playing the "outlaw" who sneaks from window to window, can't just zip through the window at a blinding speed. The "outlaw" has to stop in the window long enough to say "You'll
I can't believe I almost forgot about Percepts!
Percepts was the free Odyssey game you got for registering your Odyssey. You know the drill, you fill out a little slip of paper and mail it in to Magnavox. They get your personal information for nefarious marketing purposes and you get a free game. Not a bad deal!
This game would fall into the "Simon Says" category in that you must determine where to go on the screen and get there before your opponent does. It also uses cards. Percepts com
Checkers (Channel F, 1979)
This was what the U.S. got instead of the Saba Schach game I wrote of a few days ago.
Checkers?
Don't misunderstand me, I like the game of checkers, it's what most people learn before moving on to Chess and I'm no exception. The US gets Checkers and not Chess? It just seems wrong, insulting even.
How does it rate as a checkers game? Not bad. The controls make enough sense that one can jump right in. My only complaint is t
This is sort of an interim entry taking place between the sharing my experiences with the Fairchild Channel F and going on to explore the Bally Professional Arcade.
I just won an APF MP1000 a few weeks ago on eBay and, in separate auctions, won six carts for it.
I still have some time before I get to this system, but when I do, half of its library is unavailable to me. As far as I know, an emulator for it isn't finished and the carts for it are not dumped. I'm about to st
Jeez, just when I thought I had it all working I go and break a controller.
I've been really excited about playing the Bally Professional Arcade because it has a four player option on some of its games and they've got a true joystick/paddle/trigger controller combo thing going on with their interface, PLUS a 24 key-keypad. Bally spent money on their interfaces, at least that's the way it looks to me.
I do have FOUR Bally controllers. Unfortunately, I only have one which
For those of you playing along at home this is Videocart #21-Bowling, for the Zircon Channel F.
I wonder if they actually changed its name to the "Zircon Channel-F"? All of the carts released during what is known among Channel F fans as "The Zircon Era" have the Zircon Empire's name and address on the back of the cart. I'll scan a picture of it one of these days.
Bowling (Channel F, 1979)
The Title (system, year) format was one of the ways of presenting the ca
Invasion! It's not Risk, but it tries to be!
The world is a small map with 12 territories each containing a castle. Surrounding the land portion of the map is an ocean perimeter. The land part of the world gets divided up and everyone gets an equal number of castles. The object of the game is to take over everyone else's castles using your armies. You can attack any castle if it is immediately adjacent to one of your castles. After capturing a castle you get to draw a loot card which gives y
Out of this World / Helicopter Rescue (Odyssey^2, 1979)
Out of this World! is a "graviteasing" space race.
A better way to describe it would be a one dimensional Lunar Lander knock-off. You control a lander module by using its retro rockets to regulate its descent to the lunar surface. Your fuel is limited, which promotes an aside subject.
Armstrong and Aldrin had a similar issue when they were landing on our moon: they had a limited amount of fuel and had to
Datsun 280 Zzzap / Dodgem, Bally Professional Aracade, 1978
Okay, these are early don't-hit-something driving games.
For those of you not familiar with Bally's version of Dodgem: The object of the game is to get as far as you can in the time allotted (you choose how many seconds) while avoiding collision with the cars that you are passing. You control the horizontal positioning of a car with the paddle. The view is top down and you are driving towards the top of the scree
Space Invaders aka Astro Battle (Bally Pro Arcade, 1979)
Okay, my research on this is sketchy, but as far as I can tell:
Bally-Midway distributed Space Invaders in the arcades in the United States. The rights to do so, I assume, were purchased from Taito, the company that owned the game and distributed it in Japan.
Since Bally has this Professional Arcade for the home it only makes sense that they'd do a home version of Space Invaders for it, since it was the
Forward to present day (2005, to those of you reading this in some 25th century museum/blog-vault), videogame volleyball will/has evolve/evolved into poly-polygonal, progressively scanned-tily clad women bouncing around on exotic beaches and buying each other cute gifts. Back here in 1972/73, where I am, Volleyball for the Odyssey is the primordial soup of videogame volleyball. Don't forget, those little figures on the Überlay are static; frozen eternally in those positions. The only movement on
A few words about the term "Crap Game from Hell".
While I was cajoling my son into playing Handball with me, I billed it as the "Last Crap Game from Hell from 1972!!!" This term isn't meant to malign the Odyssey or its games. It rather serves as a warning to my son that the game I'm asking him to play isn't going to be easy to enjoy, but that I need him to do his best for me. We tend to enjoy these old games a lot more when we expect that they are going to be hard to enjoy. Calling them "Cra
Surround (a.k.a. Chase)
After Combat, Surround was one of the original nine carts that I remember playing most fondly as a 12-13 year old. I remember getting the game cheaply (about $10) at JC Penny's on 69th street in Upper Darby, PA. (Most likely, just before, or maybe even during, the "crash", but here in 1977 we don't know anything about that, do we?)
The game variant that my friends and I seemed to laugh the most during was the one where you can turn off your "trail" and go faster a
True story of something that happened to me at the supermarket today!
My six year-old daughter and I were at the local supermarket today and I noticed a twenty-something female. Cute either in spite of, or because of, her tattoos and peircings. We had to pass in front of her and I nodded and mumbled a civilized "please excuse us" (as we were briefly blocking her view of whatever it was she was shopping for) and continued on. Suddenly I heard her say "Hey! I LOVE your shirt!"
I was wearin
Space Battle (Intellivision, 1980)
This is a neat game, and I've never played anything like it (up till 1980).
Okay, you've got this base at the center of your little universe from the perspective of your Radar screen. You defend it with three squadrons of three fighters each. Surrounding your base is the utter void of space through which your enemies approach. There's always five groups of these enemies...I don't know why, something to do with how they evolved...coming from the outer bo
Two Home Videogames for 1975:
Atari PONG (aka Sears Tele-Games PONG)
Magnavox Odyssey 100
Sadly, I do not have Atari PONG yet. I wasn't intending to include it as part of the chronology (prefering to stick to programmable consoles) but I've changed my mind as it's too important to just skip over.
I actually HAVE a Magnavox Odyssey 100 so I can talk about that one, but it's not its turn yet.
So, I'm going to skip a day or two (maybe make a place holder?) and leave space for Atari
Armor Battle (Intellvision, 1980)
Don't get me wrong, I really love Atari's Combat; it will always hold a special place in my heart. However, Armor Battle immediately strikes me as being a "next generation" tank game: two tanks for each player, obstacles, variable terrain (road, water, woods, grass, buildings), mine laying capabilities, 240 different terrain maps, tanks that take multiple hits...jeez, the feature list goes on and on, doesn't it?
Each player has two tanks under their comm
I've Got Your Number! (Odyssey^2, 1979)
6870
This is an educational title pretending to be a game.
Each player controls a human shaped figure that starts on either side of the screen. An equation shows up at the bottom middle of the screen. A question mark denotes the unknown element of the equation. In the main playing field is a sea of about a dozen or so shapes, symbols and numbers in two groups each rotating around a center symbol. The object of the g
Two games. One cart.
Armored Encounter! Odyssey^2, 1978
I'll include a picture of these tanks when I have one.
Oh, hey, I do. Here's Mr. Blue and his eternal nemesis, Mr. Red.
Okay, this is very much like Atari Combat, the Tank games, with minor changes to the gaming variants and one very notable addition.
Two tanks (red vs blue, again) face off with or without guided missiles, with or without barriers (simple
War of Nerves (Odyssey^2, 1979)
This is another great example of a game that didn't seem like much when I played it single-player but blossomed into a real giggle when I played it with my son.
You control a general and your mission is to lead a bunch of robots into battle to catch the enemy general, who also has robots. The challenge here is that you lead, you don't control. The robots can disable each other and you can heal them by touching them. There's a
Breakout, Atari VCS, 1978
Okay, a chronogamer has to always be thinking about the relative future (though technically, we're always thinking about the past.) which is why I haven't been writing lately. Mostly I've been letting go of the past (goodbye Odyssey games! It was fun! Um, sometimes!) so that I can afford to play the games to come. Oh, I also bought a brickwall on ebay and I've been slamming my head against it for about two weeks. Wait, did I say brickwall? I meant a Sony PVM 2530 mo
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