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Was it 1983/1984 severe or was it just a burnout?

I wanted to add my question into the correct post/forum, so hopefully I've done that, if not, I apologize. I’m looking to learn more about this Atari 2600 that was given to me. Atari 2600 Property of Atari Inc. Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Manufactured: 1977 Manufactured by: TRW Electronic Components Company In Taiwan Model: CX-2600 Box: Copyright Atari, Inc. 1978 Light or Heavy Sixer: Not sure? I have a question (or maybe questions) about my Atari 2600 (CX-2600) that was given to me several weeks ago. A friend of mine passed away in 2007 (age 38) due to a chronic disease that he had all his life, and I've kept in contact with his Mom for the past 6 years. She learned (from my e-mail signature) that I liked Atari. She asked if I wanted her son's (Charley) Atari 2600, because it had been sitting in the closet for 25+ years. I said yes. She sent the Atari 2600 with the original box (Copyright Atari, Inc. 1978), but the motherboard inside reads copyright logo © 1977. She said they got it for Charley the first Christmas that the Atari came out, so why would the box read 1978? I opened the console and took it apart to clean the inside. I was shocked to see that it was spotless. The inside cover of the Atari console was a bit dusty, but other than that, it looks and works great. The switch board and main motherboard both read © 1977 (pictured), but 3 out of 4 chips (4th has no date on it) read 8108, 8120, and 8121, which I thought that meant the year (1981) and the 8th, 20th, and 21st weeks of that year. I noticed the piece of paper taped to the top of the EMI shield cover reads the letter Z (it could be 2), and also the date (in red) July 13th 1981. From what I've gathered from the enclosed photos (with detail), my friend received his Atari 2600 in 1978 (made in 1977), but... had it worked on in July of 1981. Something must have happened to where they had to replace 3 out of the 4 chips inside the console. They didn't have to replace anything (chips) on the switch board, just the main motherboard. I could be incorrect about my assumption(s). None of the boards have been replaced. Does this all mean they had it repaired in 1981? Why does the box read 1978 when it was built in 1977, unless it was built in late 1977? Is this Atari 2600 a Heavy Sixer? It looks more like a light sixer. I noted which chips were replaced. I apologize for the flashlight, but I wanted to note the dates perfectly. Again, I apologize for so many pictures, but I've read on here that people want pictures if someone is having a problem or question. Thank you for your help.

See: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/269668-bombs-away-vcs-2600/ - for the game...

I went to LabelMaker2600.com and was having some fun with the label maker when I had a somewhat 420 induced idea. I uploaded a popular Led Zeppelin bootleg, left out the songs that were incomplete recordings, and renamed it "Led Zeppelin - CX-420" The bootleg is from 1977, the year that the 2600 first landed under Christmas trees in the USA. I thought that the cartridge design was kinda clever, hope you guys enjoy the bootleg, and get the joke. Enjoy: http://www.roguestream.net/ledzep/Clv77

Hello I stumbled upon what I believe to be CX-10 joystick. Could anyone give me a description with details and history on the joystick. I know it's less sensitive with better build materials (rubber stick for example) and that try account for (I heard) only 5% of all the joysticks ever made. Any info? SIDENOTE: Anyone have a H6R adapter. I want to complete my set and that adapters all I'm missing.

I am what I would consider to be a serious Atari 2600 collector - haven't purchased anything in a few years, as other things in life have taken priority. Thankfully though it's never come down to selling anything. There is always the possibility this COULD happen though. I am asking for the community's help here, in understanding if I have a rare piece. Over the years, I have not seen any others like it. I've seen ONE out of Japan that had the grey lettering on the front, but that is the only one I've seen. I purchased this back in 2006 on a risk. As far as I can tell (and I have other sealed consoles) - this has NEVER been opened. I am not willing to open it myself to verify, because at least judging by the box, this might be a very rare piece. All of your collective knowledge and the things you've seen will hopefully help me figure it out. I'm not looking for whether you think the box is sealed - I'm specifically interested to know if you've seen any boxes exactly like this, as I have not. Thanks everyone!!

Hey everyone, I am new to these forums, I have a heavy sixer console, complete with grey ac adapter, 1977 joysticks (no hex discs), 1977 paddles and a few other things. Here are some pictures:

Hello all, I'm new to these forums, but I'm an avid classic gamer, and I'm ready to step back a decade into the joy that is Atari. Having done some reading and being a collector at heart, it seems clear that to "do this right" I need to buy an Atari 2600 Woodgrain Heavy Sixer (1977, Sunnyvale) with original controllers. I don't care about boxes, manual would be nice but not necessary. Not looking for any games to start unless they are complete in box. While I don't collect my consoles CIB, I *do* collect my games CIB. It's also important to me that the console be in very good to excellent cosmetic condition and function properly. Finally, I'm wanting to get two of the original joysticks that make the lovely "clicking" sound when pressing the red button, and two of the original tennis paddles that have the Atari logo rather than the word "paddle." Hookups for modern-day televisions would be a plus but if not, I can scrounge that separately. If you have all of the above, please reply or PM me ASAP! To summarize, WTB: - 1 original Atari 2600 Woodgrain (NOT Sears) "Heavy Sixer" (1977, made in Sunnyvale) - without box is fine, manual would be nice, but not crucial - must work properly and be in very good cosmetic condition - 2 original joysticks (the kind with the red buttons that "click") - 2 original tennis paddles (the kind with Atari logo instead of word "paddle") - Not interested in pack-in games unless they are complete with box; while I don't collect console boxes per se, I only collect 100% complete games Thank you everyone for your time and hospitality!! (Edit: I now see that there is a separate "Wanted" sub forum. If any mods would be so kind as to move this post there, I would greatly appreciate it! Sorry for the oversight!)

Tele-Games Electronic Games Motocross Sports Center IV (Atari, 1977) I kinda "get it" now but back in the late 70s I had no clue what was going on between Atari and Sears. It seemed like Atari stuff in other department stores was labeled "Atari" but Sears was a parallel universe where every Atari item was called something else. Combat was called Tank Plus; Air-Sea Battle was called Target Fun. The Atari Video Computer System was called the Sears Video Arcade, etc. Suspicions of conspiracy often played in my mind. Did Atari know that Sears was blocking Atari products from its shelves and replacing them with rebranded copies? Were these watered down versions or were they just as good as the "real" thing? The world may never know! (Look, I know we know, okay? I just didn't understand then.) One such rebranded (or prebranded) property is the Atari Stunt Cycle sold in Sears as Tele-Games Electronic Games Motocross Sports Center IV. This unit boasts several unique features that sets it apart from other consoles that come fully loaded with several variations on a PONG. Most notably the console resembles the throttle controls of a motorbike. The right-hand throttle is used to accelerate the on-screen motorbike to take it through a series of tasks, depending on the game. The left-hand handle is simply a handle that has a nice rubbery texture to it. The sound effect which accompianies the acceleration of the motorbike shows promise... Motocross Sound Demo on YouTube (Sadly, this video is no longer on YouTube. ) The occasional beeping sound in the middle of my revving is the Motor Bike sprite sliding on its head. The downside to the cool pontential of this sound is that during game play it became an annoying "vreeeeeeem". I'm not saying this is unrealistic, motor bikes make the same sound and some may argue that it's just as annoying. I'm saying it isn't very pleasant to overhear from the next room. Motocross Sound Demo II during gameplay on YouTube (Sadly, this video is no longer on YouTube. ) (by the way, 2:49 isn't a bad time for a five year old.) All of the sound comes directly from the console itself, so forget about practicing late into the wee hours, your family will not be pleased. To accelerate, there's a gear shifting scheme acheived by turning the throttle towards you quickly and then releasing it slightly (Trin's video demonstrates this). This technique of accelerating is related to the way that real motorcycles shift through the geers. When it's time to shift a real motorcycle, one releases the throttle, squeezes the clutch and uses their left foot to "toe" down or up to the next gear. Instead of releasing the throttle in Motocross, the player quickly turns it towards them and then forward again. This is exactly the wrong way to shift gears on a motorcycle because one should never rev an engine while the clutch is engaged ("rev it to the red!!") so, if you learned all your motorcycling skills from Tele-Games Motocross, you're going to have to unlearn them when you get on a real bike. The games in Motocross are pretty simple. The playfield consists of three levels, all of which are connected by a screen wrap-around effect. As the motor bike drives off the right side of the top level it reappears on the left side of the middle level and this is consistent when it drives off the right of the middle level (it shows up on the left side of the bottom level). Each game involves moving through those three levels with various goals. The first game, and most simple, is called Drag Race and the challenge is to get the motor bike through the course as quickly as possible by accelerating it quickly but without over revving it and sliding on your head. (Always dress for the ride AND the slide!) In addition to the "head slide" state there's also a "wheelie" state. If you accelerate just enough, you'll do a wheelie (in case I'm spelling it wrong, a wheelie is when your front wheel is off the ground and you're bike is continuing to move forward.) Motocross uses the wheelie state for a game called Motocross where the player must pull a wheelie over a barrer by accelerating the throttle as they approach it. There also Stunt Cycle. This is the most fun on here. If you were alive and watching TV during the 70's you will probably remember the Happy Days episode where Fonzie does the motorcycle jump and slides into the fried chicken stand. Well, this is similar. You start out with eight buses sandwiched between ramps and every time you successfully jump the lot they add another bus. This game is challenging and fun at first but then it gets hard and finally merely frustrating. If you're not going fast enough when your bike reaches the buses, you will not have enough forward momentum to sail over them. If you are going too fast, you may make the jump but not the landing. Yay! Another opportunity for a head slide! Okay, I blew most of my attempts to get decent gameplay footage, but here's a nice shot of the head slide. Stunt Cycle Head Slide (Sadly, this video is no longer on YouTube. ) You should be informed that there are Expert and Novice variations of each of the Cycle games. The Expert level involves much more sensitivity in the control making it more difficult to not over-accelerate into a head slide. I should also mention that there is a "Sports" in the title of this console because there are also 16 PONG variants you may enjoy by plugging in the paddle controllers. The games support between two and four players and include such Pong hits as Pong, Hockey, Street Hockey and Street Tennis. I'm officially "for" anything that involves up to four players, but I would doubt anyone will ever purchase Tele-Games Motocross blah blah blah so that they can play more Pong. On the other hand, if one doesn't already have a Pong dedicated machine, this is a nice way to get one bundled with a pretty cool Motocross game. With the exception of Atari/Sears PONG and the Coleco Tel-Star Arcade, that wraps it up for the 70s! If I should acquire either of those units in the future I'll insert them into the 80s but now, it's onward and forward! Next entry we'll jump back to 1980 and start playing the Mattel Intellivision (also known as the Sears Super Video Arcade ... oh no! Sears must've gotten to Mattel, too!) 17133

Coleco Telstar Combat (Coleco, 1977) I lost my battle with Coleco Combat! As described in this thread I have a Coleco Combat unit with crappy stickers and a single broken joystick. I took the thing apart (using the "hair dryer" trick) and discovered a snapped "eye-hook" style leaf switch. After putting it off for a few months, I finally took the thing into a local arcade cab repair shop (S&B Amusements in Austin, TX near Northcross Mall) and they looked at it and said: "Mmm, nope, we've got nothing to replace that style of leaf switch." So, daunted, I took the floppy-limbed thing home and decided I might be able to wrangle some gameplay footage out of the console. Unable to load it to my website for some reason, I've put it on YouTube: Coleco Combat - Move, Shoot and Explode In the video you can see many elements of other tank games including the "guided missiles" and the mines. The sound effects come through a speaker built in to the console and do an adequate job of conveying a fairly generic "video tank" sound. I suspect that my console is busted in more ways than just one of its joysticks (black tank's left stick, by the way) as the tanks in the game seem to ignore all of the white barriers, including the border around the playfield. The barriers do serve to block any missiles, however, causing them to explode prematurely -- a nice touch to the design, I think, as I've played other tank games that merely have the missiles disappear if they hit a barrier. I also like that the screen flashes when a shot is fired. Another nice touch is that the tanks are given a feeling of inertia to some extent. To get a tank moving there isn't a sudden lurch forward, there's more of an acceleration, this makes the controls feel a little sluggish, but I think the effect is intended and appropriate. Speaking of the controls, let's talk about the controls. The whole point of picking this particular dedicated console out of a large field of available dedicated consoles (which I WON'T be playing) is because of its unique control scheme. Reminiscent of the Kee Games arcade release, Tank II, the Coleco Telstar Combat console features two "tank controller" stations. Each side has two "up-down-only" grip joysticks, one of which has a fire button on the top of it. While not being a direct, licensed descendant of Tank II, it looks, controls and plays a lot like it, making it a very nice "arcade perfect" attempt for the home. FYI: pictured above is not my actual unit. My actual unit is too horrible in its disfiguration to show to anyone at the moment. These controls, however, no matter how keen, had a bit of a learning curve. My son, who has demonstrated ability at picking things up quickly when it comes to most videogames, took more than his usual 20 seconds to understand how to operate his on-screen vehicle. Obviously, I haven't exposed him to enough tank controls in real life and will have to rectify that situation as soon as possible, though I think the real ones involve pedals. Here's a clip showing the lack of working barriers as well as my son trying to understand the tank controllers: Coleco Combat - Broken Barriers This console supposedly has four different tank game versions. Other than a slight change in background contrast between each one, all four variations are fairly indistinguishable to me. Most likely, this represents yet another failing of my hardware. If I find out anything about those variations I'll edit this entry appropriately. Compared to other tank-a-like games in the home from the 70s (on the Fairchild, the Atari VCS or the Odyssey^2), this isn't a bad example, mostly because it offers the specialized controls. However, given its limited variation in gameplay I can't see it taking up space under my TV for very long. What would be cool is if I could figure out how to rig the controls up to work on the Atari VCS for Combat or future VCS tank games...now that's a good reason for keeping this console around! The next retro-out-of-chronogaming-sequence console we'll do is what is commonly known as Atari Stunt Cycle, also chosen for its unique controller. It won't take as long to get to as Coleco Combat did, I'm certain of that! 16437

Thanks for all of the nice comments and PMs. You have no idea how much they push me forward on this project, not that I've ever considered abandoning it, I just get slow sometimes. See, now we're "retro-chronogaming" -- playing the old games that we missed the first time we tried playing all those old games! I've got a few movies this time, so sorry to those on 56k lines. (EDIT 2021: None of the video links work and I totally should have put everything on YouTube back then. Shame on me. If I find these old videos, I will post them. They may be on a hard drive or burned CD from 13 years ago or so...) Atari Video Pinball (Atari, 1977) The pictures below are of the Atari Video Pinball console. This is the version of the console which is, sadly, lacking in the faux woodgrain finish. On the top of the console, you can see the large knob. That's for controlling the paddle of the Breakout game included within the console. If you look on either side of the console, you can see what appear to be knobs protruding from either side. Those are actually oversized buttons used to control the pinball flippers in the video pinball variations. The person who thought of placing the flipper buttons on the sides of the console in imitation of the location of the flipper buttons on an actual pinball machine was either inspired, or just doing it the only way that made sense to them. This location of the controls has huge potential as when one starts hitting those buttons they start feeling that, 'hey this is just like real pinball!' kind of feeling. A quality found in most PONG games is that they are 2-D and Zero G. When not being manhandled by an ENGLISH controller, as on the Odyssey, PONG balls normally sail across the viddy screen in a nice straight line. They also demonstrate an admirable symmetry in their angles of incidence and reflection when interacting with the upper and lower walls of the PONG playfield. In Video Pinball, they've kept the 2-D but they've added a G. Instead of a uniform straight line, the ball travels through graceful parabolic arcs interrupted only by a bunch of junk on the screen masquerading as pinball accessories. Yes, I love the concept of adding gravity. Yes, I love the placement of the controls. The trouble with this pinball game is the activity of the on-screen flippers. For this, you'll need a visual. Atari Video Pinball Gameplay Movie (6.14 MB) (No, Sony is not a sponsor of my chronogaming. Though that IS a good idea. I should contact them and see if an arrangement could be made...) Our experience with this game was not unpositive. The ball moves well and interacts with the various, um, squares in a satisfying way. The touble is in those flippers. They appear to not exist between their open state and their closed state, almost like how electrons disappear when moving through energy shell levels. At the end of that last clip, you can see that the flippers can indeed act on the ball when it is in that "in-between" below the exit but above the bottom of the abyss. However, flippers that appear to merely "switch" between open and closed aren't flippers at all. Yes, they should be called "switchers" or "binary state gates" something more clever but at the moment, I got nothin'. You can see on the playfield, that there are some "drop switch" like squares that go away after the ball hits them a few times and they turn a few different colors. They'll reset after all of their brethren also drop away. You can also see the graceful parabolic movement of the ball. This play experience has potential, I just don't like those flipper wannabees. Breakout This dedicated console is also dedicated to Breakout! Yes, the arcade smash hit is now available in your home! The big round dial serves well as the controller. My son and I found this version of Breakout to be, well, hard. The ball really picks up speed quickly and every seven or so hits puts very shallow angle on the ball's trajectory that's a pain in the paddle to hit. I should note that, unlike Video Pinball and the yet to be discussed Basketball, Breakout is in good old fashioned Zero G. It should also be mentioned that one of the Pinball variations uses the Breakout paddle instead of the pseudo-flippers. I wasn't crazy about the gameplay for that version of Pinball either, but I prefered it to the flippers. There was no gravity effect in this one, in that respect it was also like Breakout. Basketball There are two Basketball variants and they illustrate my contention that one of the cool things about the Atari Video Pinball console is that the console itself essentially is the controller. It doesn't merely contain the controls; you practically hold this thing while playing Basketball or Pinball. Here is a video of my son playing one of the basketball games. Notice that his left hand is on one of the pinball buttons and his right hand is on the dial controller. Controller shown and Basketball being played on Atari Video Pinball (3.95 MB) ::ASIDE::For those who care, that's a 34" Sony WEGA Flattube HDTV which I bought in 2004 just a few months before the Plasma HDTVs that you can hang on your wall got much cheaper. Poor market timing on my part, as that behemoth weighs over 100 kilograms. Underneath you see a Wii, a fat modded Korean PS2, a moded Korean Halo green Xbox and a Platinum GameCube with a matching Platinum Game Boy Player underneath it (don't see many of those, do ya? ) Yes, my kids take videogames for granted, but I make it very clear that these are MY toys.::END ASIDE:: The side button is used to give the ball a "boost" in its bounce. To score a basket, you try to maneuver the ball and paddle to a point from which you use the "boost" to get the ball through the top of the net. Which is better shown in the next vid... Video of Basketball gameplay on Atari Video Pinball (3.45 MB) The numbers at the top of the screen are, from left to right, the current score, the high score and the number of balls left. Notice also that, again, we've got gravity in this one. Here is one more video of the other Basketball varient. Deep net Basketball on the Atari Video Pinball console. (3.17 MB) This version is a little harder because you have to get the ball a little higher to consider it "in" but, as you can see, getting it in through the side can also work. Also note the net moves to the other side when a basket is scored. Up to four players can play any of the games by taking turns. Hmm, I don't know how it displays the scores after four people play. It probably cycles through them, but I didn't think to check while playing. When my daughter stops playing Hello Kitty on the 'Cube and I'm done cleaning the kitchen I'll have to check. Next entry we'll laugh at my pathetic and failed attempts to fix my Coleco Combat. 13745 EDIT:: OH THE MISINFORMITY!!! I made an assumption about the option settings being a number of player settings but I was wrong! For instance, in Breakout, option one gives you a big paddle and seven balls, option two gives the player five balls and a big paddle, option three gives five balls and a half-sized paddle and option four gives three balls and a half-sized paddle. Whne a player manages to "breakout" the size of the paddle they are using is reduced by half. So in option one, the big paddle becomes the same size as the half-size paddle used at the start of options two, three and four. When a player "breaks out" in options two, three and four, their half-sized paddle becomes quarter sized--teeny, tiny! So, I retract my statement about multiple players playing. It just isn't true and was an assumption! Good thing I got curious about how the games would display the score for multiplayer. Answer to that question is: there is no multiplayer! So, Seven different games, 4 different options for each game. That's 28 games on this one console. I have to say that while I'm not crazy about the games, I'm still very impressed with the console. Does that make any sense? Oh, and Breakout isn't all that hard afterall, I just hadn't given myself a chance to get back into the Breakout groove.

1977 in the Retroview Mirror Okay, for a combination of lack of funds and lack of any sense of timing with eBay there were some home videogames that I missed in 1977. The only ones I vaguely care about are: Stunt Cycle (a.k.a. Motocross) Video Pinball (a.k.a. Pinball Breakaway) Ultra PONG Doubles (a.k.a. PONG Sports IV) EDIT: I completely forgot about Coleco Combat and Telstar Arcade. I still want to try those, too. END EDIT I'm sure I'll be playing the "as good as or better" equivalent on the Atari soon enough, but that's not really the point of this exercise which is for me to appreciate the improvement of home videogaming slowly over time. So, there ya go. Really, my focus is on programmable systems, so I'm not mourning the miss too much. The other main point of the exercise is to have fun exploring. So, to the fun. We have a Good year in videogaming in 1977, perhaps, the best yet. Let's compare 1977 to 1976. First here's a picture of all home videogames for programmable systems available to excited videogamers in 1976. Next, here are all the home videogames for programmable system available to excited videogamers during 1977. All, except for RCA's Bingo, that is. (godammit) Here are the "Big Three" systems of the year 1977 and/or their offspring. You'd think I'd have these things memorized by now, but with so many lists around it is easy to be lazy. RCA Studio II Bowling / Freeway / Patterns / Doodles / Math (These were the built-ins) Space War (TV Arcade I) (EDIT: a smile? I don't remember liking this one...) Fun with Numbers (TV Arcade II) Tennis / Squash (TV Arcade III) Baseball (TV Arcade IV) ? Speedway / Tag (TV Arcade Series) ? Gunfighter / Moonship Battle (TV Arcade Series) Blackjack (TV Casino Series) Biorhythm (TV Mystic Series) ? TV School House I ? Math Fun (a.k.a. TV School House II) Fairchild Video Entertainment System Left the system out of this picture because it already came out in 1976. #4 Spitfire #5 Space War ? #6 Math Quiz I ? #7 Math Quiz II #8 Magic Number (NIM, Mindreader) #9 Drag Race #10 Maze (Cat & Mouse, Blindman's Bluff, Jailbreak, Trailblazer) #11 Backgammon / Acey-Ducey #12 Baseball #13 Robot War / Torpedo Alley #14 Sonar Search Atari Video Computer System No, it's not a six switch, so I lose points for accuracy there and the fact that some of the carts are picture labels. (They certainly were not available with those labels in 1977.) Let's not dwell on that, shall we? !!! Combat (a.k.a. Tank Plus) ! Indy 500 (a.k.a. Race) Video Olympics (a.k.a. Pong Sports) (Yay! Four Players!) !! Surround (a.k.a. Chase) ! Air-Sea Battle (a.k.a. Target Fun) ? Basic Math (a.k.a. Fun With Numbers) ? Blackjack Star Ship (a.k.a. Outer Space) Street Racer (a.k.a. Speedway II) (Yay! Four Players!) With the exception of Basic Math and Blackjack all of these games get smileys in my book. Even Star Ship which, by myself, wouldn't normally get more than a neutral, gets a smiley because the two-player modes were pretty fun (for a little while). "Just a smiley" no longer seems to cut it, now that we're entering a new age of videogames. I added "excitement marks" for some of my favorites where a smiley didn't convey how much more we enjoyed certain games over their other lesser smiley brethren. Certainly, when one end of the spectrum is the stuff on the RCA Studio II and the other end is on the Atari VCS, I need more of a range than angry, sad, neutral, happy and happy plus plus. I want to do it without going all numbery on you, though. Okay, 1978 starts in the next entry unless I take a tangent between years as I sometimes do. <- PREV | NEXT ->

Street Racer (a.k.a. Speedway II) This is another type of game that I remember playing in the arcades. Steering wheel, gas pedal, green monochrome screen. It was fun in the arcade and I remember the rush I got weaving past the other cars with my foot pressed on the pedal as hard a possible. Thankfully, this hasn't translated into how I drive as an adult. I think it's interesting that Sears called it Speedway II. They were probably naming it after a dedicated console which had PONG and race car games that they had distributed in 1976. Street Racer is another good example of an Atari cart where they decided to not just put the game from the arcade on the cart, but to fill it with variants of said game for different numbers of players and for different skill levels. There's "Street Racer", where, with a paddle, you swerve a car back and forth to avoid the cars you are passing. There are 1, 2, 3 and 4 player variants for this and for all five of the "steering" variants on this cart. It's so cool to have a game that four people can play, now I just have to convince my wife to join us. There's a skiing game called "Slalom". (a word which I'll always remember as having heard first on an episode of the Flintstones.) In Slalom, instead of dodging cars you have to steer your skier through gates. The sound effects have a slight "sprayed snow" quality to them in this one. "Dodgem" looks like a home port of a 1973 Atari arcade game originally called Space Race. (There was also a Bally/Midway version called Asteroid) From the description at klov.com it sounds like this is a big improvement over the arcade version. The idea is the same, each side of the screen has a player controlling the speed of a spacecraft. The home version adds the ability to steer. You move up the screen and avoid the asteroid coming down it. When you reach the top of the screen, your score increments and you start again at the bottom. If you hit the asteroid, you start again at the bottom and your score stays the same. "Jet Shooter" has you shooting enemy aircraft as they come towards you. It's funny, but I think it would've also been fun to shoot at the cars I was passing in Street Racer, but maybe that's just me. There's also a game called "Number Cruncher" where you run over numbers to add to your score, but you've got to run over their centers or it counts as a crash. This one's different because you're actually trying to run over something as opposed to avoiding it. You also happen to be riding a motorcycle, just for that "Easy Rider" feeling. Finally, there's "Scoop Ball" which adds another twist to the steer and avoid theme: you have to catch some things (balls) and you have to avoid others (um, the "non-balls"). When' you've caught the "balls" (which are actually "plus" signs) you have to deposit them in a "Computer Scooper". If you crash before depositing your captured balls you lose them and the points you would have received for putting them in the Computer Scooper. The best part about these games is the fact that I can play them with my son and soon with my wife and little girl, all four of us at the same time. They're extremely simple, but fun with the right company. That's the last of the 1977 games. I'll give a run down of 1977 in the next entry. <- PREV | NEXT ->

Star Ship (a.k.a. Outer Space) As I've often said, one of the greatest entertainment advantages of videogames is that they can let you and your friends engage in pretend deadly combat in the comfort of your living room, without having to deal with "fresh air", "sunshine" or even "running around". The second greatest entertainment advantage is letting you pretend to fly around in space doing . . . well, whatever. You are able to play games that take place in space without having to worry about vaccuum decompression! Who cares what your goals and objectives are? Space videogames eliminate the need to build a spaceship out of appliance boxes and wear them while running around your backyard yelling "pyu! pyu!". Not that I've ever done that and especially not recently!* (EDIT: Not recently as of the time of the original writing this. I decline to further comment.) I like the idea of games taking place in space. I like the idea of games that put you in the seat of a space-vehicle which can shoot other space vehicles. Most of all, I love it when a space game hands me the morally unambiguous opportunities, such as, killing a space robot or murdering the population of an entire planet. (Um, I did say "morally unambiguous", I didn't say "non-evil". I'm just saying I appreciate it when my actions can be interpreted as clearly "non-evil" or clearly "non-good".) I had Star Ship "back in the day". I didn't "get it", or at least I don't remember playing it long enough to "get it". What I remembered is a lot of blinking objects and some really big blocky graphics. Sometimes, my memory does serve. The sound is okay -- quite appropriate to what one might hear in an imaginary spacecraft. Beeps. Engines firing. Weapons firing. Collisions with other space objects. I like the sound effects just fine. The controls are like an airplane stick. Pushing forward moves your viewpoint down and the opposite is true. Right moves you right and left is not a surprise. I find these controls hard to use. I move up when I mean to move down, etc. I admit that this is my problem, not the game's. For that "foward moving"-feeling, you are given "stars" that move from the distance to closer up (by getting bigger) and then off to the side. In Star Ship, you fly forward through these stars while, regularly, waaay far away, a tiny object appears. It blinks around your screen moving closer (by getting larger and more distinct). You try to move so that it's in the center of your screen (your target area) and you shoot it OR you try to move so that it dissappears off the side of your screen. You can kill Space Robots, Space Fighters or Flying Saucers. Robots are worth the most. I don't know why. You get points for shooting and hitting, not for avoiding. Avoiders never get points. Okay, in some games they do, but not this one. This gets old kinda fast, mostly because the harder versions of the game are, well, harder, and that doesn't mean "more fun". It just means "more frustrating". Maybe I just suck and need practice, or maybe this is just hard. Warp Drive is another one-player game. You fly as fast as you can while steering around asteroids. Pressing the red button (a.k.a. only button) makes you go faster and you gain "parsecs" more quickly. Every collision with an asteroid loses you an earned "parsec". Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a "parsec" used to measure cubic area in space? Doesn't it equal a cube roughly 3.2 light years on each edge? Why would they measure distance in parsecs and not something linear like lightyears? or megameters? Yes, I know what we play are called videogames and not documentaries. Still, this makes the second "parsec" mistake to come out of 1977. I don't even want to talk about the first one. (Oh, and by the way, Han *SO* shoots first!) EDIT: I stand corrected! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec END EDIT Lunar Lander was a dissappointment. Move your lander over to the thing that looks like a giant Honeycomb in space. Press your button to fire your landing rockets. Do it again. Do it as many times as you can in 2 minutes and 16 seconds. Avoid the stars, um, I mean, asteroids. Yawn. Mostly, you'll remember the flashing objects and the blocky graphics. There are two-player games, too. In fact, you could make them all two-player by just comparing your scores, but some are two players at the same time. Lunar Lander two-player lets the second player move the moon around while the other tries to land on it. This seems it would be about as fun as Tag on the RCA Studio II. The two-player version of Star Ship, gives one player the opportunity to control a "space module" that the first player is trying to shoot at. As the prey, player two does have one advantage, and that is the ability to turn invisible at very convenient times. I still have to coax my son into playing these games with me, so I'll update this entry when we do. EDIT: Two-player update. My son and I played a few of the Space Module and Lunar Lander two-player games. He enjoyed them. He laughed out loud a few times during it too. Giving the Space Module the ability to become invisible was a good idea and makes the game fun for the 4 minutes and 32 seconds it takes to play. The addition of other targets and obstacles is also "okay". Again, I wasn't crazy about it, but my 7 year old had a pretty good time. I don't think he would survive it I ran him through the guantlet of each and every game on the cartridge, however. Two-player Lunar Lander was, indeed, a version of Tag with a science theme. My son also thought the moon looked like an off-color Honeycomb. There were moments he laughed out loud during this game as well, especially when he was the lander and I was the Honeycomb. The thing that makes this game "okay" is the wrap around screen -- makes you have to think about which side of the screen is the moon on? Will it be quicker to go straight to it or faster to cut around the screen" Anyway, that's done. END EDIT Next Entry: Go, Street Racer! Go, Street Racer! Go, Street Racer, go! <- PREV | NEXT ->

Basic Math Okay, don't talk to me about basic math, see? It ain't a game, see? It ain't fun, see? It's math, man! It's not even "fun" math, like differential equations and shit. It's plussin' and minusin' and multiplyin' and dividin'. Phooey! Blackjack Oh, please, dear god, why? Why is it always Blackjack? While the graphics for the Fairchild version of Blackjack are slightly more ambitious (remember the rounded, green dealer's table graphic?), Atari's Blackjack is superior in many ways. The sound is better and it allows for up to three players, who can come and go during the game as they please without disrupting the other player's games. It has a difficulty option which determines if the dealer shuffles after evey hand (difficulty "A") or if it shuffles when 34 or more cards have been dealt (difficulty "B"). The other difficulty switch lets you choose between Casino rules and Private rules. Private rules is what I noticed was missing from the RCA and Fairchild Blackjacks. One rule in particular was the rule I kept looking for: if you take a hit four times without "busting", you win the hand. It's Atari's version that lets you have that, which is why I remembered it, because it was Atari's version that I actually played as a kid. You "break the bank" at "1000". Atari's edition of Blackjack also neglects to use the dollar sign to denote currency. The advantage of this is that you can pretend that you are gambling with gold pieces, kitty cats or radioactive rods -- whatever your avarice requires! It also allows them to sell it in other countries without having to make up versions of the same game with different currency symbols. This is a "competant" version of Blackjack. However, once again, I'd like to point out: IT'S JUST BLACKJACK! Why'd they even bother? Did they do a focus group in Vegas? Do they really think that the type of people who enjoy gambling would enjoy doing it with pretend money? Hell, it's not even money, it's just "points" that you can call "money" (or dubloons, or yen, whatever.) In keeping with my new "house" rules (established after the RCA Blackjack): After I lost one round of Blackjack, (and lost 200, um, pesos), before I could play again, I had to pawn an old multi-colored glass desk lamp which belonged to my wife since high school for $20. (It said "tiffany" on it. Wasn't she an early 90s pop star?). I did it just to get that "I'm-a-pathetic-gamblin'-kind-of-guy" feeling. It made me feel "dirty" which was actually pretty cool. My wife sure will be surprised, because she was going to get it "re-stored" anyway so I re-stored it for her. See? If it's in a Pawn Shop, it's in a store again. That's what it means, right? Re-Stored! Haw-haw-haw! HAAAW-haw-haw! Haaaaw-haaaw-HAAAAAW! Next Entry: Star Ship. (It's odd to see the word "starship" it written as two words, but then again, people still rip apart the words "video" and "game" to talk about videogames.) <- PREV | NEXT ->

Air-Sea Battle (a.k.a. Target Fun) My son and I have played this, but today, on the game's "write up" day, I asked my daughter if she wanted to play. Yeah, that's a Genesis controller plugged into my Atari VCS. Yes, it's anachronistic, but then again, so is she. She said yes! She was happy to engage in what her big guys "waste" so much time doing. Air-Sea battle is a little bit like the Fairchild's Torpedo Alley in that you shoot stuff going across the screen using a "shooter" on the bottom of the screen. The similarity ends there and the quality of this cart, from graphics to gameplay variants, far outshines Torpedo Alley. In the lower numbered games you each have a cannon. Sometimes, the cannon's barrel can be adjusted (raised or lowered). Sometimes, the whole cannon can be moved (left or right). And sometimes, both. Heading across the upper portion of your screen are aircraft, or boats or ducks and bunnies. Quite simply, ya shoot 'em. The higher up they are, the harder they are to hit and the more points they are worth. The other variation on the theme is you control a Ship and your opponent is a Plane (or vice-versa). The plane flies across the screen in either direction. The player controlling the plane can only control the speed of the vehicle and, thusly, the horizontal velocity of their shots. It is, Air vs. Sea in title and function. The Ship shoots up at the Plane, the Plane shoots down at the ship. Some of the Plane vs. Ship variants are neat. They all let you control your vehicle's speed (fast, normal and slow) but one version locks you into whatever speed you're currently traveling when you fire your missile. It allows for some nuance in the gameplay that isn't immediately apparent. I guess this is another nostalgia cart for me. I played it as a kid and I have even more fun playing it with my kids. I'll throw it into the group of carts I'm holding onto... forever! <- PREV | NEXT ->

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 and faster up down or across a wrap-around-screen. Eventually, one of us would veer off and try to leave a trail across the others path, hoping they'd be too zoned out to notice. There are many arcade versions of the Surround game-type, some of which had options for up to four players. Atari's Surround was for two players at the most, but also included a one-player version for practicing. For those of you who don't know. In Surround, each player starts off with a square in the middle part of the screen. When gameplay starts, the square moves forward, leaving behind it a square to mark its passage. You can't stop your square from making another square behind it so you keep moving in any direction where a new square has not been drawn. Eventually the screen is very full of "trail" from you and your opponent's square. You have to outlast your opponent by not slamming into a trail and trapping them so that they do. "Surround"-ing them with your trail is a good strategy as it leaves them with an area from which they cannot escape while they continue to leave a space-filling trail. My son and I have been having a ball with this, and this is one of those games I will choose to keep for nostalgia reasons as well as for fun. Oh, I almost forgot to list the next entry. Next Entry: Air-Sea Battle. <- PREV | NEXT ->

Video Olympics EDIT: I wanted to mention that I'm actually PLAYING these games, as I go, now. I play most of a week's worth of blogging in one weekend. Yesterday, my son and I actually sat down and went through this cartridge. (We liked Volleyball and Basketball the best, by the way.) This is in contrast to before, where I had played most of the games back in June and writing about them based on notes I had taken back then. END EDIT Okay, this is PONG to the nth degree. This Atari VCS cartridge offers PONG closure like no one would ever expect. After you play the games on this cartridge you need never worry about what you might've missed in the PONG genre. First, there's PONG. It's just like you remember, except there's also Robot PONG which is one-player. Then there's Super PONG, Soccer and Foozpong. But wait . . . there's more . . . Hockey, QuadraPONG (the Ultimate Pong), Handball, Volleyball and Basketball.(I am surprised they never went for the obvious joke variants: Hong PONG, King PONG, Son of PONG, etc . . .) All of these games support four player variants, which is really cool if you've two paddle sets and four able-handed gamers willing to play Pong for the amount of time it takes to go through the 26 different four-player games.The manual explains some of the gameplay twists in the manual. There's Speed which allows a player to add speed to the return ball by pressing the red button as the ball makes contact with the paddle. There's Whammy™ which puts sharper angles on your ball return, just hit that button when the ball hits your paddle. CATCH™ which allows the ball to stick to the paddle while you hold in the button. This allows you to take aim with your return ball. If you don't move slowly while you have it, it will escape. And finally, Jump™, which lets you move your paddle from one position to another very quickly, usually a different level (i.e. near the top of the Volleyball net as opposed to the bottom of the net.) Each of these is pretty cool as long as you haven't played PONG in about a month and for no longer than 15 minutes. On their own, each of these games can be fun, especially with four players -- because then, you're enjoying the other players as much as you're enjoying the game. However, there is a strict biological limit that gets reached at a certain point. You see, there's only so much PONG any human being can take. This is known as their PONG Tolerance™. PONG Tolerance™ varies with each individual but you'll find greater PONG Tolerance in an individual that's played less videogames. My Wife™, who doesn't do videogames, has a greater tolerance for PONG than my Son™ has and certainly more than I do. I play a lot of games, so my PONG Tolerance™ is relatively low compared to most human beings. However, I'm also a bit of a Masochist™. So, because my PONG Tolerance is low, I'm more likely to push on, relishing my Discomfort™ and Boredom™. Hmm™, I'm back to one game a day. I'll do Surround next entry. <- PREV | NEXT ->

First, last entry's business. According to an extremely scientific poll conducted in DP's forums, aprroximately 2 out of 7 people have not played Combat. (20 havn't, 49 have) There are significantly more people who haven't played Combat than I suspected. As such, they shall all be punished. Horribly. Since reaching them individually will be difficult to me, I shall punish them by continuing to send Hurricanes to Florida over the next five years. (Hmm, a game for the Atari 2600 called Hurricane. Quick, someone start homebrewing it!) Indy 500 (Atari VCS, 1977) Okay, on to the business of 1977. First an entertaining photograph: (not sure how to post these inline... just look at the bottom of the entry.) That's me on the left. That's my little brother holding the evidence. A photo of a new mint in box Indy 500 game for the Atari VCS with Driving Controllers! Sadly, that was roughly 23 years ago (and counting) and neither the box, manual, cartridge or controllers remained in my posession. In fact, it was all probably thrown out due to a lack of distinction between "trash" and "treasure" on someone's part. I do have a copy of the cart, a 2600 and the driving controllers and have been privileged enough to play it again today. Firstly, the Atari VCS becomes the first system to sell special controllers for its console by including them with Indy 500. Secondly, they brought home the spirit of many arcade racing games, none of which I can name at the moment. Wait, this is silly, I'm connected to the internet at this very second, I'll go and find out at least two of them . . . Okay, Indy 500's closest living relative at the time of its birth would've been "Indy 4" and "Sprint 4". Look them up yourselves. Indy 500 has three different game types, with each having a 1 and 2 player variation or at the very least two track variations. The steering controller is like a paddle, except it doesn't have a "spin limit". You can just keep spining it around in one direction. The button gives your car gas and the steering controller orients your car. The longer you hold down the button the faster your car gets (to a limit of course). Moving the difficulty switch to "A" allows your car to travel at High Speed and makes it more difficult to control due to the speed. The racing games have four different tracks: Grand Prix, Devil's Elbow, Ice Sprint and Ice Rally. The ice tracks seem to make road's friction negligible and this makes steering around either of the ice coated tracks a good deal more challenging. The one-player version of each racing game is a time-trial that gives you a minute to lap the track as many times as you can. Another game variant is Crash and Score. A white square appears and the players have to race their cars to it as fast as possible. It takes some quick reflexes, but only if you're playing against someone who also has quick reflexes. There are two playing fields for this game. The one-player version just counts how many times you can crash into the white square in a minute, similar to the racing time trials. Tag is fun in the same way that Tag on the RCA Studio II wasn't at all. Who hasn't wanted to play "Car Tag" in real life? If it wasn't for roads, other cars, pedestrians, traffic laws and risk of spine shattering injuries, I'm sure each of us would be out there playing it at least one weekend a month. If your car is not blinking, you're "it" and you have to go run over your buddy's blinking car. Then he becomes "it" and has to run over you. The whole "run you over" metaphor goes a long way with kids, too. ("Mommy, I ran Daddy over! Hahahah!"). There is no one-player version of this game, because, well, you can't play tag with yourself unless you have an extraordinarily short memory. There are sound effects for the motors, collisions and for scoring. They work just fine. In fact, they're great sound effects and their contributions to this title would be appreciated by anyone who'd ever played a home videogame before 1977 immensely. All-in-all what makes this game work is the control. Just like when you play Pong, it's very easy to get into it because you feel you have precise control over your in-game avatar. It does everything you tell it to do, even if you tell it to turn too quickly and crash into a wall. You can't blame it on the controller, it's your steering that's the trouble. Speaking of Pong: Next Entry: What if we had Olympics for Pong? <- PREV | NEXT ->

October, 1977 (EDIT: Apparently the original shipping date was scheduled for October of 1977, but somewhere in the years since 2005, I seem to remember hearing it didn't actually ship until November. I don't recall the source and I'm too lazy to look but I thought I'd mention it.) The Atari VCS is born! The system that started a lifelong habit for most (edit: many) of us. I can't say anything about this system that hasn't already been said. Seriously, I'm at a loss. My idea for playing every game in chronological order can happen whether I write about it or not, however, it's much more fun for me if I keep a running blog of it. For some games I can feel like I'm contributing something to the community at large when I write about games that hardly anyone has played. Some games, in my little mind, I feel need no introduction or commentary. This is one such game. Combat (Atari VCS, 1977) Now, here I am looking at Combat. The first pack-in game for the Atari branded systems. (I think the Sears branded systems came with Target Fun.) There's nothing I can say about Combat that someone else hasn't already written or said. I'll just say this: In my opinion, Combat was the first truly satisfying "deathmatch" made for a home video game console. Whether you're playing the Tanks or the Planes you're having fun. Even if it's just for 10 minutes. It won't be 10 minutes you'll regret and it's 10 minutes you won't hate repeating once every other month for like, 20 years. This is one of the few "old games" that I don't have to bribe my son to play. Who hasn't played Combat? (dead silence) (EDIT: Okay, I guess I should realize that not everyone here, just because they're here, has played Combat, so in the interest of historical accuracy, I should say the answer was not dead silence, but I can't just go in and redact my original response... so the edit represents my admission of fallibility. again. I hope someone isn't counting these.) I'm going to make a thread in DP forums and see what I get for answers. Of course, there's always the person who doesn't understand that it is essentially a question that should produce one of two answers ("I haven't" or "I have") but there are people who take polls who'd rather just expose the inadequacy of the choices, i.e. "I played it on an emulator but that wasn't a choice". To them I say, go play in traffic. Nine games were "launch" titles with the Atari VCS. I'm not sure if there were Nine launch titles plus Combat or Nine titles including Combat. I'm going to go with what is listed in the book "High Score!" which lists the launch titles as: Combat (a.k.a. Tank Plus) Indy 500 (a.k.a. Race) Air-Sea Battle (a.k.a. Target Fun) Basic Math (a.k.a. Fun With Numbers) Blackjack (a.k.a. Blackjack, but from Sears) Star Ship (a.k.a. Outer Space) Street Racer (a.k.a. Speedway II) Surround (a.k.a. Chase) Video Olympics (a.k.a. Pong Sports) That list reads like the early history of arcade games, too. Atari wasted no time porting most of the early arcade genres into the home including more Pong variations than you could shake a joystick at. The only two for which I can't think of arcade equivalents are Blackjack and Basic Math. (WTF? I'm looking forward to the first system that doesn't have Blackjack or a Fun With Numbers game.) Next entry I'll try to talk about Indy 500. At least I have a picture for this one from "back in the day". <- PREV | NEXT ->

Videocart #14: Sonar Search This is a "port" of the real world game "Battleship". You have a blank blue playing field. You move a targeting reticle over the deep blue sea and sound a "ping" at a strategically chosen location. The length of the ensuing sound gives you a clue to how close an enemy ship is. Your opponent does the same on the same blue field, but he only detects your ships. There's no "cheating" by listening to what your opponent hears because their pings are bouncing off of a different group of ships. When you finally hit one, the field is marked and, like in Battleship, you have to start hitting around that strike to see which way the ship runs before you sink it. When you do sink it, its silhouette appears on the water like a grave marker. In the one-player version, you are given a random amount of ammunition (between 68 and 94 shots) to find and sink the five enemy ships. It's okay, but not very exciting. The graphics are really, really simple. Sparse, even, but they work well enough since the game itself is so simple. The coolest thing about the game is the "ping" idea. Instead of just getting a simple "miss" you're given a range indication. It makes the game more "thinky" than "lucky". We played this for a good 45 minutes, no lie. We did enjoy it. While this cart gets points for having a one-player version of the game, this one-player version just isn't as fun as the two-player version. I think it is because with one-player it's just you picking off the enemy. With two players, your enemy is also picking off your ships. It just has more of a thrill/competitive factor. Fairchild VES 1977 That's it for 1977. The games numbered directly after #14 are copywritten with dates beyond 1977. So, what didn't we hate? Sonar Search Baseball Torpedo Alley/Robot War Maze Drag Race Magic Numbers (Mind Reader and Nim) Space War Spitfire. Nothing made us terribly sad or annoyed. I don't know if it is because of the quality of the games by themselves or because the closest comparison is to the RCA Studio II stuff. Yeah, Fairchild might do really well with this system, I'm looking forward to see what comes out for it in 1978. (*chortles* I'm pretending that I don't already know what happens to it. Shh! Don't spoil the surprise.) We now approach October of 1977, not that anything exciting happens in that month. No, sir. Nothing to see here. Move along. <- PREV | NEXT ->

Videocart #12 - Baseball Two player only, this one. I'm not complaining, I mean, in real life you need at least three, plus equipment. The age of videogames has at least cut it down to two. We like this one a lot better than we liked our attempt to play Odyssey Baseball(1972) or RCA Studio II Baseball(1977). This "port" doesn't deal with player stats, batting zones or runner tokens. At this point in time, I think that's not a Bad Thing. It's in color and the sound isn't anemic . . . well, I should say isn't as anemic as RCA Studio II's Baseball. The "at bat" player, obviously, controls the batter. The "fielder" player controls the pitching and the fielding. As the pitcher, it is fun to fake out your enemy with a sudden slow ball, or even bean him just because he looks at you funny. Having different pitches and having them represented visually, at least as far as speed goes, is a big plus for this version. Incredibly, we managed to play an entire game of Baseball! At the end of it both my son and I could say we had a good time. We especialy enjoyed beaning the batter, because at their heart, all sports are about doing whatever it takes. Videocart #13 - Robot Wars and Torpedo Alley Two games on one cart! Robot Wars and Torpedo Alley. Robot Wars was interesting for a minute. The robot on the box cover looks a lot like an R2-D2 droid from the new and great Star Wars movie of 1977. Maybe, there's an influence there, but it stops at the box. The playfield consists of you (an upside down Y) a few squares and a few robots. The robots chase you and you try to "trick" them into running into the squares (force fields) so they are destroyed. If you don't, then they run into you, and, eventually, you're toast and the level is theirs. Their artificial "intelligence" seems to consist entirely of the instruction "move towards the player", hence, it is very easy to lure them into the force fields. Just stand behind one of the blue squares and a robot will throw itself into it for your amusement. Each time one of the robots touches you, one of the force fields disappears. When you're out of fields, there's nothing you can do to kill the robots, so you lose the point for the level. All in all it was a fun game for about a minute, then you start to realize: it doesn't change. It doesn't get any deeper. The enemies don't change tactics. There isn't anything to "figure out" other than you can move faster than they do because you can move diagonally and they can't. The levels don't change, though the squares and robots do change their starting locations. Pretty much every point is the same as the previous point. There's no reason to ever play this game again after you've played it once. Torpedo Alley is a shooting game. Each player shoots from a cannon capable of left to right motion. You're trying to take out ships that move across the ocean above you. The fun is when two players play at the same time. One player can try to take out ships that the other player might be shooting for. The closer, faster ships are only worth one point and the ships at the top of the screen which move the slowest are worth five points. There are obstacles across the middle of the screen to make it more difficult to hit the higher scoring targets. Not great and not awful. I think all these games suffer most from the fact that, back in the year 2005, we've got other games to play. If it were 1977, a rainy day and I had never seen a home video game before, I think I would've enjoyed spending an hour or so playing Torpedo Alley or Baseball with my brother or my Dad. EDIT: Requested Screenshots of Torpedo Alley! Okay, next entry, the last of the 1977 Fairchild VES games -- Videocart #14: Sonar Search. <- PREV | NEXT ->

#10 - Maze This was fun, but would have been more fun with the directions. We weren't quite sure how to set up the mazes we wanted to play. Of course, now I know where the instructions can be found, but not having them made our selections a little random. This is a maze cartridge that generates lots and lots of random mazes. Apparently this cart is "special" as it is one of the few carts with an extra chip in it (a 2102 SRAM, if you're curious) to help it handle all the work it does. (The other cart is hangman). The maze variations are interesting: Regular Maze, Jailbreak, Blind-man's Bluff and Trailblazer. Regular maze is pretty straight forward. Two mice in a maze first one out wins. (Presumably, cheese.) -Cat and Mouse- NOTE: This is the second game entitled Cat and Mouse on a Home Console system. Can anyone name the system on which this game has also appeared? Hmm? We really had a good time with "Regular Maze" Cat and Mouse. Cat and Mouse involves you and the other player controlling the "mice" in the maze while a fast "cat" square hunts you down. It's pretty exciting when you're cornered and the cat is closing in. Sometimes you'll escape because the Cat may take a different branch before heading down yours, but other times you'll know it it's just a matter of time until it gets you. My seven year-old and I had a pretty good time playing this variation. Another Cat and Mouse variation is called Paranoia. A mouse can't leave the maze until the other mouse gets eaten. Kinda sick, but we liked this one, too. -Blindman's Bluff- This maze variant blanks out the whole maze and you have to "feel" your way through it. This gets old quickly because your trails aren't permanent. EDIT: What I forgot to say is that you can draw a trail behind you to help you find your way, but as you back track you erase your trail. It just wasn't a lot of fun moving around a blank maze "blindly". -Jailbreak- Jailbreak was more fun than Blindman's Bluff, but less so than Cat and Mouse. The entire maze is a grid. You get through the maze by pushing your way through "weak" spots in the grid. Trailblazer is similar to Blindman's Bluff, but instead of a blank maze, it's a completely "full" maze and you have to figure out where the trail is. One of the interesting things about the game design is you can leave a trail for your opponent to follow so that it either helps them or hurts them. Our exploration of this title, however, didn't inspire us enough to fully explore the subtleties of this feature and I leave it as an exercise for the reader. Actually, when you think about it, Blindman's Bluff, Jailbreak and Trailblazer are really all the same game. You're trying to get through a maze which has its paths completely obscured... Hmm. Yeah, well moving on . . . We stayed on this cartridge for about 30 minutes and didn't go away hating it. We'll probably never put it in again, regardless. #11 - Backgammon This Videocart actually taught me how to play Backgammon. Something I hadn't managed to do for myself in 37 years of life. My son managed to pick up the rules, but lost interest pretty durn quickly. He's just not interested if there's not a shread of Narrative to make a game less abstract. I guess I could have made something up about pieces representing prisoners and they can only move so far, yada, yada, yada. Yeah. I doubt he'd have bought it, too. I had no problem with the implementation of this game. The rules were there and they were enforced by the computer. The graphcis were ugly, but that's really not worth quibbling over during the "baby steps" of this era. The problem that I do have with the cart is that it only supports two players (As opposed to a single player variant against the AI). Wouldn't it be easier to just play with a regular Backgammon set? I can understand why it might have been difficult to program an AI, especially one to support different levels of difficulty, but if you're going to make a videogame a "port" of a boardgame commonly found in the real world (or at least it was, back in the 70's, just flip over your checkerboard.) at least give someone a reason to prefer it to the boardgame other than it being on TV. That's it for now. Next entry: Baseball, I think. <- PREV | NEXT ->