Defender With A Pink Ship

[NovaXpress]

The early catalog pics of Defender looked quite a bit different.

http://www.atariage.com/catalog_page.html?...;currentPage=16

 

On atariprotos I saw that an early version has been found in which the colors are different, but still looks like the final version. What was the story with the venetian blind ship seen in that first catalog? Could it have been an attempt to avoid flicker? Or is it just a horrible artist rendering?

 

Also notice that in this catalog and this catalog alone, the blurns for Pac-Man and Defender include a disclaimer that the home versions differ from the original. They must have had a couple of nervous lawyers at the time.

[Tempest]

Just an artists rendition of the game. The backs of Atari 8-bit boxes used the same style artwork.

 

Tempest

[NovaXpress]

Do you think that the ship was "venetian blinded" at one time? That seems like a strange thing to make up.

 

And, as always, atariprotos.com kicks ass in a major way.

[MegaManFan]

Dude if you think his site kicks ass, you should see the collection in his house! My jaw still :drops: every time I think about it.

[Tempest]

Do you think that the ship was "venetian blinded" at one time? That seems like a strange thing to make up.

 

And, as always, atariprotos.com kicks ass in a major way.

 

I doubt it, Bob never used that technique in any of his other games. I still think it was just artistic license.

 

Tempest

[Lord Thag]

Interesting topic. I also thought it strange that a lot of the earlier artwork looks very similar to Activision's VB technique. Still, if Atari had actually known how to pull it off, you would think that their earlier games would have looked better. Activision became popular because of their great games, and the amazing graphics they put into them.

 

Still, it makes you wonder why the Atari artists drew the art that way.

Edited July 13, 2006 by Lord Thag

[NovaXpress]

What about those disclaimers for Pac-Man and Defender? It's clear that they knew that they were going to take shit.

 

That catalog also proves that everyone had plenty of warning about Pac-Man

[moycon]

The version of Defender I have looks exactly like that catalog screenshot!!!

 

Let the bidding begin!!!!

Not really

No one can compete with Xonox as to having the most mis leading screenshots.

 

I love the back of Chuck Norris/Artillery Duel

 

[Dirt Gherkin]

Wow. I never saw the Xonox box 'rendition' of their games. Talk about artistic license (or seeing their world through rose-colored glasses...). I guess it shows that comsumers were fairly savvy back then or Chuck norris would be more common than Pac Man. On an unrelated topic, I was sort of surprised to see a bar code on the box. I know early Atari titles didn't have them, does anyone know when they became common practice?

[Vic George 2K3]

The artist rendition of 2600 Defender in the Atari promo catalog, back before I even saw it in action at a 2600 kiosk, left me wondering what the heck everything I was seeing in the picture was -- including that pink ship that looked like it was simply made of line stacks.

[Mr. Postman]

I was always curious about the screenshot on the back of the Halloween box. Since the knife on the bottom screen looks much better than the actual game I'm going to have to assume it's an artists rendition as well.