George Washingtoad Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 Okay, so I am a huge science fiction nut, from Asimov to Herbert to Adams. But I dont just love Science Fiction books, I love movies and television too, like Blade Runner, and Star Trek. Another big thing I love is Science Fiction in video games and i cant think of a decade of more science fiction in gaming than the Eighties. If you are digging in a pile of atari games and pick put a random cart, id say 9/10 its going to be at least something sci fi releated (most likely a Space Invaders clone but thats neither here nor there) like space or robots or aliens. Now my question is which books or rather which decade of books would you say inspired these science fiction stories found in the manuals of these old games? I just love these stories and id love to read full books like them! This doesnt have to be atari necessarily, arcades work too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 Star Wars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersaurus Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 I'm gonna guess stuff by Larry Niven, since he influenced a ton of popular sci-fi in the 80s and 90s. He's terrible at writing humans (especially women) but his alien stuff is excellent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 Star Wars.Which was influenced by pulp comics and serials from the 30s, 40s, and 50s such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Book series like Princess of Mars and Lensman were important to the genre, too. That stuff is straight up space opera and helps explain some of the seemingly odd choices Lucas made in Star Wars. "Hard" science fiction like Herbert, Asimov, Clarke were influential but less so in my opinion than the pulpy pop stuff. Also remember in real life, we had a space race in the 50s and 60s whose research continued through the 70s and early 80s. The Space Shuttle was iconic and new (and none had exploded), Carl Sagan was on TV, we sent robots to Mars. Nowadays (since 2002 at least) space games have been displaced by desert warfare games, and I think you can guess why. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 Which was influenced by pulp comics and serials from the 30s, 40s, and 50s such as Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Book series like Princess of Mars and Lensman were important to the genre, too. That stuff is straight up space opera and helps explain some of the seemingly odd choices Lucas made in Star Wars. "Hard" science fiction like Herbert, Asimov, Clarke were influential but less so in my opinion than the pulpy pop stuff. Also remember in real life, we had a space race in the 50s and 60s whose research continued through the 70s and early 80s. The Space Shuttle was iconic and new (and none had exploded), Carl Sagan was on TV, we sent robots to Mars. Nowadays (since 2002 at least) space games have been displaced by desert warfare games, and I think you can guess why. I would say they've more been replaced by post-apocalyptic games. Fallout, Last of Us, Walking Dead, Day-Z, Borderlands, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mad Max, Days Gone, Countless Zombie apocalypse games, etc Space games are still popular though. Destiny, Mass Effect, Eve, Elite Dangerous. Also the sheer amounts of hype generated by Star Citizen and No Man's Sky shows how popular the genre is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 I would say they've more been replaced by post-apocalyptic games. Fallout, Last of Us, Walking Dead, Day-Z, Borderlands, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mad Max, Days Gone, Countless Zombie apocalypse games, etc Space games are still popular though. Destiny, Mass Effect, Eve, Elite Dangerous. Also the sheer amounts of hype generated by Star Citizen and No Man's Sky shows how popular the genre is. Yeah, zombie games too ... I guess someone wants those, right? Mass Effect notwithstanding, space games made a bit of a comeback in the last 5 years. It was very dry for a long time ... the genre seemed played out. I should know, I got catfished into a whole lot of Kickstarters since there were so few things to buy. LOL Star Citizen, what a train wreck. I expected to feel some schadenfreude when I first heard Roberts' lofty ambitions, and the ensuing cluster%ck has not disappointed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 LOL Star Citizen, what a train wreck. I expected to feel some schadenfreude when I first heard Roberts' lofty ambitions, and the ensuing cluster%ck has not disappointed. Lol, yeah.. but the sheer amount of crowdfunding money they keep raking in shows how much demand there is for such a thing 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr SQL Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 Burroughs, Asimov, Bradbury, Star Trek, Space 1999, West World, Star Wars... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 Burroughs, Asimov, Bradbury, Star Trek, Space 1999, West World, Star Wars... Lost In Space, Destination Moon, War of the Worlds, Earth Dies Screaming Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted May 6, 2018 Share Posted May 6, 2018 If someone made a "Venus" game based of E.R. Burroughs' series, I'd spend a hefty sum on it. One of my favorite Sci-Fi series ever.... that and Foundation by Asimov (which would make a terrible game) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted May 6, 2018 Share Posted May 6, 2018 (edited) This is probably a little off-topic, but it's tangentally close enough that it's worth mentioning: Xevious was the first arcade game released with a backstory beyond 'just shoot everything'. From what I recall, there was a full novelization of it, but only released in Japan and difficult to come by these days. Edited May 6, 2018 by x=usr(1536) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted May 15, 2018 Share Posted May 15, 2018 The Berzerker series by Fred Saberhagen was a huge influence on early arcade games where you fight against hordes of robots like Robotron and, umm...Berzerk. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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