The Case for Adventure as the First Video Game Masterpiece

[Swami]

6 hours ago, keithbk said:

 

 

How there never was a lawsuit between Atari and the rock band Boston remains a mystery to this day.

 

That's true. I was a Space Invaders and Boston fan back in the 80s. I know there was a huge amount of legal wrangling between Tom Scholz, a former co-manager and CBS, as well as between former band members and CBS, around that time for about 6 years.

[lingyi]

I think it was on the Straight Dope forums or possibly even here that someone was asking about an old toy flying saucer with three lights shining from the bottom. The bottom line was that the idea of three "legged" flying saucers date back to at least H.G. Well's War of the Worlds in which the "fighting machines" the Martians are in, are on a tripod. 

 

Edit: As with the question about whether Adventure is "...the First Video Game Masterpiece", some of us (understandably as 2600 lovers) tend to place almost mythical status on some of what the original Atari did, forgetting what came before.

 

As for "...the First Video Game Masterpiece", I'm undecided as to what game I'd give that title to. For me, before I'd consider giving the title to Adventure, I'd have to give hard consideration to Colossal Cave as it's predecessor and inspiration. 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2019 by lingyi

[Mr. Brow]

23 minutes ago, lingyi said:

As for "...the First Video Game Masterpiece", I'm undecided as to what game I'd give that title to. For me, before I'd consider giving the title to Adventure, I'd have to give hard consideration to Colossal Cave as it's predecessor and inspiration. 

I very nearly agree with you.  On some days maybe I would... such an engrossing game.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Mr. Brow

[keithbk]

7 hours ago, lingyi said:

I think it was on the Straight Dope forums or possibly even here that someone was asking about an old toy flying saucer with three lights shining from the bottom. The bottom line was that the idea of three "legged" flying saucers date back to at least H.G. Well's War of the Worlds in which the "fighting machines" the Martians are in, are on a tripod. 
 

It's also the city in the dome, the shape of the landscape... there are quite a few similarities.

[slab0meat]

I find it interesting the popular choice as a masterpiece is Space Invaders, simply because that was an arcade translation.

 

Could Adventure be considered an "original" masterpiece?

 

I loved Adventure and consider it a classic.  Whether a classic and masterpiece are the same, I'm not sure.

 

[JBerel]

I didn't take anything to mean a 2600 masterpiece. The original Space Invaders was certainly the one that really broke through and made video gaming a thing to the masses, which is why it had a port on everything.

 

If you're limiting the designation of "masterpiece" to a 2600 game, I'm not sure anything reaches that bar. Adventure was certainly innovative use of available resources, but that doesn't make it a masterpiece creation. That would be like calling something made from a single set of Jenga blocks a masterpiece. If you could use unlimited Jenga blocks, then you might have something.  

Edited October 31, 2019 by JBerel

[Lord Thag]

15 hours ago, Mr. Brow said:

 

Thanks for your thoughtful comments so far.  I agree in one respect -- our judgement of art is necessarily subjective, and this should really be taken for granted in any discussion about it.  However, I don't think that's equivalent to saying that everything boils down to taste.  Our perception of a game or a book is a function of a complex set of factors, some of which involve taste, but many others of which involve experience, attention to detail, introspection, etc.  When college professors declare Ulysses a masterpiece, they're usually basing it on years of experience with literature, poring over the nuances and considering its implications for their perception of the world.  That doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but I don't think we should feel satisfied in judgements that come from inexperience and impatience.  The more I've learned to listen to dissenting views on the things I like or dislike, the more richness I've found in the world. 

Very well put. You can certainly set an objective bar (based on experience) with which to compare something to, and try to be objective after that, but ultimately that bar is going to be skewed by your original perspective. Take Ulysses again, the reason it's highly regarded by some is that they measure it by flowery, descriptive writing, historical significance, experimental techniques and uniqueness (all of which it has in spades). Now, lots of other people (including many college professors) measure a novel by character development, coherence, plot execution and good writing. By those standards, it only meets one of the four main qualities of a good novel. Both are valid viewpoints, it just depends on how you are measuring it, and which bar you compare it to, whereas something like Slaughterhouse 5 or The Road would meet both sets of qualifications.

I agree that you shouldn't listen to uninformed opinions or take them seriously, any more than I do when IGN has some 20 year old kid rating ET as the 'worst game of all time' without even having played Atari.

With Adventure, if you are incorporating historical significance, it should at least be in the running on your list for sure. It's very significant, and it can be argued, was a prototype for later action RPGs like Zelda (the format is remarkably similar to Zelda's dungeons: find items to unlock doors in a series of vertically and horizontally connected rooms with occasional secrets you need to use items to access), not to mention easter eggs. 

Whether or not it's fun though depends on what you term as fun. I rate it quite highly. My friend John, who is building a game museum, finds it pretty dull. Both of us have been playing, researching and collecting for 30+ years... who is right? Neither of us. At least, neither of us when comparing our likes to anyone else's.



 

[RevEng]

For some people, the mind rebels at the notion that any 2600 game could be a masterpiece, because they hold them up to more modern efforts. Sort of like doubting a piece of folk art could be a masterpiece, when we have so many great works by ancient and lauded masters hanging in galleries. But masterpiece is a medium and style dependant word; the folk-art piece doesn't need to compete with van Gogh to be considered a masterpiece, it just needs to be impressive in it's own medium and category. 

 

Each generation of gaming hardware offers unique constraints to the medium of game design. These constraints shape the art, as surely as watercolor on paper differs from oil on canvas. So without regard to historical context or nostalgia, Adventure is a masterpiece. It's a sandbox adventure game with enemies doing stuff off-screen, on the canvas of a pong and tank machine. With 128 bytes of RAM, 2 players, 2 missiles, 1 ball, and a 20-bit line buffer, it manages to inspire fear, hope, wonder, anxiety and triumph. (for those that enjoy the game)

 

Also, I believe you could theoretically create a masterpiece using jenga blocks. The work would just need to succeed at being art by provoking of some emotional reaction, and being masterful in it's medium. It might be tough, but I wouldn't discount it being possible. Thankfully, our pong and tanks machine is more flexible than even a few sets of jenga blocks!

[davyK]

Older games are difficult to still rate highly because a great deal of the game design is restricted, and in many cases dictated, by the limitations of the hardware. But it could be argued that a game designed specifically around a platform's strengths and weaknesses and be very playable deserves to be rated extremely highly. Now that hardware has no limits there isn't evidence of a large number of so-called masterpieces - sometimes restrictions can force the designer to work harder and be more creative.

Edited October 31, 2019 by davyK

[Mr. Brow]

3 hours ago, Lord Thag said:

Very well put. You can certainly set an objective bar (based on experience) with which to compare something to, and try to be objective after that, but ultimately that bar is going to be skewed by your original perspective. Take Ulysses again, the reason it's highly regarded by some is that they measure it by flowery, descriptive writing, historical significance, experimental techniques and uniqueness (all of which it has in spades). Now, lots of other people (including many college professors) measure a novel by character development, coherence, plot execution and good writing. By those standards, it only meets one of the four main qualities of a good novel. Both are valid viewpoints, it just depends on how you are measuring it, and which bar you compare it to, whereas something like Slaughterhouse 5 or The Road would meet both sets of qualifications.

I think this does a good job of getting at the root of our disagreement, and thank you again for your well thought out response.  In my opinion, no art critic worth their salt should be using objective criteria to rate things.  That's putting the cart before the horse.  Instead, I think things like character development and coherence should be coming up in the post-analysis, and can help explain why we were so immersed by a particular novel or game.  But ultimately, the judgement should be entirely subjective.

 

So to clarify my previous post, I don't mean that we should learn to use different objective criteria in our opinions so that we can match college professors or the New York Times.  When I say that we shouldn't be quick to dismiss acclaimed works that we don't like, I genuinely mean that our subjective experience of it can change with exposure and experience.  I have found this to be the case in every artistic medium I've explored, and I don't see any reason to think video games are any different.  Some of my best personal experiences with art of come from just revisiting something from a different point of view.

 

Also, I'm not advocating high-brow over low-brow.  I love Steve Reich and Citizen Kane, but I also love the Monkees and slasher films.  The wonderful thing about the art world is how vast and varied it is, and the more you keep an open mind, the more it will give back.

[Mr. Brow]

1 hour ago, davyK said:

Older games are difficult to still rate highly because a great deal of the game design is restricted, and in many cases dictated, by the limitations of the hardware. But it could be argued that a game designed specifically around a platform's strengths and weaknesses and be very playable deserves to be rated extremely highly. Now that hardware has no limits there isn't evidence of a large number of so-called masterpieces - sometimes restrictions can force the designer to work harder and be more creative.

Good point.  It's certainly true that early gaming platforms were very restrictive in what they allowed developers to do.  But that begs the question of how much you really need to make a great game.  In the visual arts, minimalists have produced beautiful, thought-provoking things from the barest of materials.  I think the same can be true in gaming and I think the best 2600 developers simply restricted themselves to making games that could be great on the platform they were developing on.  In my opinion, Adventure did just that.

[Lord Thag]

20 minutes ago, Mr. Brow said:

I think this does a good job of getting at the root of our disagreement, and thank you again for your well thought out response.  In my opinion, no art critic worth their salt should be using objective criteria to rate things.  That's putting the cart before the horse.  Instead, I think things like character development and coherence should be coming up in the post-analysis, and can help explain why we were so immersed by a particular novel or game.  But ultimately, the judgement should be entirely subjective.

 

So to clarify my previous post, I don't mean that we should learn to use different objective criteria in our opinions so that we can match college professors or the New York Times.  When I say that we shouldn't be quick to dismiss acclaimed works that we don't like, I genuinely mean that our subjective experience of it can change with exposure and experience.  I have found this to be the case in every artistic medium I've explored, and I don't see any reason to think video games are any different.  Some of my best personal experiences with art of come from just revisiting something from a different point of view.

 

Also, I'm not advocating high-brow over low-brow.  I love Steve Reich and Citizen Kane, but I also love the Monkees and slasher films.  The wonderful thing about the art world is how vast and varied it is, and the more you keep an open mind, the more it will give back.

Ah, I see what you mean now, and yes, I agree. I think we're saying roughly the same thing. Completely agree on the high brow elitist stuff. Never had much use for anything that looked down on someone else. I appreciate your thoughtful response as well.

My original point is that there are not really any objective criteria, and that anything listed as such is dressed up opinion. Possibly GOOD opinion, but opinion nonetheless. I get tired of people on the internet stating bias (the old chestnut: 'E.T. is the worst gamer ever!' being a good example) as if it were fact, which is why I posted all of that to begin with.

However, experience DOES count. For example, using myself as an example to illustrate your point, I used to think the Genesis had about 50 or so good games, and the rest of the library was Wii-level schlock. That was my experience owning one back in the day (the stores I had access to never sold the good stuff). My good friend swlovinist here, had just amassed a CIB collection for the whole library at the time, and set about convincing me otherwise. After several visits and playing a ton of games I'd never heard of or had access to as a kid before, fast forward ten years, and I now have like 400 games for the Genesis and it's one of my favorite consoles: his greater experience with the library modified my opinion and experience. The reverse is true as well too: he's a much bigger Atari fan/collector these days than he was when we met. Expanded experience changed both our views.

But sometimes experience is very connected to the time it was expressed. Take cartoons: A lot of old Looney Tunes episodes pretty racist by modern standards, even if over all, the cartoons were classics, hence why many don't air on TV (or air with disclaimers) now. Time modified perception, which modified experience, and changed opinions too.

Atari seems to suffer from two kinds of this type of bias: the people who remember the NES and disregard/forget/ignore anything that came before, and the people who think 'real' games ended with the Atari and play nothing else. A lot of the opinions about Adventure specifically seem to fall into one of these camps, either it's a hideous, unplayable mess or it's the greatest adventure game of the era.

My own opinion/experience says it's neither. Its a fun, if primitive, oddity that's still fun today. I still play it. But nowhere near as much as I once did.

 

[eegad]

Well,  I can only speak for myself,  but I was born in 1965, and grew up visiting arcades in the mid 1970s-early 1980s,  so I was there for the birth of videogames.  Early games like Pong,  Breakout,  Starship,  Night Driver were interesting curiousities that I played a few times and that was it.  Then Space Invaders came out,  and I was hooked. From then on I was totally into videogames. So yes,  I would agree that Space Invaders was the game changer. But... Today I find Space Invaders boring to play.... Too repetitive and predictable.

 

In the summer of 1981 I got Adventure for the 2600. At the time it blew my mind.  Multiple screens that you could freely move between at will? You could ignore the goal of the game,  and just wander around and do other things? Like try to gather all objects in one room,  or trap the bat in a castle,  or make a dragon swallow you and have the bat carry you room to room? And then one night when I stumbled upon the secret dot and wandered around with it for over an hour until I finally stmbled into the secret room? Totally unique and just so cool at the time. Today I mostly play open world game like Skyrim,  Far Cry,  GTA,  Fallout....  When I think back,  Adventure was the very primitive precursor to these types of games. 

 

I still like to occasionally play a whole bunch of my old 2600 games....but the one 2600 game (or for that matter ANY old videogame)  that I play most often is game 3 of Adventure. It's a game that I have never gotten bored with. 

[eegad]

...for the person who mentioned the similarity of cover art between Boston-Don't Look Back and 2600 Space Invaders -  you just made me feel totally stupid for never noticing that before, since I owned both back in the day and saw them on a daily basis.  ?