The notes continue as I read Brett Weiss' The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987. Follow along as I watch some gameplay videos and record my thoughts on certain games.
Gremlins for the Atari 5200. I've never ever played this game or even know what it looks like. Let's see some gameplay.
Brett quotes from Harlan Ellison's review of the movie which I thought was pretty funny. ". . . a corrupt thing, vicious at its core, mean spirited and likely to cause harm to your moral sense." This quote could easily be used to describe any number of current video games by a person who hated the genre.
Brett metions that the Gremlins game predicts the sword-play to come the very next year in The Legend of Zelda. After seeing the gameplay, I agree.
The game H.E.R.O. was developed by programmer Tim Duarte who used a PDP-11 mini computer to write the code and then copy it into the Atari 2600 dev kit where he could test the game with a joystick. It sounds like an ideal arrangement for developing for the Atari 2600. I wonder if his method was unique or not.
Video games were once called TV Games. I wonder why that didn't stick, because it's shorter. Maybe it's because PC games use monitors and not TVs; although, I always used a screen that could do both when I was into PC gaming.
The Incredible Wizard for the Astrocade. I wonder what this game plays like? Incredible Wizard is actually Wizard of Wor but renamed for the Bally Astrocade. Skip to min 3:20 for the Astrocade version.
It makes me think of Berzerk. The gameplay and graphics on the Astrocade version are pretty good.
In reading about Indy 500 for the Atari 2600, it's mentioned it came with unique driving controllers. They look exactly like the paddle controllers though.
However, the paddle controllers stop after a full turn of the wheel, while this driving controller keeps going like the spinner you would use to play Tempest in the arcades. Additionally, The driving controller doesn't work with paddle games like Breakout and plugs one controller to a port, unlike the paddles, which are two to a plug. Thus only two players can play Indy 500. This was the only game to use these special controllers. I think I used to have these. Now I want them again.
I found out about a new podcast, The Atari 2600 Game by Game Podcast by Robert Ferguson. He is going through every Atari 2600 game, one or two per episode, talking about the development and history of the games. I can't wait to check it out.
And that should just about do it for this page of notes. Don't want this blog going to darn long. There will be more to come for sure since I'm still not finished reading it.
Lol at the Gremlins review.
That Harlan Ellison. What's his problem?
I think a lot of movie critics in the 80s and 90s had his problem. A dumb fun piece of entertainment? HIDE THE KIDS, SOCIETY IS DOOMED!!! Even Ebert did that a couple times with certain things, which is why we have The Cinema Snob today. Love both those guys and would probably like Ellison's work too. Entertaining even if I disagree.
I really need to read more into this era. I mostly got into gaming back in the NES era. I had some touches with the atari 2600 but it wasn't anywhere close to what was shown on this blog here. It maybe the infancy of modern gaming but still curious info to look into. Moreso given my gamedom started back on the NES.
This book covers just the first few years of NES. It goes in chronological order so there was this section where I read about Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros., Mega Man, and then Metroid back to back. As the Flying Pig said in a Kids in the Hall skit, "What a lineup! Hey hey hey."
Its interesting to see that the creators of the paddle controller just didn't make it go all the way around like the driving controller so users didn't have to buy one special control for just one game. Of course I say this while having a couple of DJ controllers sitting in a closet because of DJ Hero.
It's like they didn't think ahead at all. They would make a game that needed the paddle controllers to work a little differently, and so just put out new controllers packed in with the game.