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UFO/Sea Monster/Break It Down/Rebuild/Shoot (APF MP1000, 1978) I'll say one thing about this cartridge: it has motion. Getting decent screenshots of any of the games on this cart was impossible for me, due to the constant motion of one or more of the elements on any given screen. Well, except the menu . . . UFO and Sea Monster are reverse variations of Sea Wolf style gameplay, almost. UFO-1 just has you blasting alien drones that move across the screen. The UFO that scores the most hits, wins. Yee-haw! UFO-2 is the exact same thing, except you're blasting alien passenger saucers (or what I imagine to be saucers containing sentient beings.) hit the most saucers and you win. Yee-awn! Sea Monster has you in ships a little more domestic and floaty. This time you're shooting at Sea Monsters that traverse the bottom of the Sea Screen. There's a catch to this one. Hit the Sea Monster, gain 5 points. Hit one of the cute friendly fish and you lose all your points. One strategy is to hit the Sea Monster once or twice and then don't fire at all, thus keeping you from inadvertently destroying friendly sea life. This was a little fun. I'll mention that the sounds for these games are all quite adequate. No complaints there. Below are three links to .mov files that try to capture the essence of these games in about a megabyte, each. (DEAD LINKS WERE HERE AND ARE NOW GONE) Break it Down and Rebuild are interesting. In the former, there are rotating square perimeters at the bottom of the screen. Player to clear theirs with the least amount of shots wins. Rebuild is the exact opposite of Break it Down. You have to shoot "invisible" places at which a part of the rotating square perimeter appears when hit. Hopefully, the attached .mov's display the essence of the gameplay. (dead links were also here but this time I'm proclaiming it without using all-caps) The last game is called Shoot with three variations. Shoot a Little, Shoot and Shoot a Lot. (one more removed dead link) The variations are only in the amount of ammunition with which one starts the game. You and your competitor each control a laser-cannon-like device which fires a solid beam up the screen. You're trying to hit either of the square blocks that are going back and forth across the top. When you strike them, you gain points and they change color, speed, or both. When you run out of ammo, your game is over and the person who does the most with their starting ammo wins. I'm astonished by my lack of anything even moderately amusing to say about these games. These games are neither bad enough to activate my sense of humor nor good enough to activate my sense of fun. Maybe I'm just tired from OVGE, which was awesome by the way. We've got One. More. 1978. APF. Game! I was lucky to "win" (purchase) a working copy of Brickdown/Shooting Gallery and we'll look at that one next.
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There's already a list of all the games that came out in 1978 in this entry here. Rather than rehash that list with the only change in it being the addition of smilies or frownies, I think the electrons would be better spent on picking out a few of the standout titles from 1978, by system, while giving each system a general rating. APF MP1000 -- Not Nearly As Fun-Free as I Thought It Would Be This system really seemed to have some potential, but it was wasted on unimaginative games. Still it should be said for the record that it boasts the best looking Blackjack and Hangman to date, and the second best looking Baseball game (Bally beat it, graphics-wise). EDIT: I almost forgot, APF MP1000 beat all the others to the punch on one thing: AI opponent in a videogame version of a boardgame. Catena, the first videogame version of Othello, had an AI opponent. I imagine the APF Backgammon had an AI opponent too, but I'm just speculating. The APF doesn't come close to threatening the RCA Studio II's title of Worst Game Library Ever and it was a unique and pleasant experience (despite my whining) to get a look at the games I was able to find. However, I'm really disappointed that not a single person has volunteered even a description of any of the games for this system that I wasn't able to find. Either it's a lot less collected than I think it is, or people are just really unwilling to share their experiences, as rare as those experiences may be. Specifically, I'm really, really curious about Dungeon Hunt so if anyone can tell me anything about it, with screenshots, I'd still be much obliged. BTW, if anyone can lend me the games that I still need to play for the APF MP100, I'll purchase an additional $50 worth of stuff for Child's Play during this year's drive. Odyssey^2 by Magnavox -- Much, Much More Fun Than I Thought It Would Be Let's just say I had really low expectations for this system, my experience with it having been limited to emulation. That's no insult to the emulator, it's more of a comment on how much better a game library can be when you use the actual console and controllers for which it was designed. I'm not saying I had a spectacular time, it just was much better than I imagined it would be. While not spectacular, I should admit that I spent a whole lot more time playing Baseball, Cosmic Conflict, Computer Golf and for some reason, even Las Vegas Blackjack than playing games for any other system to date. For example, I probably spent two hours playing Computer Golf. That's got to be a record. I don't even like playing golf. Atari Video Computer System -- Almost, But Not Quite As Much Fun As I Remember It Being Okay, my expectations for this were a little higher than what was met, but not by much. I was expecting to be "Very Happy" and was only "Happy", which is acceptable. This system has the longest list of games we enjoyed: Basketball, Braingames, Breakout, Codebreaker, Outlaw, Slot Racers and Space War. It also has the longest list of games released for it in 1978. Bally Professional Arcade -- Less Fun Than I Expected My experience with this system was darkened because my controllers weren't and aren't working up to spec. In a poetic, forgiving mood, I can say the difficulties with the broken controllers probably serves as a temporal echo of the technical problems that hassled this system during its first year of release, most notably the faulty systems shipped during its launch and the overheating problems that plague most of these consoles to this very day (I'm referring to 2006). In a less poetic and less forgiving mood, I just curse, though I try to make it rhyme. I think I'll start hunting for a broken system to salvage its controllers, otherwise, future games, no matter how good, just won't be enjoyable. 1978 games that I did like for this system, despite my wonky controllers, were Gunfight, Football, Tornado Baseball, 280Zzzap and Clowns. I would consider this system's launch year library and its initial purchase price as the least bang for the many bucks needed to get this console. Fairchild Channel F -- More Fun Than It Should Have Been This system just doesn't get the love I think it deserves, but I can understand that, as I can be exceptionally forgiving of underdogs. Dodge-it and Video Whizball were neat concepts and we had more than a little fun playing them. Still, the number of titles released for it in 1978 was small and it doesn't come as a huge shock that this was the last year that Fairchild released new games for this system in the U.S. As per usual, I'll have pictures up of all of the "new" stuff used for this year's crop of games, but probably not until tomorrow. Next entry will be looking forward to 1979.
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The slogan may be "Every game. Chronologically" but the philosophy is really "Every game I can find and afford, or, if not, emulate. Chronologically." There have been a few games that I to plan to get even if they didn't make it into my first six years of chronogaming. Atari PONG - The first killer ap for home videogames. Odyssey 300 - Because it was my first. Coleco Telstar Arcade - I'm honestly not dying to play it, but I can't forget about it, either. Coleco Combat - Ditto for this. Atari Stunt Cycle - Ditto. Atari Video Pinball - See above. APF MP1000 carts with the following on them (some are on same cart) UFO - Ooo! Another attempt at sci-fi! Possible imaginative game on MP1000 or not? Sea Monster - It might not suck. Dungeon Hunt - Earliest Fantasy based home game? Backgammon - I'm wondering if they had opponent AI. Boxing - Curious about this, too. Would've been first Boxing title. Roulette - Haven't seen a Roulette game since the 1972 Odyssey. Keno - what the hell is Keno anyway? Slots - First example of Slots on a home system. If there's anything that I haven't listed, I must've forgotten it already! I'll simply live without the experience and move on with my life, namely, 1979. Of course, there's a danger here in not being completely obsessive compulsive about it. By nature, I'm pretty lax, so it's easy to say, "well, I won't worry about playing such and such" every now and then. I mean, I HAVE a life, surely I can forgive myself for not playing EVERYthing! However, I must be careful about saying it too often, because I'm certain I'll end up missing something that I would have thought was worth playing. Either that or I'll wake up in the middle of the night 20 years from now and say "Slots!!! I never played APF Slots!!!" So, I'll try to be lax, but um, vigilant at the same time, if that's even possible. I'll list the games for 1979 next entry.
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Pinball, Dungeon Hunt, Blockout (APF MP1000, 1978) Oh, how sad. I'll start with my disappointment rather than with my surprise fun. Dungeon Hunt is essentially Battleship! except without the stimulating use of a coordinate system. The playfield is 70 tiles representing 70 places one can look in the "dungeon." Up to four players may each take a turn typing in the number under which they'd like to search. This action eliminates the number and either reveals an empty space on the board or reveals part of one of 8 exciting objects, er, treasures, consisting of 1 to 4 parts. Given that there can be four players, there can be "fun" in the competition to uncover the rest of the object. Since one doesn't know how large the object is, and one doesn't know what shape it will take (it isn't a uniform line like a ship in Battleship would be) it can be interesting as the other players descend upon the area where the treasure is uncovered to try to uncover the rest of it if the first to find it fails to uncover the whole thing. Damn, that's a long sentence. I blame Red Bull. The colorful things are the treasure. Feel the tingle. Overall, however, I was disappointed by the lack of "flavor" in the game. There wasn't any risk of being eaten or enscorcererolled or anything like that. It was very hard to get into the spirit of being in a dungeon. Lacking a basement in my home, we couldn't even provide our own dank and damp. When I first saw the title I honestly thought it was going to be some initial attempt at an RPG. I was wrong, though not for the last time. *sniff* No, I'll be alright, really. The TREASURES exposed in all their sparkling sarcasm. Oh, wait, that's my sarcasm. Sorry, I got confused. Moving on to Pinball. DEAD LINK was here. <-- Click here to activate your presumptuous Quicktime plug-in! ACHTUNG! 656K! The above is my first attempt to embed some kind of movie link. The movie isn't a great representation of the playfield but it should give you some Idea of the blinkin' and movin' going on. My camera is old, so there's no sound. I will correct this failing someday and have spiffy sound-filled feeds that go right into my camera. Pinball is . . . different. You remember Video Pinball on the Channel F? How it was just Breakout, 'cept they called it Pinball? Remember? Well, it's not important if you don't. (*sigh*) Well, this isn't just Breakout, so that's plus one over Channel F's. The screen is fairly blinky, which a screenshot can't convey so try to download the small MOV file I made (warning 656K). The ball bounces around the screen and you have a paddle at the bottom which you move back and forth to keep the ball from leaving. In its travels the ball may hit bumpers, some of which generate points, others may merely reflect its trajectory. The two sides of the play field consist of openness through which your ball may plunge, unless you press the fire button to generate sudden walls. Failed Ergonomic Design This is where we discover the failed attempt at primitive ergonomics: the fire button. Not content to make the button merely "button-like" they made the edge of it slightly concave, providing a little valley for one's finger to rest. Unfortunately, with a valley one also produces sharp little peaks. In the heat of the pinball game I stabbed my finger on it more than once. Ouch. Beware the jagged, pointy edges! Despite the pain, Pinball is some fun. There are three levels, one which includes two paddles, and they can be challenging but, alas, not interesting enough to drive me to attempt to generate any type of high score. Last but not least: Blockout This one my four-year old called "Two Rooms Mixed in With Each Other." I think she has a future as an artist who names other people's paintings. Equivalent to Checkmate on the Bally Professional Arcade or Surround/Chase on the Atari VCS, Blockout falls short of both versions in that it only allows two players (Bally's allows four) and only has four variations (Atari's has a bunch). Still, my four year old and I had fun playing "what does that look like?" after each round. (we made the word "go", the word "to," scary eyes, a duck and a bathroom, among other Rorschach-ian results). The color of the trails change each round, which is a nice switch up from always being pink, green or blue. The sound is actually a low key, almost mechanical-sounding click that doesn't come close to prompting me to turn the sound down, unlike Atari's. (yeah, if it's too loud, I'm too old.) A new twist to the genre was the addition of a barrier variant. However, the barriers are unvarying from one round to the next, which would, um, make it a barrier invariant, I guess. The color of the barriers change, but their aggregate invader-reminiscent shape remains. Conclusure Dungeon Hunt was disappointing, Pinball was better than I thought and we managed to have fun with Blockout. I think next time we'll do the cart that has UFO on it.
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Well, I wasn't able to bring any chronogaming equipment with me for the summer, but I was able to bring some screenshots that I've finally "processed" and moved to the computer in this place that's hooked up to the net. (Neither of my PCs seem to work with the network here. They've become paperweights.) So . . . Boxing (APF MP1000, 1978) Oh, so, here's the obligatory menu screen. Ya gotta love the alliterative appellations. Slugger Sam, Horrible Harry, Jabbing Joe. This game is from a simpler time when such names could cause amusement for us. Heh. Boxing for the MP1000 kinda reminds me of playing something on the TRS-80. Remember how some, if not most, (hell, if not, all) of the games with graphics on the TRS-80 didn't really have "graphics" per se? The were just ASCII characters or rectangles arranged in such a way that looked like graphics? The Tandy CoCo was probably the same way. Anyway, these graphics look like they're made of not-so-little rectangles, just like Tandy's stuff. Two boxers, differentiated by a slight tan on the left one, start the game out in their corners (er, line segment terminals?) and . . . come out fighting! The stick on the APF controller is squeaky, so since this is actually more action oriented than most of the other games there's a lot more squeaking going on. The stick moves them from side to side, the side buttons launch a punch and pushing the stick forward blocks an incoming punch. Hey, we're looking at the first 2d fighter!!!! See Mr. Paler stick his arm up like that? I call that the "Mr. Fantastic Punch" for some reason. The way it's animated, it looks more like squares are being added as extensions to his arm than it looks like he's moving it. I should still mention that the animation is pretty detailed, stretchy arms not withstanding. The boxers "dance" from one leg to the other as they "float like a butterfly, sting like ..." um, Mr. Fantastic. I call this the octopus shot. Overexposing the picture lead to the combining of the two organisms into one eight-legged beast with two heads. Horrible to behold yet impossible not to stare at. This game supports two players and, impressively, supports ONE player. Yes, they've provided the three nemesi mentioned (Harry, Joe, Sam) to pose as punching bags. I'd love to describe them as three delightfully distinct opponents, each with exciting nuances that differentiate them from one another, but it seems I lack a "sense" for such subtlety. Either that or they are all exactly the same. (EDIT from corrective post I made later: Boxing: I mentioned before that there are three AI driven boxing opponents with different alliterative names yet indistinguishable fighting habits. THAT was an incorrect statement. I played it again yesterday and say that each computer opponent has a boxing style primarily concerned with their offense. Horrible Harry punches every 3rd beat. (one, two, PUNCH, one, two, PUNCH). Slugging Sam swings every other beat (one, punch, one, punch) and Jabbing Joe stabs at the air every beat (jab, jab, jab, jab). Just thought I'd mention it as I wasn't kind when I spoke of the variation in opponents before. (Hey, it'd been a month or so since I'd played it. Gimme a break.) END EDIT) Here's the blocking feature in action. Blocking is when one boxer holds up their hand and the other boxer's stretchy arm extension thing can't penetrate. Oh and here's what everybody is waiting for. The shot that shows one brute hitting the other so hard it DEFORMS HIS HEAD! Reporter: "Rocky, do you think you've suffered any brain damage?" Rocky: "I don't see any." This came out in 1978, just two years after Rocky. (Best Picture, 1976) but since my chronomachine couldn't handle going back to 1978 (after having already moved on to 1979) I can quote things from Rocky II even though it didn't come out until 1979. Makes me want to yell "YO, ADRIAN, I DID IT!!!" Or if Creed had won . . . From what I understand, when someone is unconscious from being hit in the head many times, they're not really "asleep" so those "ZZZs" are really misinformative. Can anyone give us the details on being unconscious? I try to put a little science into each and every post. We had fun with this, squeaky controllers and all. I can't remember anything about the actual sound effects for the game; it's the squeaky controllers that stand out in my mind. I don't know what I'll look at next. This entry was supposed to be the casino cart (slots!), but I didn't take any screenshots sooo, we'll see what we got.
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Lots of pictures, thought I'd make it its own entry. Here are the participants that took, what, 6 months to play through? They seem like such tiny piles . . . Here we have the 1978 Atari VCS family with their enlightened 7800-only cousin from the future and the underused but kinda cool keyboard controllers. The Cuttle Cart 2, for those who don't know, is used to play games on Atari hardware for which I no longer have the original carts. Here's my little APF collection. I included the manual, Cartridge Club card and catalog sheet just to make the picture more interesting. If it ain't here, I couldn't play it. Except for Brickdown / Shooting Gallery, which was here, it just didn't work. There are emulators out there for this, but I've found no ROMS. This is the Bally Professional Arcade console with its 1978 progeny. I used MESS to get to the ones not present in physical form. BTW, that Red Baron cart is dead, but its appearance would lead someone to think otherwise. Oh, also notice my butt-ugly homebrew Bally controller frankensteined from Atari controllers. It's not only ugly, it's a pain in the ass to use, too. Here's the Bally Box. Notice the arcade cabs on the front. There's Sea Wolf. See it on the left? Ya can't take that home on a cart! From Sea Wolf we see Tornado Baseball, 280Zzzap, Checkmate, and Gun Fight. I thought this picture was interesting because you can see they were selling two levels of experience here. First, they were trying to get across that playing the home system was like playing the games in the arcade. Second, by putting costumed persons next to the games (at least the Sailor and the Umpire) they were trying to sell the idea that playing these games was like doing whatever it was those games were having you pretend to do. Something else to notice is the age range of the players at the cabinets. Kids at the Baseball cab, granny at the Checkmate cab. Back in 1978, the "powers that was" were trying to get everybody to play videogames. Young and old, regardless of gender, were part of the target demographic. Of course, all types play games now, too, they're just divided up onto different platforms: console gamers, pc gamers, MMORPG gamers and casual gamers. Not meant to be a comprehensive list. Hey! I do have the instructions for Video Whizball, after all! I'll have to type them in some day. If I had remembered I had them when I wrote Whizball's entry I wouldn't have gone all apeshit in making up a backstory for it. I think the Odyssey^2 boxes are purty. Odyssey and Odyssey^2 did a really nice job staying consistent with their box designs. Notice on the bottom right, the glorious Odyssey^2 Multi-cart. Here's the first "Ultimate" System! Can YOU name every "Ultimate" system there's been? Next entry, I'll try to show the "Unplayed, but not forgotten" for 1978.
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Y'know, I'm certain there's a way that I'm supposed to be listing the title of the game. I'm sure that, for my humble intentions at least, the way I'm doing it now is just fine and dandy for all those involved. I'm taking a technical writing course this session and I'm beginning to think that for everything that I've already written, there's a "better" more "appropriate" way of stating it. Of course, if I wrote these entries as "technical writings" then this would be less of a blog and more of a "technical journal". Still, it'd be nice to be able to describe things a bit more succinctly. I'm hoping that my course will help me with that without ruining my unrefined charm. Heh. Sea Wolf, Bally Pro Arcade, 1978 Previously, I've been playing and talking about these home videogames as if I were a shut-in, or very young child (Which I would've been circa 1972-75). The idea of doing that was to limit discussion to the arena of the home, somewhat, and to keep things from getting too complicated. Yes, I've already written about a few arcade-to-Home conversions without comparing them too much to their progenitors, but overall I've been acting like the arcades don't exist. I guess, one could say, it keeps the lab cleaner. We're going to take off the clean room suits now and officially acknowledge that home videogames, in many cases, existed in the arcades prior to their debut on home videogame consoles. Yes, I might have mentioned them before, in passing, or in an out-of-character/chronology moment, but here and now, let me just express that I will refer to a home videogame's arcade precursor more often and with the expected forms of due reverence. The Bally Pro Arcade does a lot of home ports. Their first year of existence had a few arcade titles, of which, 280Zzzap immediatly springs to mind. Sea Wolf and its cart partner, Missile, both share the characteristic of having been brought home from the arcades. Why do I mention it now? Well, because playing Sea Wolf in the arcades was a unique experience at the time and this home conversion just doesn't cut it. The arcade version of Sea Wolf had a special controller. It was made to resemble a periscope. You look through the viewfinder to see your playfield, which was the ocean, and you rotated the periscope to aim your torpedoes. There was a pinging sound; there was a fire button on the periscope; the whole setup gave me a wonderful feeling of immersion. Yes, that turned out to be a pun, and you should be laughing out loud at this very moment, but I tell you -- "immersion" is the best word to describe the Sea Wolf arcade experience. "Immersion" is also the exact word that could describe what the home version lacked. Instead of a periscope, you move a pink submarine across the bottom of the screen and launch torpedoes at the various ships that cruise overhead. Without the periscope from the arcade, this game becomes nothing special. Instead of feeling like you are in a submarine, you're merely controlling a toy submarine (pink!) that is now in your living room. So, what's my point? Sea Wolf is notable as being the first arcade to home conversion that was severely diminished by its voyage home. The simple fact a periscope couldn't be attached to my TV is what killed this game for me. Some of you will disagree with this and may point to home games like Indy 500 or 280 Zzzap as neutered driving games, when bereft of their driving controller. You're not wrong, but neither fell as far as Sea Wolf did from its below-sea-level arcade origins. Missile is from the arcade game Guided Missile and doesn't lose much in its translation. It's like Sea Wolf exept you control the missile during its flight to destroy trucks and other moving land based targets. It is also not a lot of fun. In fact, were I not determined to at least mention it briefly I would have ignored it altogether. All it's doing now is detracting from the poignancy of what I was trying to express concerning Sea Wolf. Cripes. Stupid flipside game. That's all for 1978. I may do a run down of 1978. I've been stuck in 1978 since September of 2005. I'm really looking forward to moving on to 1979.
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Math-a-Magic! / Echo! Odyssey^2, 1978 Okay, this should be short and sweet. Because of the Odyssey^2 keyboard, Math-a-Magic is fairly usable as far as Math edutainment goes, however, it really doesn't count as a game. Yes, there's a timer, so you can see how many problems you can do in a certain amount of time, and yes, a "music noise" is played every time you've answered 10 more problems correctly, but it's just not a game. You can pick from four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and three different skill levels for your math-a-magical fun. No, there isn't actually any magic in this game, other than the title. There's an algebraic version of the game. As you may guess, instead of asking 3 x 4 = ? they ask 3 x ? = 12. I was impressed by the big numbers they were willing to use for the third skill level. (numbers in to the thousands) There's a pretty cool drill program for Multiplication and Addition tables, so I'm actually going to make my kids use it for real. I don't care if they like it or not. Heh. I guess if you have basic math issues, or are learning, Math-a-Magic! will help you and it will actually take you up to three and four digit numbers. Echo! This is like Simon or Touch-me. A sequence plays and gets added to, you play it back to the console using the keyboard, repeat until you get it wrong. This echoing game gives you three chances to make a mistake and then it's game over. I was only able to get to a 33 note sequence. The keyboard wasn't as helpful to me here, as my number "four" key didn't consistently input. That could've been my fault for not looking at what I was doing all the time. I guess it's hard to touch type when you can't feel the keys.There's no variations for Echo! You can't make it more than four different numbers for the sequences. You either do it or you're out. I wonder how far the sequence can go? I might cheat just to find out. Bottom line for this cart: I personally could live without Math-a-Magic!, but I might force my kids to learn on it. Echo! isn't bad and the buttons respond better than my old Simon does. More often than not on my Simon when I make a mistake it's because a lens didn't make the proper connection. Next entry is the last game from 1978. I missed it for the Bally Professional Arcade when I was going through its 1978 library. I give you Sea Wolf! Hey, there's no actual exclamation point as part of its title. That suddenly seems weird.
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Football, Odyssey^2, 1978 Wanna dance? Like Bally's Football, Odyssey^2 Football does a good job of offering the plays and the interaction that the real sport promises, without the bone crushing, spine shattering injuries. Major difference between this and the Bally is that the Bally shows a "slice" of the football field and scrolls the field to accommodate movement, while the Odyssey^2 Football shows the whole field all the time. The Bally animations seem to move a little more realistically, too, but that's just a general impression and I can't validate that by saying I counted the frames per character or anything. The game starts when the whistle blows (which sounds pretty good) while the players are in their huddles discussing their plays. Defense and Offense selects their plays by moving their joystick to a particular position based on plays as diagrammed in the instruction manual. It's not a bad idea to have those plays memorized before playing, because if you don't, it's harder to pass the ball to your wide receiver, who is the only one who can catch it. When he does catch it, you lose control of your quarterback and you take control of the wide receiver. The figures that you can control are distinguished by noticeably thinner necks. I think this is a useful, subtle idea and less distracting than say, making them blink, or turning them a different color or putting a cursor under their ass. That's really all I can think to note, otherwise, it's a football game and I guess it isn't a bad game at that. We had some fun with it, we're just not huge football fans. Something I should talk about is a short line found in the manual. "On-screen electronic sensors enable the defensive linesman to follow the ball automatically." Huh? on-screen electronic sensors?!? . . . I think that says a lot about the time period in which this is written and either the level of understanding the marketers had about the technology or at the very least, the level of expectations they had of their customers' understanding of that technology. I'm going to guess, that here in 1978, more people have a general understanding of electronics than have a general understanding of programming algorithms. So, terms like "enemy AI" or even "artificial intelligence" itself, aren't exactly in the public meme. However, everyone who's seen a James Bond movie knows about electronic sensors, right? Next entry, Bowling and its sister sport, Basketball.
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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 or complex) and with or without mines and with or without combinations of the three variations. (12 games in toto) The mines are a new but not really notable addition to the tank game. They show up as big white X's that give your opponent a point when you run over them. They disappear after they are set off if I remember correctly. (we played this last week and I just can't bring myself to check just now.) The notable addition is the limit on tank ammo. You each have 20 rounds and when you're out of ammo, you're out of luck until the game ends or when your enemy runs out (which also ends the game). There's no counter on the screen for the ammo, but your last three bullets are a different color, so you are given warning. This addition really adds something to the game. Baiting your opponent and dodging their shots is fun and so is hunting them down when they're out of ammo. We really had a good time because of that addition to the gameplay. Something else that made this game more enjoyable is the design of the Odyssey^2's joysticks. I've really gotten used to them. I'm assuming they're simple 8-way joysticks (I'll have to look that up) but their range of motion is really comfortable and I don't feel like my son or I are having any problems using them. This is in contrast to the Atari VCS joysticks, which are rarer to find in working condition in my experience. I guess if I had to compare the two Tank games from Odyssey and Atari, I'd have to say it's a dead heat. If I only had an Odyssey^2 with Armored Encounter, I wouldn't be pining away for Atari's Combat's Tank games and vice versa. I'd be happy enough to enjoy either game, in the context of the era during which it was released. If I had to point out a flaw in either of them, I'd have to say that the Odyssey^2's barrier fields were pretty lame looking. It's interesting to point out what I think is the biggest difference between Odyssey^2's Armored Encounter and Atari's Combat: the way they chose to describe these games in their catalogs. Magnavox described Armored Encounter as "an astonishingly realistic simulation of armored warfare!." Atari didn't seem to put on any airs for their title, saying simply, in one of their catalogs: "Blast your opponent as many times as you can for the highest score." With that sentiment, I think Atari captured the essence of the exercise much more clearly. Sub Chase! Odyssey^2, 1978 This is like the flip-side of a 45 rpm record. Sub Chase! is like the lesser known, usually not-as-good tune that they used to put on the flip-side of a 45 simply because there was a spot for it. See, most of you are too young to remember this, but back before there were CDs there were . . . oh, look it up yourself. This is a little, no, make that a lot, like Atari's Air-Sea Battle but with only three variations. One player is the Plane, the other is the Sub. They control their own speed, their vertical positions and, in two of the three variants, they also guide the missiles that they fire at each other. There are also non-combatant ships for which you lose a point when you hit them. Not an awful game, but not very memorable. I want to say one of the problems I had with it was that each person's vehicle simply moved too quickly. Combine that with the fact they were always moving counter to one another and I found myself only scoring because my son happened to move into the way of my missile. It seemed to me that scoring becomes more of a luck-thing than a skill-thing for the most part. Perhaps that would change with repeated playing, but we were done with it after five or so minutes. So, we'll never know. So, Armored Encounter! gets an "all right!" for the limited ammo feature and Sub Chase! gets a "meh", partly because I wasn't very good at it and partly because it wasn't very good. Will Sub and Plane always hate each other? I actually like these photos because they remind me of grainy pictures of UFOs. Sorry for the blurring, esp. on the Sub. It doesn't really have two periscope poles, just the one, but thanks to the magic of slow shutter speeds we get to see two. Next entry should be Football.
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Las Vegas Blackjack! Odyssey^2, 1978 Another system, another inevitable release of the game the crowds must've been howling for back in the 70s. Blackjack. This time its official title is: Las Vegas Blackjack! (Hmm, what's up with the exclamation point? Seems the last cartridge had one for each title, too. Maybe part of a marketing decision? We'll see if they keep it up.) I dragged my feet to play this title. I really didn't want to. I've never been able to enjoy a videogame of Blackjack before, why should this be any different?Well, maybe my attitude had just sucked, because today I actually played the game rather than just looked at the graphics and read the instructions. Okay, as graphics/presentation go . . . An odd addition to this version is the fact that it takes place over TWO screens. A blue screen (see below), for betting, and a green screen (see above) for the dealing of cards. Numbers, letters and either red or black colors for the suits are all we get for graphics (with the exception of the white rectangles for the cards.) Firmly placing this version behind the APF deck (1st place) and behind the Fairchild's (2nd place) for its curvy presentation of the table's edge. That would make it tied for third with the Atari. The RCA Studio II's Blackjack is currently ranked 7th, out of five. Okay, I'm not saying I've been struck down by the gods of gambling and now actually look forward to the next videogame of Blackjack that I force myself to play, but I did enjoy playing it today. I think that I liked it because I found a bug! Features in this Blackjack: You can buy insurance, if the dealer has an Ace showing. You can double your bet if you have a starting hand totaling 9 or 10. (which I found odd, shouldn't it be 10 or 11?). You play with a straight 52 card deck. I didn't notice at what point in the deck did the dealer reshuffle. Oh, I also noticed that if the dealer gets 5 cards without going over 21, it wins, regardless of your hand. If I remember correctly, I had 21 and the dealer only had 20, but had 5 cards. I hope I'm remembering that right. The bug, though, is when you bet everything you have, take the opportunity to double your bet should it arise, and then lose. You're losing twice as much as you have, right? Well, here's what happened to me: Check out that score! This has something to do with allocated memory and what happens when you go below zero in a memory slot reserved for an unsigned integer. When you go below zero it wraps around to the highest possible number (or thereabouts) for that slot. But look at the size of that thing. I would never have guessed it to allow for numbers that high! I continued playing from there and, of course, warped it right back around to the other side of zero again after winning another hand. From there I managed to reach a high score of 72,000 and hit "reset" instead of "enter" on my next bet. I must admit, I actually felt regret and disappointment when I accidentally hit reset, meaning, I must've been enjoying myself while I played the game. I'm just saying, so you know that I'm not afraid to admit I had a good time, even when I didn't think I would. Okay, that's it for yet another Blackjack. Next time is Cosmic Conflict! EDIT: Wait that's not IT! I forgot to mention. This Blackjack doesn't use either of the joystick controllers! It only uses the keyboard. This is the second game (Crypto-Logic was also keyboard exclusive) to do that. In Blackjack's case, it asks for your bet, which you input using the numbers on the keyboard. During the hand, it asks if you want a hit or if you want to double down to which you respond by hitting either the Yes or No button. I would have done it a little differently. To enter the bet, you have to hit the numbers and then hit enter. Enter is too close to the reset key as my mistake clearly indicates. I would have put an enter key (which would presumably get used a lot) a little further away from a button which reboots the whole frackin' machine.Okay, now I'm done. END EDIT
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Okay, remember the Odyssey? The one with the Überlays? Well, it had a sequel. The Odyssey^2 as in "Odyssey to the second power" or "Odyssey Squared" or "Odyssey times Odyssey" . . . I guess they named it that because there was also the Odyssey 100, Odyssey 200, Odyssey 300, Odyssey 400, Odyssey 500 as well as an Odyssey 3000, 4000 and 5000. I'm sure I'm forgetting some but I think you see where I'm driving. Why go linear when you can go exponential? I think exponential was the smart way to go. It was an original twist and didn't involve just making a number bigger. It was saying that the very idea was bigger, more fleshed out, taken to the next dimension, as it were. Probably the most stand-out, unique and beautiful thing about the Odyssey^2 is the fact it comes with a keyboard. The keyboard is an integrated part of it and nigh-unremovable. Not the easiest of keyboards to use, given its flat keys, but a full keyboard, none-the-less. In fact, even though it is not a game, I'll do my best to learn a little bit about programming the Odyssey^2 when Computer Intro (1979) becomes available. That's probably what I would've done back in the day if I'd gotten it for Christmas instead of Basic Programming for the VCS. (Jesus Crotch! What a disappointment!) A great and powerful website about the Odyssey^2 is The Odyssey2 Homepage:The Odyssey2 Homepage (EDIT in 2021... not there anymore?) I encourage everyone to visit the site and soak in all the information they can. It will make you better citizens and help you to live fuller richer lives. Information that I can't seem to find often enough are the release dates for the games. This is either something that is "hard to know" or something "no one really cares to know". Somewhere in the past year of preparing for 1978 (I'm only "prepared" up to and including 1979, by the way.) I made a list of games playable from 1978. I usually post these sorts of lists at the beginning of the year. Since I started 1978 in October of 2005, here's a refresher of what I think I should be playing for 1978 on the Odyssey^2: Armored Encounter / Subchase BaseballBowling / Basketball Computer Golf Cosmic Conflict Football Las Vegas BlackJack Matchmaker / Buzzword / Logix Math-A-Magic / Echo Speedway / Spin-out / Crypto-Logic An earlier version of this list had included Take the Money and Run, which I've since discovered didn't come out until 1982. It has been stricken from the chronology until such time as appropriate. As of 1978, the title Take the Money and Run was only a Woody Allen movie, a Steve Miller song and probably a popular expression. I think my conclusion that those games were released in 1978 is based on the copyright year in their manuals. I dunno, I made this list a while back. I'll be rechecking that as I go, but really, copyright date is not the most reliable way of doing it. Case in point: some games on the Bally Pro Arcade have a copyright of 1977, the year before the Bally even came out! I'm trying not to be too anal about this. I know it's just a meta-game. However, under the rules of Chronogaming, playing a game too far before the year it was published in the chronology being used can disrupt the fabric of SpaceTime. I'm sure none of you would want that to happen. So, for the love of Sagan: if you see something listed on there that didn't come out until *gasp* 1979 or later, please speak up. Likewise, if there's something you know that came out in 1978 and is missing. Well, what else can I say about the Odyssey^2? I think something that is notable is that the console itself has built-in graphic sets which the programmers can use. For what it's worth, it does provide a certain consistency of "look and feel" to the software library. Another very consistent "look and feel" is the box/manual and cartridge art. When you get a lot of Odyssey titles in one place they all look like part of the same family. Yeah, Atari VCS does that for awhile, but its longevity insured it would see several design revisions, while the Odyssey^2 remained relatively unchanged throughout its career. (Yeah, I'm speaking out of the context of being trapped in 1978 for the purposes of exposition. ) As is the tradition, I'll start with the pack-in game next entry. Oh, and if anybody cares, I've started up my crappy little website: Chronogamer (EDIT in 2021: No, it doesn't exist.) which is really just these blogs being "rebroadcast" in non-blog form. Yeah, it's an ugly website, but it's not always a pretty subject, either.
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I discovered another Chronogamer! A writer over at Retrogaming Times Monthly is chronogaming the NES, starting in 1983! This is the same guy that wrote the always interesting Syntax Era, so it should be good. Anyway, here's the link to the issue with the first NES chronogaming. The column is called "Nintendo Realm". (You have to scroll to it.) http://my.stratos.net/%7Ehewston95/RTM19/RTM19.html No, he doesn't call himself a "chronogamer," and as far as I know, he's never heard of me, but ain't it cool?
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Blackjack, APF, 1978 Blackjack. Again. I'm really sorry, all of you must be really tired of hearing me bitch about the fact that this game shows up on nearly all the systems. So, let's just get it over with, shall we? Okay, the only thing you must know is that you can choose the number of decks up to four that the dealer draws from, which is cool. The graphics are ugly. The suits are green and black. EDIT: Let this serve as an example of my intermittent green/red color blindness, though I've never noticed it before. The suits are RED and BLACK, just like normal card suits. I went back to get some screenshots and realized I must've been misremembering my colors. (Not the first time I've done so.) I don't know what the "options" are for each hand because we were only able to get it to "hit" us. Sort of a sure way to lose. APF, Atari and Fairchild Blackjacks. EDIT: A comment (below) brought up that these graphics are actually better than any other Blackjack I've shown to date. From the above shots, you can see, that Supercat is absolutely right. There's no good reason for me to have called them ugly. For the record: I was hasty in my pronouncement of calling these graphics "Ugly". These are the nicest Blackjack graphics on any system so far, and it's the only system to bother to include symbols for the suit. I obviously didn't give this particular cart the attention I should have due to not being able to figure out how to control the game. I guess this was an "off day" End EDIT Did I mention that this Blackjack also takes place on a green background, undoubtedly meant to represent the green tables on which these games take place in the casinos? Well, it does. In fact, every game on this system has a distinct "green"-ness to it. Could be my console. Could be my TV. Could be my frackin' eyes. Don't know for sure, but my memories of the MP1000 are green. (except for Bowling, but even the text background in that has green to it, doesn't it?) Probably something to do with . . . nah, I got nothin'. The only distinction to the graphics from other versions is that there is a separating line between the playing areas of the dealer and each player. The pattern is similar to the one you might see on a Blackjack table, but I haven't seen enough of them in real life to be an authority. EDIT I'm wrong again here. This version of Blackjack includes suit symbols. Nice suit symbols. This is an important distinction that I failed to make. End EDIT One plus to Blackjack was the sound effect for the shuffling of cards: it sounded like a long controlled quiet electronic fart. My kids and I chuckled heartily, as I'm sure you would've guessed. It also triggered a Pavlovian response in my children as they suddenly decided "share" their own little shuffle sounds! Um, sorry, I guess that has very little to do with this game, I'm just finding it hard to come up with a different angle on Blackjack so I've resorted to flatulence humor. I'm so ashamed. Yet another Baseball entry is next.
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Brickdown / Shooting Gallery, APF, 1978 - only NOT My copy of this cart wouldn't work. Grr. This is a lesson that reminds me I need to test these things as soon as I get them. The seller on ebay had said it worked. I'm thinking he made a mistake, like he did when he said that photocopies of the instructions were included. Grr. If anyone can lend/rent me theirs, I'll pay shipping both ways, take really good care of it and have it back to you within a day or two. In fact, I'm still looking for a half dozen of these carts to chronogame. Since this system is not emulated, (nor are the cart roms dumped) I'm relying on ebay or anyone who can loan/rent/sell me them. PM me please. I'll still need to play the following after I get through the ones I have: Pinball / Dungeon Hunt <-- first D&D type game on a console, I assume. Backgammon <-- Okay, not really excited about this one, but still. Boxing <-- first time for boxing on a console Brickdown <--for reasons explained above Casino I <--Again, not too excited about it, but I'm trying to play as many as possible Space Destroyers <-- I heard this one was actually pretty good so I really want to play it. More often than not, I play the good ones about 20 minutes longer than I play the bad ones. UFO <---interested in the gameplay for this one, too. I think I'd be much less interested in playing these if there were a nice description of these games and their gameplay anywhere on the internet, BUT there isn't, so my curiosity is like a ravenous beast. HEY! I just had another idea. If you have any of these and aren't willing to rent/lend/sell them to me (which is cool, I completely understand) could you just write me telling me what they're like? Maybe take some screenshots? Please! Chronogaming needs you! Next entry is Bowling / Micro Match-up which should be later today since this entry doesn't really count as an entry, you know?
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Hangman/Tic-Tac-Toe/Doodle, APF, 1978 I'm sure you are all aware by now, that I consider an electronically conducted game of Hangman to be one of the most formative highlights of any child's upbringing. To see a child realize that the simple failure to correctly guess a random word could lead to a virtual yet grisly death . . . well, it's just amazing. I love to see their face light up as they begin to abuse their power. They'll start to punch in guesses like "Z" and "Q" followed by a relentless string of other improbable consonants, all contributing to the assembling of some poor soul for a hanging. A soul depending upon literacy to save them. A literacy that will never come. The noose awaits. This is the nicest rendering of Hangman that I've seen in six years (1972 to 1978) of chronogaming. This man wears a hat! He's got hands and legs! He's multicolored! The problem I had with this game is more to blame on my controllers. They tend to double-input. So, if you want to type in the number "1" for the letter "A" you might get the number "11" and get the letter "K" instead. Yes, it gets on your nerves, but only if you care about getting the word right. This is the complete man just before hanging. He seems to be raising his arms in triumphant joy at having been "completed". "Hey, look, y'all! I've got all my arms and legs! Whoo-wee!" I suppose an important component of any Hangman game is just how varied and challenging the words are, right? Well, screw that! I'm really only interested in the presentation of the hanging. I like how his face becomes discolored and his hat droops when he dies. It's a shame they couldn't show the interim period of pointless struggle between the floor dropping and the moment of death. I guess that's something to look forward to as technology improves. Tic-tac-toe and Doodle are also on this cart? I honestly didn't spend much time with them because Doodle isn't a game and Tic-tac-toe is filled with so many intricacies and nuances that I could spend a lifetime exploring it. Why even start? I finally beat it on the highest difficulty setting! *Whew* Now, I'm drained. A Doodle piece. My friend, Tony, must've done this but I don't know when. Next entry is Brickdown / Shooting Gallery, or at least it is supposed to be . . .
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Catena, APF, 1978 Something to notice about the menu screen: This machine is considered to be a "TV Micro-Computer" by its makers. Well, yeah, all videogame consoles are, technically, "computers", just not what we usually call "computers" anymore, thanks to the great Computer/Console Distinction riots of the early 1980s. But I digress from the chronology . . . First of all, lets just deal with the title. I originally confused it with the word cantina, which is a bar on Mos Eisley, but that's because I'm an idiot. It's actually a smart title if you know what the word "catena" means. (I didn't, I had to look it up.) Catena is the Latin word for "chain" and "Planetary geologists use the word to refer to chains of similarly sized impact craters." Yeah, I copied that directly from Wikipedia.Catena, the videogame, shares the same rules of the boardgame Othello (remember? "A minute to learn a lifetime to master?") using maroon and orange squares instead of black and white circles. With the definition of the word catena given above, isn't that an appropriate name? It is nice to see this game on a console. I don't think it was ever in the arcades (which isn't a shock) and I think this marks its first appearance on a home system, so "yay" for the APF! In case you're not familiar with the game of Catena/Reversi/Othello go here:http://www.rainfall.com/othello/rules/othellorules.asp There's also a version of Othello that you can play here:http://www.rainfall.com/othello/ I'm going to try to link more often to better directions as I always make things more complicated than they should be. In Catena, on the APF MP1000, to select your pieces you input the number of the square upon which you'd like to place your next piece using the keypad on your controller. The computer handles the task of changing the colors of the pieces you "capture".You can set the computer to play against itself, in case playing against the computer by yourself has "worn you out". (Hint: A lava lamp is prettier to stare at.) An odd quirk of the game was that the computer wouldn't "let" me make some moves. I'd have to input the number of the square of my choice several times before it would accept it. Also, there were times when it would place my piece at a completely different position than the one I had been punching in. Problem with the code? Problem with the cart? Problem with the console? Problem with not having the instructions? I don't know, but it was really annoying. The sound also qualifies as annoying. The only sound effect is a non-innocuous clicking noise used to alert you where the computer has placed its piece and what pieces are affected by the move. We turned down the sound on the TV after about three turns, patched our bleeding ears, and resumed play. (Note to self: I need a refresher course on when semicolons are best used.) Opening Move I can say that the game's graphics are functional, but the colors are damn ugly. So is the sound. However, unless I'm mistaken, the system and the game itself get points overall for being the first boardgame translation with an AI opponent on a home videogame system. (Correct me if I'm wrong, okay? Am I forgetting one?) As far as the quality of the AI, I'm not really good enough at the game to notice any problems with it, so it gets points for it even existing.Next entry will be another Hangman game. This one is the best Hangman, yet!
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APF MP1000 circa 1978 In case you're wondering APF stands for Al & Phil Freedman, the two brothers who founded the company. The most excellent page out there on the APF family of expandable consoles:http://www.tcp.com/~lgreenf/apfpage.htm (EDIT in 2021: This page is no longer there. I didn't search for a new one.) (Nelio found it, here it is: http://www.nausicaa.net/~lgreenf/apfpage.htm ) That's got pictures of the carts and the console, but, alas, no screenshots of the games. That's what I'll try to provide as I go through the ones I have. When I am able to take some OK pictures I'll post them with the appropriate entry. Damn, I miss my "video-in" capabilities. I was able to get a APF console that says M-1000 on it, but has the game Rocket Patrol built-in. I don't know what's up with that. I've heard there's no difference between the M-1000 and the MP-1000, other than Rocket Patrol being built-into the MP-1000. Taking that statement literally, then it would be, in fact, true. My MP-1000 is so similar to the M-1000 that it has an M-1000 label, but it plays Rocket Patrol. Rocket Patrol, APF MP-1000, 1978 In one of the articles on the APF page, it refers to a "space invasion" game. In 1978, this would probably conjure up images of a very famous quarter gobbler. This is not that game.This game features a small cannon at the bottom of the screen, a side scrolling starfield (which is, actually, very nice) and three ships that parade, conveniently, past the location of your cannon. Of course, they're not the same ships, they're just identical ships that are part of a whole armada of ships, of which you only see three ships at a time. To shoot them down, you fire your cannon, your entire cannon, by the way. We're not talking missiles or bullets here. That whole sucker launches at these alien mo-fos. You've got a 60-second minute, during which they start to move faster. After the minute is up, your opponent takes their turn. Then, I suppose, you laugh while you compare scores over a couple of brewskis and hope that some other cannons took out the rest of the fleet, because you've done your hitch. There will be a screenshot of this one forthcoming, when the stars are just right, or when it's dark enough for my camera to use the flash without washing out the whole image.The sound is, well, it's kinda lame. I'm not saying I could do better, but there's really only two sounds: the cannon launching upwards and the explosion of a ship. The game is only a minute long so why bother littering it with other noises? I guess, if you're sitting there having just unwrapped this little console at your birthday party, you'd be really embarrassed. Once you fire up Rocket Patrol, your friends with the Atari VCS, the Bally, the Odyssey^2, (hell, even your friend with terminal halitosis and a Fairchild Channel F), all of them, will laugh their asses off at you. After which, they will eat your cake and have a great time playing Gunfight or Combat -- somewhere else. (The kid with the RCA Studio II won't laugh, because he didn't even get invited to your party.) We'll start going through this system, cart by cart, next entry.
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Tornado Baseball, Hockey, Handball, Tennis - Bally Pro Arcade, 1978 These must be popular sports. Let me just point something out here. Magnavox Odyssey 1972 Baseball Hockey Handball Tennis Fairchild Channel F 1976 Tennis (built in) Hockey (built in) Baseball (1977) RCA Studio II 1977 Baseball Tennis / Squash (Handball by another name) Atari VCS 1978 Home Run (Baseball) Video Olympics (1977) (Tennis, Hockey and Handball included) Blackjack and some kind of Fun with Arabic Numbers variant also seemed de rigueur for the period. I just don't wee WHY the marketing departments of the world thought this was what we still wanted in 1978. I guess that explains why these three games were all crammed onto the same Bally cart, as if they were saying, "if you have to have 'em, here they are." The Hockey, Handball and Tennis games on the Bally are a little bizarre. It is nice of them to replace the paddles with actual human figures, so thanks for that. Control of their movement is strange, however. Your paddle/knob moves your Hockey/Tennis/Handball players up and down, but the joystick moves them from side to side. Different? Yes. Awkward? Also Yes. Effective? Well, maybe after a while, but we would've fallen asleep if we had played too much longer. I mean, these games are essentially PONG all over again. Baseball, no wait, I mean Tornado Baseball is a different story. This was probably based on an arcade game of the same name which I vaguely remember seeing in an actual arcade back in the 70s. Hmm, I'm sorry, I've completely lost my "let's pretend we've journeyed back to 1978 " attitude. Okay, after watching brand new episodes of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley we put in this new Bally cart that has Tornado Baseball on it, just like the one in the arcades! The players run out on to the field, just like they do in a real baseball game! Damn, that expression gets old quickly. The gameplay is a lot like the other Baseball games we've seen. The team at bat only has to worry about hitting the ball. There's no lineup to choose or running strategy. Team in the field only has to worry about pitching (with direct control over how the ball curves and passes over the plate or not. Still, no beaning the other player, which would've been fun.) and moving the outfielders around. The infield is all automatons who perform their duties well enough, but there's never any chance for an error. It is interesting to see a player in the field catch a ball and watch the ball bounce around to the other players. We hit doubles, triples and homers (EDIT in 2021: DOH! (sorry for anachronistic Simpson's reference.)), but mostly singles and fouls. It was hard to get a triple or double, harder than it was to hit a homer, even. I can't say this game offers great gameplay, although this is probably because I'm not a real life Baseball fan. That being said, this is still the best Baseball videogame, in the purest sense, that we've seen. It certainly knocks Atari's Home Run right out of the park. The sound is acceptable, though I don't know why they couldn't have included a few ballpark melodies since the machine can sing circles around anything else out there. The graphics are good. The players are animated as they run, they don't just stand still while they float out to their positions. No flicker, either. If you find yourself stuck in 1978 and you just gotta play a Baseball videogame, this is the one to play, at least for now. What's kind of astonishing is how little the design of this, the best Baseball game so far, has changed since the Odyssey Baseball in 1972. Basically, a pitcher sends the ball, controlling the curve and the batter hits it, trying to aim it for a particular zone to get a some kind of hit, while the outfielders move back and forth to catch it. Frankly, I think the Odyssey version had more variation and possibility for interesting situations. Pinch hitting, base stealing, player stats, balking -- I may not have enjoyed it much, but that game had a lot more to it than the recent crop of Baseball games, even though it was more boardgame than videogame. Okay, next entry will be a new system. There are only two left for 1978. Please look forward to it.
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Red Baron / Panzer Attack, Bally Professional Arcade, 1978 Bally's machine continues to thwart me at every turn. I opened a sealed, slightly smooshed copy of Bally game #2003, Red Baron / Panzer Attack and upon inserting the cartridge into the machine and turning it on, I was greeted with no change in the default menu of the Bally. My "sealed" cart is unfunctioning, still-born out of its factory-provided protective film. Broken it is, and broken it shall remain, given my dearth of electronics knowledge, until, quite possibly, the end of this world! Trying to play games on the Bally Professional Videocade has been challenging, due to issues having nothing to do with the games themselves. A stern reminder that, these games are frackin' old. We must be careful around them, lest we might recklessly exhale and our very breath corrupt them into disrepair. The ROM, the proverbial soul of this cart, does boot up in the MESS emulator, sans sound, which I imagine would have been pretty good. The games on this cart are Bally's version of Atari's Combat. In Red Baron, there are two player-controlled planes which fly around the screen and shoot at each other. There's a field from which they take off. There's a little airport in the center of the field. There's a cloud in the sky behind which they can hide, for a brief respite from the horrors of air-to-air combat. In this latest example of the recurring theme of two friends pretending to kill each other, the playfield is picturesque indeed, but the sky is the limit because the sky stops at the top of the screen. In other words, there's no up-down wrap-around, but there is right-left wrap-around. I imagine the gameplay would be similar to the plane part of Combat, except there are no variations on the play; no guided missiles, no difficulty level for either player - just go up, maneuver and shoot. Parts of it impress me but most of it doesn't. Then again, I'm not actually playing the game, so what the hell do I know? The tank game sports multi-colored tanks. Another early example of multi-colored sprites on a console in a world that, in 1978, had yet to see multi-colored sprites anywhere else, even in the arcades. That is pretty cool, doncha think? Panzer Attack also supports up to four players. Awesome if you have the controllers for it. The tanks in this game, like Combat, can only move in the direction they're facing (compare to Desert Fox on the Fairchild machine which let them strafe for the love of Pete.). The game is pretty much a "last tank running" type of game. One shot and you're out, your killer gets the point. When there's only one tank left, the other three are resurrected and the positions are reset. Unfortunately, I can't give an account of what it was like to play this cart, due to its unfunctioning disposition. Fire it up yourself in the MESS emulator to get an idea of how it moved and how it looked. If you can get the sound to work, so much the better. One more Bally game to go for 1978, Tornado Baseball and its cartridge co-inhabitants, Hockey, Tennis and Handball.
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Well, my homebrew Bally Astrocade controller didn't work as well as I had hoped. Each component works well enough, but it's hard to steady the box while trying to press the button, use the paddle-knob and use the joystick at the same time. For such a situation, nothing beats the original controller. Fortunately, I was able to get one repaired by cleaning its potentiometer and trying the WD-40 trick. So, I let my son use the "official" and I use the Frankenstien'd one. The other problem with the homebrew controller is the Atari Paddle controllers don't use the same potentiometer as the Bally, so its range of reading is different. It does cover the whole "gamerange" of motion, smoothly, too, but it only covers about a fourth of the entire spin. Y'know what I mean? To explain it better: A potentiometer adds resistance to a circuit and the videogames measure that resistance to determine the position of the paddle. The Atari paddle must have a broader range of resistance than the Bally programs test for. If the range of values for the Atari paddle was between 1 and 100 then the Bally must only be looking between 37 and 63. I'm only making those numbers up to try to explain to you what it feels like. So, Football! I should note: I'm not a sports fan. I will never schedule time to turn on the TV and "watch the game." I don't "get" the whole "root, root, root for the home team" concept. Throughout my gaming experience, I have never sought out a sports title to play because I liked a particular sport. So, staring at a "Football" title does not elicit any sort of male, "ooo, I get to play me a sports videogame!" type of joy. Turns out, however, that the Bally plays a good game of Football. After the player on offense chooses a running play, a portion of the football field is put on the screen along with the players from both teams (blue vs. yellow). You can't control the various players that protect the quarterback, but you do control your quarterback. When you move the joystick, the ball snaps back to your quarterback and your receivers start running the pattern of the play you've called. The plays are all printed out in your playbook, so, in theory you know where they'll be running. While you're waiting for them to get into place, you're in danger of getting sacked by a console controlled player called "mad dog", the one player that gets over your wall of, um, quarterback protectors. Your opponent controls the "cornerbacks", two football players that try to intercept the ball or tackle your receiver if he catches the ball.Your knob controls the direction your quarterback throws the ball, the joystick controls his movement and the trigger throws the ball, hopefully to one of your receivers. If they catch the ball, you then control them and run them down the field trying to avoid the cornerbacks. EDIT: I forgot to mention that as you run down the field the field scrolls across the screen. Not a big deal, but I can't think of a prior game that features a scrolling playfield. The ball switches between sides just as in the real game, you can even punt on the 4th down if the situation calls for it. No other "kicking" is implemented so no field goals, but that's a small loss in light of the rest of it. There's also the ability to play with four players, with two sharing control of each team. (I don't have the controller coverage to handle, that, though.) I should mention, again, that the sound on the Bally is far beyond anything I've heard so far. The sound for this title is solid. The Star-Spangled Banner is played at the opening of the game and you hear the roar of the crowd. It's almost "stirring". This is certainly one of the best sports titles we've played in 1978 or any year before it. The Bally Professional Arcade could seriously beat the Atari VCS! No, really! It's got all those cool Bally/Midway arcade games draw from, it doesn't have a flicker issue and the sound is good! Atari only got a seven-month head-start, surely that isn't enough to bury a superior machine is it? Well, that being said, I'm going to wrap this up and go watch a program I recorded on our Betamax. I think next entry is Red Baron for the Bally.
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Videocart #20, Video Whizball, FCF 1978 WOW! I haven't got the instructions for this Videocart so I felt I should come up with a setting for this ancient gaming gem. Here's the scenario: two squares, (call them "Blue" and "Green") -- enemies from the day they were born -- spit their hatred for each other across a field of battle about which huge lumbering red squares roam (We'll call them "Reds"). To express their hatred for one another, Blue and Green may spit across the field to try to hit one another and force the other to temporarily retire from the field of battle (presumably to wash their face). Meanwhile the Reds roam freely, bouncing off the walls and each other in their mindless wandering. Up to four hulking Reds can stalk the battlefield at a time. Reds can crush our two smaller antagonists if they happen to rumble over them. Fortunately, Green and Blue have an unlimited army of clone replacements. All are ready to fight after a short mourning period. All are filled with the same hatred for the other hue. Unfortunately, while either Blue or Green is down, their respective gate stands unguarded. This gives their enemy ample opportunity to use their acid spit on the Reds, and force one or more through their enemy's gate. Direct enough Reds through that gate, and victory is acquired! The Reds have a speed, direction and an apparent momentum that our antagonists can change by spitting on them. Each spit hit slows a Red down and will begin to force it back towards the enemy. To aim, Blue and Green not only can move themselves up and down in front of their gates but they can also twist themselves diagonally to allow their Spit missiles to traject at an angle to rebound off the walls of the battlefield. If Blue is at his gate and a Red is accelerating towards him (because Green is spitting at the other side of it) Blue can spit with all his might and try to deflect that Red, or at the very least, slow it down. Blue can also maneuver so that, with a diagonal spit, that Red may deflect from its current course, bounce off a wall and propel itself, with all initial momentum plus what Blue has given it, back towards Green. Later levels allow a slight control over the trajectory of the spit missiles. Other levels put numbers on the huge Red squares. Their significance is still a mystery to me . . .We have great fun with this game. One of the nice design elements is the spit physics. Each Square may only have one spit missile in play. This missile will deflect off the playfield walls, but disappear when it hits a Red or the Enemy. The connotation being that if a Red is bearing down on your Square, your Square will develop rapid fire as its shots begin to disappear at a faster rate as the Red gets closer. This gives you defensive power when you most need it. Conversely, as you try to control Reds on the other side of the field, near your enemy's gate, your Square spits at a slower rate and each shot needs to be more carefully considered while your enemy gains the defensive advantage that you just lost by spitting the Red into your enemy's area. Really, this is game is whole bunch of good and one we'll be playing again. (EDIT in 2021: No we never did play it again together, though I did take it out to look at it again.) An interesting thing about this cart is if you start a game and not touch the controllers the computer starts playing itself. There isn't a two-player game to select, just don't touch one of the controllers and the other square will start playing the game. The enemy AI in this doesn't suck either. This game should win an award or something. I haven't played all the games from 1978 yet, but I think I'd give this the Game of the Year Award, or, at the very least, I'd give it a strong nomination. Here are some screenshots. The one with the name in the center is an actual Easter Egg and most likely the first Easter Egg in a commercially sold game. Just FYI. (EDIT in 2021: This did come out two years before Atari's Adventure)
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Guess what that is!!! It's a Bally Professional Arcade controller which I Frankenstein'd from an Atari VCS joystick and paddle. Oh, and a small white cardboard box, newspaper and scotch tape. No solder for the wiring either, just cut, strip, twist and tape. Scotch tape. Now, there's a lot of people out there who lend a bit of flare to their homebrew hardware projects. Quirky behavior like planning and design were left behind while I did this completely on the fly and without any real forethought other than . . . "hmm, I needs me a paddle controller . . . Atari gots a paddle controller . . . guess I'll cut one up and see what screams." Anyway, as of now, it's the only completely functional Bally Astrocade compatible controller in my house. It will allow me to chronogame the rest of the Bally for 1978 at least. I might have to build another one someday soon.
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Elementary Math / Speed Math / Bingo Math Lettermatch / Spell n Score / Crosswords Bally Professional Arcade, 1978 I can't honestly say anything about these titles other than that MESS, which does a great job of emulating the Fairchild Channel F, doesn't support the Bally Professional Arcade as well, at least in my experience. I can't get my PSX controller to interact with MESS in the Bally emulation (like I can in the Channel F emulation) and the analog knob of the Bally is nigh impossible to simulate with keyboard, button or even the PSX analog controllers. If anyone has advice on how to get it to work, I'm all ears. Speaking of ears, the sound in the MESS Bally emulation doesn't seem to work, either. I don't remember having this amount of trouble with it back when I first attempted Bally emulation, but something along the way has changed. I imagine it's my fault, somehow, some driver I'm missing or some update I've missed. Regardless, I didn't even bother buying the above edutainment titles because I assumed they would be easy to play on emulation. It turns out that I was wrong. This also means I'm going to have to search a little higher and a little lower for some of the other Bally titles I couldn't track down, because playing them in emulation just isn't going to provide the experience to which I can apply my razor sharp analysis. (heh, yeah.) I also can't find my little cheat sheet of "what to play for 1978 on the Bally" maybe I blogged it a while back. Guess I'll go look. Okaly-dokaly, no Math or Letter bullshit today. Sorry, I know all of you (all five of you) are disappointed. I'll have to inventory my Bally carts and redouble my efforts to get some more since I don't have emulation to fall back on. Of course, I've used the word "redouble" once before in reference to this chronogaming blog and I've made two entries in the last month. Perhaps I'm using the word wrong?
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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 screen as other cards move down, backwards, towards you. This represents the fact that you are passing them. You control the acceleration with the trigger. When you fully accelerate you move from the bottom of the screen up to the center. This makes it tougher to avoid the cars, obviously, because you have only half a screen to see them coming. If you hit them, you stop and lose valuable time that should be spent gaining distance. It's fun in a zone-out-and-avoid-the-cars kind of way. Datsun 280 Zzzap makes me wonder if they ever got permission from Datsun to use the name. Was this a "licensing" deal? Had that even been conceived of at this time? Was there ever a lawsuit from Datsun over this? They may have never even known about it . . .Datsun is a first person driver. You see the hood of your car, fixed in the center of the screen. You see the oncoming posts representing the sides of the road. You go fast and you steer so that you keep the hood of your car driving through the center of the road. The path between the posts can curve quickly so you need to pay attention and have fast reflexes. I was able to do well at full speed. I wonder if I was playing it right. I seem to remember that the arcade version (Midway, 1976) of this game required me to shift gears and I couldn't figure out how to do that in this home version. I may have been doing well because I wasn't going all that fast? When you don't steer well and hit the posts on either side of the road, your car stops dead and you are given a collision word across the top of the screen. One of them was "POW!" which makes sense to me. Another was "ZORK!" which doesn't make any sense to me at all, given that I associate that word with the text adventure game and not obscure onomatopoeia. These were games I had been looking forward to playing on a genuine system. I had gotten the emulated version of them and found that the Playstation controller really sucks at emulating paddles. Playing both Datsun and Dodgem on a real Bally with a genuine controller was something of a treat. Not because they are great games, but I remember playing both of those types of games in the arcades back in the 70s and I would've enjoyed playing them in the home had I had the opportunity back then. They both still have a certain appeal to me, though I didn't play them for long and I don't think I'll ever play them again. Next Entry: Clowns / Brickyard
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