Activision library observation -- no maze games at all!!!

[Flojomojo]

Whoa. There isn't a single Activision game that even remotely resembles Pac-Man, neither as a ripoff like KC Munchkin or even a distant relation like Mouse Trap, Turtles, or Ladybug.

 

I guess the Activision guys just weren't big on mazes. Or maybe they saw what happened to Magnavox!

[Cupcakus]

I said it in the 80s and I'll say it now... It should have been the Activision 2600... :-)

[Snider-man]

Closest I can think of off the top of my head is Private Eye. I'm STILL getting lost in a few of the levels! I gotta say, it's a "maze game," just not all on one screen.

[Flojomojo]

Closest I can think of off the top of my head is Private Eye. I'm STILL getting lost in a few of the levels! I gotta say, it's a "maze game," just not all on one screen.

Whoa -- I've never played Private Eye before, and I didn't notice that it was on the Anthology until I checked the list. I like the reuse of the Pitfall graphics. Now I want to play it ... gotta work though.

[sku_u]

Pitfall II has maze-like qualities.

[AtariDude]

Activision always seem to want to create new games and not keep re-hashing the same thing over and over (the exception being Pitfall II which was even better than the original). Too bad that the modern companies haven't learned this. Nearly every game put out today is based either on the Quake or Unreal engines.

 

Come on guys! Get a clue! We want to play something else rather than the same old game with new backgrounds or new characters. Remember innovation?

[Artlover]

Come on guys! Get a clue! We want to play something else rather than the same old game with new backgrounds or new characters. Remember innovation?

 

Blame DOOM. When it came out, it was pretty impressive, and has now somehow become the defacto standard for what video games are supposed to be.

 

Thou I must admit, the Paintball mod for Quake 2 is kool. GFX is a little on the poor side, relatively speaking, but it sure does nail the essenace of the sport dead on. Except for when lamer a--holes cheat. Death to all aim-bot users.

[AtariDude]

Death to all aim-bot users, wallhackers, ghosters, and every other type of cheat used in Counter Strike. I really hate it when someone comes in and starts owning because of their new "toy" as opposed to actually learning how to play the game the right way.

 

I like Doom but I definitely see how it helped continue a pattern (Wolfenstein 3-D would be the one that started it).

[Goochman]

I would aruge Barnstorming, HERO, Pitfall, Pitfall II and Private Eye are all maze type games - Maybe Barnstorming is stretching a bit but it requires one to know have to navigate the maze of obstacles to complete the game.

 

HERO, PF and PF II require the user to know the maze correctly in order to complete the level/game.

[Ron_Albanese_Again]

I've often wondered about Acitivision's lack of a true, one-screen maze game. The above examples to me are not maze games, really a series of screens with dead ends and means of entering and exiting. Wait. isn't that what a maze is? Anyway, it is quite a mystery why Activision never had a maze game, where a main character is in hot pursuit while trying to chomp away at objects. It makes you wonder if there was some kind of agreement with Atari, or maybe just fear of being sued ... maybe there was a protoype of some kind made? I could just picture some kind of cool Activison main character, with a blue background, maybe even that horizon ...

 

Ron

[sku_u]

It makes you wonder if there was some kind of agreement with Atari, or maybe just fear of being sued ... maybe there was a protoype of some kind made?  

 

Ron

 

What about Mouse Trap and Lock'n'Chase? Those weren't Atari games.

 

I think Activision was ahead of the game for their time and felt that the whole maze thing was done to death.

[NE146]

I have an Electronic Games magazine with an article titled "Player's guide to Video Maze Games" I could scan if ya want.

[Ron_Albanese_Again]

Yeah, but maybe that was a timing thing; maybe Activision chickened out on the maze craze around the time of the K.C. Munchkin wars? Also, Mouse Trap and Lock 'n' Chase were hardly high-profile games, in the arcade or otherwise.

 

I would think that Activison had to have considered doing a maze game at some point -- it's one of the archetype game styles. They certainly followed the shoot aliens above you concept with Spider Fighter, Megamania, Bridge (only kidding about that last one) ...

 

Ken Love, where are you?

 

Ron!

[+johnnywc]

Hello all -

 

I may be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that Activision was against using flicker of any sort in a game, and therefore designed games that the hardware could accomodate without this technique.

 

I think most maze games on the Atari (or at least the exciting ones) use flicker (ie. the Pac-man games) to simulate more than one foe on the screen. Perhaps this is why Activision steered away from these types of games.

 

Just a thought...

[Room 34]

I recall reading in an interview with David Crane that while flicker wasn't explicitly forbidden at Activision, it was certainly discouraged.

 

To paraphrase him (from memory), it was basically a matter of "If you want to do something the system doesn't handle well, maybe you could find another way to do it or adapt the game accordingly."

 

That's the biggest reason why Activision's games are so far superior to a lot of other manufacturers' games -- because Activision's developers actually thought about what the system could do well and focused on games that worked within those parameters. (Probably at least part of the reason why they never did arcade conversions in those days.)

 

It is pretty amazing what they were able to accomplish simply by constructing their games in ways that WORKED with the system instead of cobbling together kludgy work-arounds to its limitations.

[Flojomojo]

It is pretty amazing what they were able to accomplish simply by constructing their games in ways that WORKED with the system instead of cobbling together kludgy work-arounds to its limitations.

Sounds like DS and Wii!

[godzillajoe]

I don't think Activision was *that* innovative

 

Grand Prix, Sky Jinks, Barnstorming and Skiing are essentially the same game with different sprites and horizontal/vertical layout. Dodge the obstacles and beat the clock on a fixed course

 

Megamania is an Astro Blaster knockoff

 

Enduro is an update on Night Driver

 

Robot Tank is Battlezone

 

Freeway is a scaled down Frogger

 

So not all of their titles were revolutionary. Sure they all LOOKED great but the gameplay was borrowed in a lot of cases from existing arcade games.

 

But at least they were smart enough to make it look great.

[Rik]

I'm sure ACTIVISION realised there was enough maze games out there already and concentrated on making original games,nothing is TRUELY original I guess,but I'm glad they didnt pump out another PAC-MAN like game,as there was enough of those,and I,m GLAD!,and I get kind of tired of arcade ports as well.Activision made the BEST games as far as I'm concerned,Imagic 2nd.

Edited January 23, 2007 by Rik

[Foxsolo2000]

Perhaps it was just a case of Activision wanting to avoid another law suit with Atari over a baltant Pac Man clone? Imagic never had any maze games either so perhaps the lessons of K C Munchkin were learnt after all?

[vdub_bobby]

Activision had some amazing games but IMO their refusal to use flicker was a mistake.

 

Well-done flicker can get you some impressive results. Without flicker you couldn't really do Adventure, Missile Command, Berzerk, Frogger, Defender II, Centipede, Millipede, etc.

 

Furthermore, I think the refusal to use flicker really hurt their ports, like Rampage and Double Dragon.

[supercat]

I think most maze games on the Atari (or at least the exciting ones) use flicker (ie. the Pac-man games) to simulate more than one foe on the screen. Perhaps this is why Activision steered away from these types of games.

 

That could very likely be it, though it should be noted that M Network frequently used missile sprites to mimic extra players. Thus, something like Super Challenge Football is capable of showing four independently-movable people per scan line with no flicker; Lock and Chase does two guards plus the player. Activision was certainly well aware of the possibility of using missiles as extra players; games like Sky Jinks push such techniques to practically ridiculous extremes (the plane and its shadow are the two player sprites; everything else is done with the playfield, missiles, and the Ball).

[Room 34]

Freeway is a scaled down Frogger

Freeway predated Frogger. But that aside, your point is well-made. Activision's game concepts weren't really that original (many had been done in the arcades in the late '70s, just with different names). I think it was their overall quality and their ability to push the system graphically that made their work so impressive.

[godzillajoe]

Was Freeway really ahead of the arcade Frogger?

 

Interesting.

 

Anyway Activision and then Imagic games really did blow me away as a kid when they came out.

 

I think it started with the boxes.

 

Especially Imagic and those great silver boxes.

 

And the gfx and gameplay were awesome compared to what you were sorta used to from Atari

[supercat]

I think it was their overall quality and their ability to push the system graphically that made their work so impressive.

 

Looking at the first year's games for the 2600, it's clear there was some recognition early on that the TIA offered unprecedented versatility. Blackjack, for example, used a kernel entirely unlike anything else on the 2600. Generally, though, there wasn't much interest in making things really look good because it was just accepted that they wouldn't.

 

When Activision came on scene, most of its games immediately pushed the 2600 to a whole new level. Although Blackjack demonstrated that a game could use single-line resolution, and Air Sea battle demonstrated the use of gradients, almost everywhere else the use of 2-line kernels and a single value for each of the COLUPx registers for the entire screen prevailed.

 

Even the Activision logo with the scrolling copyright message was amazing by the standards of the day. An easy trick, to be sure, but it sure looked cool (and still does).

[Big Player]

Was Freeway really ahead of the arcade Frogger?

 

From what I've read, both games were developed simultaneously. Crane said he got the idea for Freeway by watching a guy try to cross the Lake Shore Freeway during rush hour.

 

Remember, Freeway was originally Bloody Human Freeway.