Why no love for Apollo?

[Rik]

One of several Apollo games i have that i remember playing a lot is Infiltrate. It's a very simple game, but one i found very addictive. I have Wabbit, Lost Luggage, Space Caverns, Final Approach which i have not played in years but i do not recall hating any of them

Edited December 10, 2020 by Rik
spelling error

[roadrunner]

3 hours ago, CapitanClassic said:

That is unfortunate (joystick control). Dog Patch was an arcade port (didn't know this) for the Bally Astrocade.  I believe it was only a two player game. It used the tops of the Bally controllers (paddle) to adjust the angle of your shotgun,  and the trigger fires a shot. The object of the game is to shoot the can that is thrown up in the air over your opponents head to score. The score is based on the number of hits by both players before clearing the screen. 

 

 

 

Good info, thanks 


 

[+D Train]

16 hours ago, keithbk said:

Apollo gets a bad rap after he tried to force Captain Kirk to worship him and threatened to crush the Enterprise.

 

I won't have anything to do with him, even if he does cast himself to the wind and say he's sorry.

you should see the one where they meet up with him later in life!

 

 

[retroeight]

15 hours ago, Love Cowboy said:

I'm not quite sure how I made it happen, but basically I found myself in a position where I could just stand in one spot and constantly shoot and I don't die and the bad guys just kept running into my bullets. So I just sat there with my finger on the button for 3 hours and rolled the score

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
 

Interesting. Looks like I will be trying.

[retroeight]

19 hours ago, Random Terrain said:

Related link:

 

randomterrain.com/rt-atari-2600-game-list.html#apollo

 

Maybe people confuse Apollo with Data Age.

Have you put your release dates in a spreadsheet?

 

It would be interesting to see a graph of what month/year had the most releases.

 

 

[glazball]

23 hours ago, high voltage said:

Wabbit: Billy Sue, the first human female main character in a video game

I think this little bit of trivia is worth highlighting.  I can't confirm or refute that it's true, but I'm not coming up with any earlier title with a main female character on my own.  So thanks for sharing this!  I love video game firsts like this.  I wish someone more knowledgeable than me would compile a book of video game firsts.

[zzip]

8 minutes ago, glazball said:

I think this little bit of trivia is worth highlighting.  I can't confirm or refute that it's true, but I'm not coming up with any earlier title with a main female character on my own.  So thanks for sharing this!  I love video game firsts like this.  I wish someone more knowledgeable than me would compile a book of video game firsts.

Does it predate Ms Pac-Man?

 

Wonder what the first male character in a videogame was for that matter?   Before Pac-man there weren't very many characters in games at all.   You were a car, plane, spaceship or a turret shooting space invaders for the most part.

[+Random Terrain]

3 hours ago, retroeight said:

Have you put your release dates in a spreadsheet?

 

It would be interesting to see a graph of what month/year had the most releases.

 

I recently starting paying newspapers.com 20 bucks a month, so I'm checking newspaper ads to double check the release dates I have on the pages. Once I finish that, maybe then it will be time for a spreadsheet.

[high voltage]

36 minutes ago, zzip said:

Does it predate Ms Pac-Man?

 

Ms Pac-Man was earlier, but she wasn't 'human'!! Maybe Simon Says would count as earlier. because you see a 'female'  human person on the TV Overlay.

 

Posted this before, but here ya go:

 

Leading (main) female characters in video games:

Odyssey:

Female player (Simon Says, Odyssey, 1972, selectable main character)

Apple ][:

Female player selection (Akalabeth: World of Doom, Origin, 1979, selectable)

Clair (Cave Girl Clair, Addison Wesley, 1983, main character)

Lauren (Lauren of the 25^th century, Addison Wesley, 1983, main character)

Chelsea (Chelsea of the south sea Islands, Addison Wesley, 1983, main character)

Jenny (Jenny of the prairie, Addison Wesley, 1984, main character)

Arcade:

Ms. Pac-Man (Ms. Pac-Man, Bally Midway, 1981, main character)

Lady Bug (Lady Bug, Universal, 1981, main character)

Kissy and Takky (Baraduke, Namco, 1985, main characters)

ATARI VCS:

Billie Sue (Wabbit, Games by Apollo, 1982, main character), 1^st female human main character in a console game

Dolphin  (Dolphin, female Dolphin, Activision, 1983, main character)

Lilly (Lilly Adventure, Home Vision, Alice (Alice Adventure, Quelle, 1983, main character)

Laurie Strode (Halloween, Wizard Video Games, 1983, main character)

Blond girl (Ghost Manor, Xonox, 1983, selectable)

Leading Lady (Beat ‘em and eat ‘em, Mystique, 1983, main character)

Strawberry Shortcake (Strawberry Shortcake, Parker, 1983, main character)

Chinese Girl (Dancing Plates, Dishaster, Bit Corp.,Zimag,  1983, main character)

Miss Piggy (Pigs in Space starring Miss Piggy, Atari, 1983, main character)

Inventa (handheld game & watch)

Snow White (Snow White, Inventa, 1983, main character

Sleeping Beauty (Sleeping Beauty, Inventa, 1983, main character)

Colecovison:

Anna Lee (Cabage Patch Kids, Coleco, 1984, main character)

Atari 8-bit:

Clair (Cave Girl Clair, Addison Wesley, 1983, main character)

Lauren (Lauren of the 25^th century, Addison Wesley, 1983, main character)

Chelsea (Chelsea of the south sea Islands, Addison Wesley, 1983, main character)

Jenny (Jenny of the prairie, Addison Wesley, 1984, main character)

Kim Kimberly (Snowball, Return to Eden, Level 9 Computing, 1983, 1984, main character)

Candi, Marlena, Dominique, Lindsay, Dawn, Crystal, Cynthia, Janice, Suzie, Melissa, Marina, Sylvia (Strip Poker, Artworx, 1983, main characters)

Alexandra (Lode Runner’s Rescue, Synapse, 1985, main character)

Englishwoman (Plundered Hearts, Infocom, 1987, main character)

Sega SG-1000:

Papri (Girl’s Garden, Sega, 1984, main character)

C64:

Barbie (Barbie, Epyx, 1984, main character)

Trixie Trinian (The secret of St. Brides, Audiogenic, 1985, main character)

Alter Ego female version (Alter Ego, Activision, 1986, main character)

Edited December 10, 2020 by high voltage

[high voltage]

45 minutes ago, glazball said:

I think this little bit of trivia is worth highlighting.  I can't confirm or refute that it's true, but I'm not coming up with any earlier title with a main female character on my own.  So thanks for sharing this!  I love video game firsts like this.  I wish someone more knowledgeable than me would compile a book of video game firsts.

It is on Wikipedia, I posted that there many years ago:

Games by Apollo - Wikipedia

[pacman000]

22 hours ago, Crazy Climber said:

The problem with Apollo is so many "almost" good games...

 

When a game is "almost" good it's almost worse than being just bad. The first few levels start out fun then the difficulty gets unplayable or minor/major nuisances start becoming more prevalent.

 

A game like Wabbit starts out awesome, then quickly sucks...you keep trying to like it, playing it every so often, then you remember why you shelved it...would have been better if it just sucked completely and didn't tease me with being almost good. Infiltrate kind of suffers from this too...Shark Attack was so close but meh, every time I come back to it I remember...

 

So many games in the Apollo library could have been so much better if they tried just a little harder, took a little extra time...maybe they were rushed?

 

Ever restart a game of lost luggage because you accidentally hit the fire button? At least they fixed it in later revisions but the game itself still suffered from "almost" good...

 

I don't know, thats my guess as to why they get shat on so hard. Nothing worse then liking a game for a few minutes, then quickly hating it

They were rushed. The company opened with big plans, to become bigger in Activision in their first year. They burned through their initial investment in a few months & went bankrupt in lass than a year.  DP Interviews... (digitpress.com)

[KevKelley]

I always thought they had great concepts for games and had them executed fairly well. They may have missed the mark a bit but they had some original gameplay. I always thought Wabbit was cool. It was a bit hard but I'm sure with some tweaks it could be an amazing game.

[ventrra]

On 12/9/2020 at 1:51 PM, Random Terrain said:

Related link:

 

randomterrain.com/rt-atari-2600-game-list.html#apollo

 

Maybe people confuse Apollo with Data Age.

Honestly, I would go so far as to say that even many of Data Age's games really aren't that bad.

[+GoldLeader]

I didn't know people hated Apollo...Maybe they just preferred Starbuck or Boomer.  

[+GoldLeader]

For me,  I like Space Cavern (once I figured out the controls) and Space Chase could have been fun if only they'd made different enemies or different color palettes or something to change it up...I later on bought an Infiltrate cartridge that only worked if ya got it in your system just right,  So it gave the illusion of being a real treat because if you took it out you may never get to play it again,,,(I did like it a lot though, for the record)....

 

As far as back in the day,   I only ever recall seeing Apollo games in stores at ONE computer store,...And I could be wrong but I want to say I saw Space Chase in a plastic baggie with instructions and no box!  (Unless the computer store was doing that to make it look different or more sophisticated, like it was  a computer game release or something...)...

 

Maybe they also suffered from distribution problems?

[retroeight]

Apollo did suffer from distribution issues for sure. 

[moycon]

My memories of Apollo was they had cool art on the boxes and descriptions of games that made them out to be way more exciting than they were.

I owned Infiltrate and thought it was kind of cool, but it got hard way too quickly and way to suddenly to be much fun. I'd play it briefly every now and again.

I rented Space Cavern from the local video store, and thought it sounded awesome. I couldn't wait to play it and knew I'd be set for the weekend. Needless to say it was pretty much disappointing and after a few games I turned it off.

[+thanatos]

Way back when everything was being sold super cheap at KB Toys (probably after the game crash), mom let my sister and I argue about a game from the bargain bin, and we ended up with Wabbit.  We played it a ton!  I never thought it was a bad game at all.  Then again, we were kids.

 

[BIGHMW]

Well their demise wasn't due to a lack of advertising and great commercials like this one, I wasn't a 2600 guy at the time but Space Cavern is certainly a favorite of mine on it. Addicting and you always have to be on your toes when you play if, and always look towards (and stay away from as much as possible) the sides for those monsters that will eat you alive, they're just as dangerous as the Electrosauri were. 

 

 

[retroeight]

On 12/10/2020 at 7:44 PM, KevKelley said:

I always thought they had great concepts for games and had them executed fairly well. They may have missed the mark a bit but they had some original gameplay. I always thought Wabbit was cool. It was a bit hard but I'm sure with some tweaks it could be an amazing game.

Like many games it really could have been a great game.