Category Archives: 1983

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.

Atari Star Wars arcade game

Atari Star Wars Arcade Game 40th Anniversary

Trying to figure out what is the “best” of any genre is kind of a fool’s errand. What makes something the best is a highly subjective thing, and it’s very rare to find consensus. But the decision is pretty much in when it comes to arcade video games: Atari’s Star Wars, released 40 years ago on May 5, 1983, is a sure bet for the greatest arcade game ever made.

Atari Star Wars arcade game
Atari Star Wars gameplay. Use the… well, you know

Game designer Mike Hally worked on a lot of other classics at Atari, including producing the deviously difficult Gravitar (1982) and the raster graphics classic Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (the best thing associated with the movie). He also directed the Atari System 1 graphical extravaganza Road Runner in 1986, and designed the lightgun shooter Area 51 for Atari in 1995, among other works. It’s to the great credit of his Star Wars arcade game that it lives up to the original material. The project was based off an earlier unfinished game titled Warp Speed by Battlezone creator Ed Rotberg. With a working title like that, one thinks that maybe Rotberg was thinking Star Trek other than Star Wars. Utilizing Atari’s colour Quadrascan vector graphics hardware, Hally’s game totally immersed players in a galaxy far, far away… especially if they were playing the sit-down cockpit version. The game covered the action that takes place in the film’s final reel: Luke Skywalker as Red Five, joining the attack against the dreaded Imperial Death Star. Controlling Luke’s X-Wing fighter, gamers fended off a wave of enemy TIE fighters, then swooped down into the famous Star Wars trench scene in a race to deliver the final shot into the exhaust port, then out in time to watch the great conflagration as the deadly technological terror explodes. Then rinse and repeat, as the TIE fighters became more numerous and active, and the surface defenses of the Death Star increased in complexity and difficulty, all while digitized voices of R2-D2, Luke, Han Solo and Obi Wan urge on the gamer, accompanied by snippets of John Williams’ iconic score.

Just one interesting story about the game is when, on August 10, 1983 Atari unveiled the game for George Lucas at his Marin County, California HQ. The gathered designers and Atari and Warner Bros. (mother corp. of Atari) execs looked on as Lucas sat down in the cockpit version of the game and played it for the first time. With his trademark taciturn demeanor, the Atari people started to sweat as Lucas stayed stone-faced, showing little enthusiasm as he played. Lucas finally emerged from the cockpit saying “That was great!”, and everyone started breathing again. BTW, this special version of the cockpit Atari Star Wars cabinet had a plaque mounted on it, reading: “A special thanks for creating the Force behind so much fun.”

Onlookers watch George Lucas play Atari’s Star Wars arcade game, 1983.

If you’d like to find out more, you can read, watch, listen and play the history of Atari here at The Dot Eaters: https://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=bitstory-article-2/pong-and-atari

A Completely Bonkers TV Ad for Pole Position

A lot of people might remember the manic ads that Sega put out in the 90’s (SEGAAA!), and consider them the apex (or nadir) of video game advertisements.

But Atari kind of created the mold here, with this insane 60 second spot that aired in 1983, announcing the crossing of their arcade hit Pole Position over to the 2600 and 5200 video game systems. You know that any ad which starts with a giant hand reaching down and shaking the douche-bag corporate executive “who keeps interesting things from happening” and family out of their VW Rabbit and into Formula One racecars is DEFINITELY a keeper.

Please enjoy the mayhem, and remember: THIS WAY, CLARENCE!

Commodore 64, the popular home computer from Commodore 1982

1983 Commodore 64 TV Commercial – “Honest Competition”

Shilling the Commodore 64 home computer in this 1983 TV ad about its honest competition… I kinda wish Commodore would have spelled out the nature of how they “asked” various competing computer systems which one was better. Did they run a comparison program? What were the parameters? Who programmed it? Enquiring minds want to know!

For some computer gaming history, check out the Computer Gaming History section of The Dot Eaters, here:

https://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=computer

Title screen for Super Mario Bros., a video game for the Famicom by Nintendo 1985

Celebrating Famicom’s 30th – Super Mario Bros.

(This article was originally posted to The Dot Eaters on July 15, 2013)

Here is the last of the TDE articles detailing various aspects of the Famicom, as well as the NES, the North American version of the console released in 1985.  These posts celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Famicom, and lead up to the full history of the Famicom, to be posted tomorrow. The post today also falls on the 30th anniversary of Mario Bros., so two koopa’s with one fireball, so to speak.  While Famicom project lead Masayuki Uemura and his team at R&D2 labs at Nintendo do great work putting together the hardware of the famed video game console, it’s the games for the system that give it longevity.  And there’s few games that boost Famicom and NES sales as much as Super Mario Bros..

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A Video Game Movie Review: Joysticks (1983)

The following is a movie review of mine from Ten Point Review. The idea of the site is to rate a movie according to four criteria, and then add and subtract points from that sub-total depending on how you react to various other aspects of the film, thusly coming up with a score of between 0 – 10.

This article was originally published on The Dot Eaters on Jun. 25, 2013

Enjoy.

You might be thinking, “Why the hell review this chunk of cinematic excrement?”. If so, I see you’ve already watched Joysticks. Also, good question. I asked myself this very thing about 1000 times while subjecting myself to the movie.

As a video game historian, you’d think Joysticks would be right up my alley. I squee with delight at quick glimpses of classic arcade games in movies like Tron and WarGames. I even jones on the scene in the 1978 version of Dawn of the Dead where they’re in the arcade playing all those classic 70’s games like Starship.  And I have to say, Joysticks does not skimp on the video games.  Heck, even the opening credits are interspersed with plenty of 80’s video game footage.

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George Lucas Takes His First Flight in Atari’s Coin-Op Star Wars Game

On August 10, 1983, the creator of Star Wars sat down for the first time to play Atari’s vector arcade game based off his famous film, via a cockpit cabinet installed at the Lucasfilm HQ in Marin County, CA.

And what a game! Colourful and detailed Quadrascan vector graphics, an elaborate and responsive flight yolk from famed Atari controller engineer Jerry Liachek, a digitized version of John Williams’ rousing score, along with actual spoken snippets of movie dialog. All this, and lots of exciting game play that nicely amps up the difficulty as you advance. You’ll notice a small plaque on the side of the machine on the first picture, towards the nose of the cabinet above Vader’s head. It reads “A special thanks for creating the Force behind so much fun.” A nice sentiment from Atari, indeed.

Watching Lucas on that August day were several anxious Atari and Warner Communications (mother corp. of Atari) execs, along with some Lucasfilm employees. In the middle of the crowd, wearing dark pants, is president of Atari’s coin-op division John Farrand. I believe that’s Warner Communications executive Manny Gerrard, the man who guided the purchase of Atari by his company, standing to the right of Farrand.

In typical style, while George played the game he remained deadpan, without much visible enthusiasm. The execs grew even more nervous, until Lucas emerged from the cabinet saying “That was great!”. 

For my money, Atari’s Star Wars is one of the greatest arcade games ever created. George approves.

For more on the Star Wars arcade game, check out this entry from TDE’s Oscar Week series, 2014.

For more information on Atari, consult your local Dot Eaters bitstory.

Onlookers watch George Lucas play Atari's Star Wars arcade game, 1983.

Onlookers watch George Lucas play Atari’s Star Wars arcade game, 1983.

 

Atari arcade game being played by George Lucas, creator of Star Wars

A reverse angle, with Lucas being advised by Don Osborne, VP of Marketing for Atari.

 

 

Still from Astron Belt, an arcade laserdisc game by Sega 1983

Astron Belted: Losing the Race to the Arcades

Something about the laserdisc video game craze of the early 80’s was and is fascinating to me.  From little pixellated images and 3 octave repeating tunes, we leapt into professional quality live-action or animated games with orchestrated scores. It seemed that arcade games had suddenly jumped into the future.  

Sega previewed their first video game to feature laserdisc technology, Astron Belt, in the fall of 1982 at the A.M.O.A. or Amusement & Music Operators Association trade show in Chicago. It wasn’t the first commercial interactive game with video footage: horse racing game Quarter Horse by Electro-Sport was shown at the 1981 A.M.O.A., and most likely released to the public that same year.

Laserdisc game Quarter Horse

Quarter Horse arcade laserdisc game, by Electro Sports

 

Even so, Quarter Horse was merely a betting menu accompanied by video footage of horse races. Sega’s machine allowed players to control a computer generated spaceship superimposed over movie footage. Players flew through space and over alien planetary landscapes, shooting enemy craft spewing laser fire and avoiding the tight confines of rocky canyons. It was a real game.

It was also real late. Shown at the 1982 AMOA, the game still needed refinement, and as it was being worked on the U.S. coin-op division of Sega was sold to Bally/Midway, prompting further delays. By the time Astron Belt reached U.S. arcades in late 1983, the  laserdisc video game craze had already been created earlier in the year by the animated extravaganza Dragon’s Lair, from Rick Dyer and Don Bluth, and was subsequently exhausted by a rush of carpetbaggers.

Hobbled by a lack of interactivity for players, along with nagging technical issues for arcade operators, these games were ultimately shown to be a brief respite for the slumping arcade market. The popularity of laserdisc games had begun faltering, and Astron Belt did little to improve this situation.

For more information on Astron Belt and the 80’s laserdisc craze, consult your local Dot Eaters Bitstory.

Image source: Quarter Horse flyer, The Arcade Flyer Archive

1983 ad for Astron Belt, a laserdisc arcade video game by Bally Midway

Major Fun with Major Havoc

1983 may have been the waning days of the arcade era, but video game companies were still producing amazing products that pushed the envelope, and Atari’s Major Havoc coin-op was no exception. Designed by long-time Atari coin-op division employee Owen Rubin, and prototyped under the title Alpha-1, I had an obsession with the resultant released game. The “Breakout” and “Galaxian” modes were pretty blah, but the game really shone in the parts where the titular hero Major Rex Havoc would land his spaceship onto an enemy Vaxxian space station. The player would then guide him through the complex, avoiding the local enemies and obstacles, following arrows along maze-like corridors to the station’s reactor, which he would sabotage. Then it was a panicked, breakneck race through the floaty, near-weightless environment back to the ship and a blast off out to minimum safe distance for the explosion. All this while maintaining oxygen levels so Havoc doesn’t asphyxiate.

havoc

Colourful, complex vector graphics and a superbly animated main character added to the mystique of this classic arcade game, one of the few that you can play today and still be challenged and transfixed.

To check out creator Owen Rubin’s webpage, click here.

For more information on the history of Atari, consult your local Dot Eaters entry.

major-havoc-1983

Activision Pivots (1983)

The original 3rd-party video game maker for the Atari 2600, Activision apparently saw the writing on the wall in 1983. That was the year they made their move from consoles onto computer platforms, such as porting Kaboom! and River Raid to the Atari 8-bit XL line as seen in this ad. Moving to computer platforms helped the storied company survive the big video game crash of 1983-84, allowing them to become one of the biggest video game companies still around today.

Activision makes their move.

Activision makes their move.

For more information on Activision and the Atari VCS, consult your local Dot Eaters entry.