A sad image, of two comic geniuses who have become ex-parrots, sure.
But also a joyous one, with the existence of the incredible body of work of each of them. This is a publicity still for Starship Titanic, the book written by Terry Jones, based on the computer game by Douglas Adams, Richard Creasey and Robbie Stamp for their company The Digital Village.
Starship Titanic wasn’t Adams’ first foray into computer games, having made the diabolical Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure for Infocom, as well as the Kafka-esque original work Bureaucracy. If you’d like to see, hear, smell the history of Infocom and Douglas Adams’ body of work there, visit my Infocom history here at The Dot Eaters.
I can remember the fevered (literally) buzz around Pac-Man when it started appearing in arcades in 1980; how it looked so different and like an actual cartoon compared to other games vying for our quarters, how the ghosts seemed to chase me purposefully around the maze (in those heady days when the term AI wasn’t always on our tongues), and even how I made a few bucks learning and selling patterns for winning at the game to my fellow school classmates.
I also remember, very clearly like an old injury that has never quite healed, how absolutely disappointed I was when, having bought Atari’s adaptation of the game from the store and ran home, clutching the box in my sweaty little hands, and shoving it into my Atari VCS and turning it on. While it sported Pac-Man on the label, inside nothing looked, sounded, or more importantly felt, like the arcade game. While I wasn’t expecting perfect fidelity with the source material, I was at least hoping for something in the ballpark. Atari Pac-Man isn’t even in the same continent.
However, Atari has a new bright yellow Pac-Man Edition of their 2600+ mini-console, along with a new 7800 2-in-1 version of the game, as well as a family of joysticks in the colour of Pac-Man and the ghosts that chased him around the playfield, all to seemingly celebrate the wildly popular arcade game classic, and Atari’s adaptation of it for the home, made by Tod Frye.
I find it pretty hilarious that Atari is leaning into their adaptation of Pac-Man, especially since they allude to the issue of why they probably shouldn’t in the next part of the ad:
Yes, that’s right, Atari, “Infamous”. Infamous because the 2600 version of Pac-Man is one of the worst video games ever made, and as I point out in my article here at The Dot Eaters about The Great Video Game Crash, the disappointment felt by fans of the arcade original, or really, of video games in general, was palpable… so much so that it helped crater the entire industry. The game looked barely like the arcade game, played like it even less, and the less said about the flat sound effects, the better. Not only were customers greatly disappointed, but so were game retailers who had to deal with massive returns of the game after people tried playing it. Stock balancing policies meant that these returned cartridges were then sent back to Atari for a refund, further dragging down company revenue.
It’s further goofy to me that Atari accentuates the color aspect of these new releases, as their 2600 Pac-Man was nearly monochrome in nature…. a problem particularly when a player would eat a “vitamin” to turn the tables on the ghosts, and they remained nearly the same, drab, flickering shade they are for the rest of the game. It’s telling that Atari has put the graphics of the arcade game on their Pac-Man edition of the 2600+, because if they put the home game characters on there, the vast gulf between the original and Atari’s version would be on full display.
Here’s a video I made a long time ago, showing Atari’s fetid excuse for a Pac-Man adaptation in “action”. Judge for yourself, if you have the intestinal fortitude. While, with a video, you don’t get to experience how awful the game was to actually play, what with the sluggish “control” you have over Pac-Man…. although you can see me struggle to move the character through the passageways. The “game feel” of manic maze games was a critical part of the player experience; control in Atari’s Pac-Man leaves one feeling as deflated as Pac after he is caught by a ghost.
Of the great cultural touchstones we’ve lost over the years, the saddest, I think, is the demise of the video arcade. During the boom years of video games they used to be everywhere: on the main street of every city, town and village, in every mall, and especially in any self-respecting tourist area. You can read a thorough forensic dive into the death of video game arcades, and video games in general, here at The Dot Eaters’ in the article “The Great Video Game Crash”.
But we’re not here today to talk about the devastating loss of our digital hopes and dreams that occured between 1983 – 1984. We’re here to relive our, as Bruce Springsteen said, Glory Days. The days when, if you wanted to experience the best video games had to offer – the most advanced graphics, the greatest creativity, the best social aspect – you went to a video arcade. Where the flashing lights and incessant blooping and bleeping played like an irresistible siren song in your ears. Everywhere you looked your eyes met a feast of out-there abstracted digital fantasies. Especially at a marvelous arcade Mecca like Atlantic City.
So come on, take my hand as we step into the electric wonderland of video game arcades that thrived in America’s Playground, where digital dreams and quarter-fueled glory awaited at every cabinet.
Just before the golden age of video games goes sour: Video arcades line the Atlantic City boardwalk, 1983
This interior show of video arcade cabinets in Aquaport, Ocean City, NJ in 1983 shows the tail end of the golden era of video games.
Video games line the walls of video arcade Jilly’s, in Ocean City, NJ. 1983 image.
Young gamers enjoy the arcade cabinets that line Bally’s Park Place in Atlantic City, near the end of the golden era of video games, 1983
A row of great arcade games in the Interior of Funspot video arcade, on the Atlantic City boardwalk, 1983
Video gamers side-by-side at Roger’s Video Center, on the Atlantic City boardwalk, 1983
Pool players and video gamers coexist at Harrah’s in Atlantic City, 1983
How it used to be: a row of arcade games at Jilly’s in Ocean City, each one a different, creative aspect of the genre
Image source: Arcades of Atlantic City, by The Unknown Gamer, Electronic Fun with Computers and Games, Aug. 1983. Photos by Andrea Brizzi.
Here we see a few storyboard panels created by project lead Mike Hally, presented to Lucasfilm to demonstrate the concepts for Atari’s eventual 1983 coin-op video game adaptation of Star Wars. Hally’s Star Wars game was itself an adaptation, of a first-person space game tech demo dating back to 1980, made at the company to develop 3-D gaming technology, called Warp Speed.
Firefox project lead Mike Hally looks through the cockpit of Atari laserdisc game Firefox, 1983
Star Wars game project lead Mike Hally, shown here working on Atari laserdisc game Firefox, 1983
Lucasfilm (now owned by Disney) had always been, understandably so, possessive of the Star Wars canon, and Hally and his team had to run everything to do with the game by them first to make sure the content from the movies was preserved correctly. Missing from these concepts is the middle laser towers sequence found in the released product, as this part was added later at the suggestion of Steven Spielberg after he previewed the game in progress.
Avid video gamer Steven Spielberg with a piece of his collection, Atari’s Missile Command, undated photo
Movie director Steven Spielberg with prized game in his personal arcade game collection: Atari’s Missile Command
Lucasfilm had little to worry about in terms of quality with Atari’s Star Wars coin-op game…. it is an achievement nearly as impressive as the movies themselves, and is widely considered as one of the finest video games ever created.
Storyboard for Atari Star Wars video game, by Mike Hally
Storyboard for Atari Star Wars video game, by Mike Hally
Storyboard for Atari Star Wars video game, by Mike Hally
Storyboard for Atari Star Wars video game, by Mike Hally
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The formation of Atari and the video game industry is quite a tale. You can read, watch, listen and even play it here at The Dot Eaters.
Back in 1976, Steve Jobs was working for Atari; in fact, he was employee #40 when he joined the company in 1974. One day, Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell approached Jobs with a proposition: develop a video arcade game that turned the two-player game PONG, on which Atari had built its fortunes, into a solo affair that would attract more quarters. In order to meet a tight self-imposed deadline for completion of the game, Jobs utilized the circuit engineering skills of his friend Steve Wozniak to help out.
Wozniak and Jobs on the line at the company the founded, Apple Computers, in 1977 image
SteveWozniak and Steve Jobs on the line at the company they founded, Apple Computers, in 1977 image
The game was Breakout, and was pretty much an arcade version of the “handball” mode you’d find in most home PONG consoles of the time, made by either Atari or the many companies making copies of PONG. In the case of Breakout, players would knock a ball upwards against bricks that disappear, allowing new paths for the ball to travel through and break even more bricks.
Original Breakout gameplay
Original Breakout gameplay
Here at TDE, you can read a fuller version of the development of the original Breakout and the chicanery that Jobs got up to when paying Wozniak his share of money received for designing the game. But as for the here and now, Atari has just announced that Breakout is getting a makeover, into a single OR multiplayer version called Breakout Beyond that flips the brick-breaking formula onto its side, having players drive their balls towards goalposts that let them move on to even harder puzzles as the game scrolls left to right. Taking a cue from the Breakout-inspired Taito arcade game Arkanoid, Breakout Beyond also offers powerups, doing things like enlarging players’ paddles, putting a barrier behind players to keep the balls in play, turning paddles into laser ships to manually blast blocks, and more. The highlight of playing the original Breakout would be the moments where you’d break through into the space above the bricks and be treated by a flurry of brick breaking as the ball bounced between the top of the screen and the top layers of bricks. Atari’s new version accentuates this feeling with fireworks and explosions as you break through layers.
Here is Atari’s trailer for the new BreakoutBeyond, which is listed as “coming soon” for computers and consoles. Let’s hope Atari has another blockbuster on their paddles.
A couple of great video games by Williams Electronics, 1983.
Joust was a late-stage Williams classic, with John Newcomer as project lead, getting players slapping the flap button furiously while trying to get the upper perch on their opponents…. either computer controlled or with another ostrich-riding human knight. There’s a first from Williams in the ad I’m posting here too… a side-by-side cocktail version of Joust. As for manic shooter Sinistar, designed by Noah Falstein and Newcomer, who doesn’t love a game with voice synthesis that sounds like Johnny Cash?
If you’d like to see how the mighty Intellivision was developed and how it impacted the industry, you can check out our history of the console, a history you can read, listen, watch and even play, here at The Dot Eaters: https://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=console/intellivision
Big game developer acquisitions like Sony buying Bungie, or Microsoft buying… everything (Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, etc. etc. etc.) understandably shake-up the video gaming landscape. The announcement of Atari buying up the Intellivision brand and game rights might not quite set off such big earthquake alerts in a monetary sense, but it certainly is a monumental event in the realm of retro video games.
More top-down view of the Intellivision Master Component, controller overlays and cartridges, 1980 Mattel Catalog
The Mattel Intellivision was released by Mattel Electronics in 1979 as a higher-tech challenger to what was by then, by far the most popular video game system available, the Atari VCS or Video Computer System, later renamed the 2600. The Intellivision was a bleeding-edge game console at the time, featuring a 16-bit CPU and dedicated GPU, and the games Mattel put out for it, especially sports games like Major League Baseball, NFL Football and NBA Basketball, were demonstrably better than similar sports on the Atari.
The glorious sports game of the Mattel Intellivision
So demonstrably better, in fact, that Mattel put out a series of commercials comparing its video games to those on the Atari, featuring the gently condescending tones of author and actor George Plimpton, who had made a name for himself a few years earlier by trying out for professional sports teams and writing about his hapless attempts to play at the pro level. In these ads, Plimpton would display, say, Atari Home Run baseball next to Mattel’s Major League Baseball and politely ask which the viewers might find more realistic: Atari’s flickering four blocky players moving around a solid background with four white dots for bases, or the fully-teamed, animated ball-players running around a rendered ball diamond and pitching mound of MLB. The answer was obvious.
A collection of Intellivision attack ads aimed at Atari
So, to “commemorate” the biggest name in video game history finally buying up their strongest challenger, I’ve put my collection of attack ads Intellivision put out maligning the aging graphics capabilities of the Atari VCS into a YouTube video for you to i) enjoy if you were a smug Mattel Intellivision owner back in the day, or ii) fume about if you were an Atari VCS owner in 1980, like me. As a bonus I threw in a response commercial from Atari, as well. This is what, at the time, Intellivision thought of their new owners, and now you can’t say “I didn’t know!”.
Psygnosis was a vaunted British game developer and publisher, perhaps known mostly for their games for the Commodore Amiga, such as the smash hit Lemmings. The iconic futuristic racing game Wipeout was their second-biggest seller, getting a boost by being a launch title for the blockbuster PlayStation console.
Now, Wipeout is back, but this time you can play it in your browser. A fan-made port of the original 1995 game has been released, and it’s surprisingly good.
The port was created by Dominic Szablewski, who reverse-engineered the PC version of Wipeout and recompiled it to run in a web browser. The game features all of the original tracks and vehicles, as well as the iconic anti-gravity racing gameplay.
The port is not perfect. The graphics are a bit dated, and the controls can be a bit slippery. But overall, it’s a faithful recreation of the original game that’s sure to please fans of the series.
Here are some of the highlights of the browser version of Wipeout:
Full game experience: The port includes all of the original tracks, vehicles, and gameplay modes from the 1995 game.
Easy to play, hard to master:Wipeout is known for its challenging but rewarding gameplay. The browser port does a good job of capturing this, with tight controls and fast-paced racing.
Free to play: The browser port is completely free to play. You can download it and start racing right away.
If you’re a fan of Wipeout or futuristic racing games in general, I highly recommend checking out the browser port. It’s a great way to experience this classic game without having to dig out your old PlayStation.
Here are some tips for playing the browser version of Wipeout:
Use a keyboard and mouse to control the game. The controls are not as good with a controller.
Start with the easier difficulty settings until you get the hang of the game.
Be careful not to overheat your vehicle. Overheating will cause your vehicle to slow down and eventually explode.
Use the boost wisely. Boosting will give you a speed boost, but it will also overheat your vehicle.
Practice makes perfect. The more you play, the better you will become at racing.
If you’ve ever yearned to play Atari arcade games like Missile Command, Crystal Castles, Major Havok and more in an affordable arcade cabinet format, Arcade1Up and Atari have teamed up to release a new arcade cabinet to celebrate Atari’s 50th anniversary. The Atari 50th Anniversary Deluxe Arcade Machine is a must-have for any retro gaming fan, with a curated selection of 14 arcade classics and 50 Atari 2600 games.
The cabinet features a 17-inch color screen, four control panels (one for each game type), and two speakers. It also has upgraded joysticks and on-off light-up buttons, a light-up marquee, and even a 3D molded light-up coin door, although you don’t actually have to insert quarters to play. All done in the iconic profile of the classic Atari Asteroids cabinet.
Speaking of which, here is a list of some of the games included in the cabinet:
Arcade classics: Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Space Duel, Tempest and more!
Atari 2600 games: Adventure, Battlezone, Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Crystal Castles, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Gravitar, Haunted House, Millipede, Missile Command, Pac-Man, Pole Position, River Raid, Space Invaders, Sword Quest, Yars’ Revenge, the list goes on.
The cabinet also has built-in Wi-Fi, so you can connect to online leaderboards and compete with gamers from all over the world.
The Atari 50th Anniversary Deluxe Arcade Machine is available now for pre-order on the Atari website and other retailers for $499.99. It is scheduled to ship in October 2023.
Atari and Wisconsin-based Artovision have collaborated to make shadowbox and desktop versions of 3D artwork based on the classic arcade game Asteroids, along with a piece based on their 2600 game Adventure and another one featuring the Atari logo splash screen that appears in front of games for the 2600 sequel, the 5200 SuperSystem. The Asteroids art has the original arcade bezel with an image of gameplay set back from it to create the 3D effect. The original arcade marquee design tops the artwork, with a representation of the arcade button controls below.
You can head on over to Atari.com and pick up your own three-dimensional classic game artwork. You can also read, watch, listen and play the history of Atari here at The Dot Eaters.
