Any Old School Gamers Here?

[monsterphile]

Initially we had a Pong system that we used to play on a small black & white portable TV.  Later we "upgraded" to an Atari system.  Our favorite game was Adventure.  You, the player, were represented by a dot and your sword was an arrow.  Beware the dragon, which looked more like a seahorse.  I also remember player the early text only games like Zork.

Rob

[mike c]

Initially we had a Pong system that we used to play on a small black & white portable TV.  Later we "upgraded" to an Atari system.  Our favorite game was Adventure.  You, the player, were represented by a dot and your sword was an arrow.  Beware the dragon, which looked more like a seahorse.  I also remember player the early text only games like Zork.

Rob

I loved in Adventure, the chalice that flashed (color-cycling) and yes! the dragon flying around to get you.
Mem-oh-reeeeees!

Mike C.

[monsterphile]

I vaguely remember in Adventure there was a hidden room that you could get to where you view the credits for the game's creator or something like that.

Rob

[BaronLatos35]

I also vaguely remember an Atari game called "Haunted House". All I remember was the cartrige in black and orange lettering, nothing really about the game.

How about the Atari Football game? 3 guys on a side moving slower than electric football! But is was great fun.

[Bogey]

And remember, if you are a stereo/audiophile, those first Sony Play Stations are rec. by some for their cd player:

http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/708play/

[mike c]

You're right Bogey. Interesting article, thanks!
If I recall, the Panasonic 3DO System (talk about old school!) was the first (quite some time before PS) to have the same kind of stereo CD feature with beat color/pattern graphics and so on. I still have mine!

This one's for Baron Latos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsfRFsEYVyQ&feature=related

I thought it was a better version of Adventure... not because it played any better, but because it was about a haunted house, of course!


Mike C.

[BaronLatos35]

This one's for Baron Latos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsfRFsEYVyQ&feature=related

I thought it was a better version of Adventure... not because it played any better, but because it was about a haunted house, of course!


Mike C.

Mike C. you're the man! Thanks for the post, the sound effects alone made me smile. You're right: it was Adventure in a Haunted House!

[preyer]

'adventure' was, believe it or not, quite a breakthrough game. it allowed a (then) unprecedented control of your character and the ability to go from one 'environment' to another. i love how the developers made yet another huge leap by making the 'adventure' character go from a square dot to, gasp!, 'haunted house's two smaller dots. amazing! how did they do it?!

okay, now for my atari 2600 moment (nevermind the 5200 or 7800), and for the record i remember when it was called the atari VCS (video computer *snicker* system before changing to the 2600 moniker).

overall best game publisher: activision. untold hours were spent helming 'battletank' (i think that's what it was called) and ruining my wrists playing 'decathalon.' strangely enough, i never really got into playing 'pitfall.' i believe 'starmaster' was an activision game, and a spectacular one at that ~ it even came with its own special controller pad! as i recall, this may have been the first game to incorporate the atari console switches as game elements.

best atari published games: 'combat.' what a great introductory game, and still one of my all-time favourites on that system. 'warlord' was brilliant in its simplicity and tons of fun, it's just a shame the paddles were of pretty low quality. if i remember correctly, some boxes had either 'combat' or 'warlord' and maybe later had both before 'pac-man' became the standard game included. i'd have to look up my atari history on that, though, but basically who cares? lol.

worst atari games: this is a long list, but what do you expect from a game system with over *900* titles produced for it? could it be the infamous 'custer's revenge,' an x-rated game where you as custer rape a squaw tied to a pole? the lamentable 'e.t.,' where they actually buried unsold copies of the game and for good measure topped it off with concrete (this rumour is true)? my personal worst is the awful 'raiders of the lost ark.' that said, i rarely bought an atari published game once other publishers won the right to make games for the system ~ and made them better than the manufacturer what wanted to keep all game production for themselves! greedy bastards! the problem with atari was they didn't care to honestly expand game capabilities, or so it seemed. if they cared to try, it certainly didn't show in most regards. i know i wasn't the only one who wished activision or even polaris (makers of the awesome 'atlantis') had gotten the rights to 'pac-man.' (to be fair, 'ms. pac-man' was pretty great.) if i remember, the best atari themselves was able to produce was the 'swordquest' series, and those were pretty lame; much improved graphics, but still dull as dishwater.

the problem with the later games was they focused too much on graphics and not enough on gameplay. 'pong' is as simple a game as is conceivable, but it's still playable even today.

given time, money and space, i actually wouldn't mind collecting old game systems and games. the problem would be finding enough old t.v.s that you could play these things on!

[mike c]

No doubt about it, Adventure was revolutionary in gaming; we were mesmerized by it for a LONG time. One of the gaming mags (can't recall at the moment) last summer had an article about early home games, and they likened Adventure to Pong and Super Mario in that "it changed things"; suddenly the playing field (so to speak!) was altered forever.
I remember feeling the same way about Activision's Spider Fighter when it was released some years after Adventure. Suddenly Centipede-like graphics (for 80's tv's at any rate) were available in my house, and the look and play were somehow different than any home game had been before.
All eminently playable, even today, as you rightly point out. Pong, heck yes. Simple, perfect.

Mike C.

[preyer]

correction: atari made 'star raiders' with the keypad, while activision made 'starmaster' using the b/w/colour switch. i had both, but it was no surprise 'starmaster' was easily the superior game. i should have remembered, as i'm pretty sure (in hindsight) that atari planned on the keypad being used for other games as well. maybe it was, i don't know, but i distinctly recall the keypad having a slot or notches for different keypad overlays. i know i have one or two keypads in a box somewhere, and i'm equally as sure that the overlays for 'star raiders' is long gone.

atari age has a cool website for old games, listing all there are to find along with prototypes and their rarity factor. several sites have these old games easily downloaded. you could probably fit about 500 of these games, if not all, onto a disk, eh? lol.

we have several of those 'plug n plays,' but haven't found one that's got my wife's favourite, 'kaboom!' funny, isn't it, that for about $35 you can get about ten early 80's arcade quality games that fit into a relatively comfortable joystick. one i've got has 'ms. pac-man,' 'dig dug,' and one of my faves, 'bosconian' (which may be the first video game with voice).

i was never a big 'adventure' player, but you can't deny its importance. ironically, i probably have no fewer than three of those carts somewhere.

as i remember, atari's 'centipede' was the crappiest crapfest that ever crapped its way into a cart, wasn't it?

why i suddenly remember this i don't know, but 'the wizard of wor' rocked!

[preyer]

interesting trivia....

in the early 80's there was a company called gameline. basically you had a PIN, called up, and downloaded a videogame (for a fee) into a special cartridge via your phone line that you plugged into the side of the cart. that's pretty cool in itself, *but* gameline also envisioned receiving stock quotes, weather, even an 'opinion' page, etc.. sound like a familiar 'invention'?

the video game crash of '83 (sometimes referred to as the crash of '84) killed gameline and the potential it had. the investors and founding members of gameline took this technology and started a new company called quantum computer services, steve case being one of them.

in 1991, quantum computer services became AOL.