Category Archives: Joust

Joust arcade video game and Sinistar arcade video game

Two Late-Stage Williams Electronics Arcade Classics

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?

I am Sinistar!

For the history of the astounding work by Eugene Jarvis and other Williams video games here at The Dot Eaters, where you can read, watch, listen and even play these great games, flap on over here: https://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=bitstory-article-2/defender-and-vid-kidz

Williams video games for the arcade: Joust, Sinistar and pinball Defender
Williams video games for the arcade, 1983: Joust, Sinistar and pinball Defender

Oh, and also in this 1983 trade ad? Pinball Defender, featuring all the alien baddies you love to hate from the 1981 video game.

The Visual Cortex: Joust An Ad

Today the Visual Cortex hatches an ad for the Atari 2600 and 5200 versions of Williams’ arcade hit Joust:

Click to enlarge

Running in periodicals in 1984, it’s short on actual screenshots of the game, and heavy on artist renditions of the action. I also find it humourous how it tries to sex-up the “beasts of the air” you fly in the game, the ostriches from the original arcade game.   The ad copy starts off with an unusual, confusing take on the classic opening words of the Star Wars movies:

 

Well, which is it?  Long ago, or a distant future?  Anyway, I don’t think I want to purchase a game that spits eggs out of my TV screen, from whence evil, sharp-taloned dragons attack me.