Category Archives: arcade

Arcade1Up and Atari Team Up for the 50th Anniversary Arcade Cabinet

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.

To read about the rise and fall of Atari, and the many games they published, and even watch and play them, start with my article on The Dot Eaters, here: https://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=bitstory-article-2/pong-and-atari

3D Depth Artwork Released by Atari and Artovision

Leave a reply

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.

Atari Star Wars Arcade Game 40th Anniversary

Leave a reply

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 — 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

Holograms Come to Video Games

Leave a reply

In 1991, long after laserdisc games had come and gone in the arcades, Rick Dyer tried his hand again in the genre by releasing Time Traveler. Distributed by Sega, Time Traveler was similar in concept to Dyer’s previous huge hit, the arcade laserdisc blockbuster Dragon’s Lair, featuring lush animation by Don Bluth. In Time Traveler, however, the action directed by players was represented by live actors. The hook here was, they didn’t just appear on a screen, but on a stage in the cabinet, seeming to hover in the air as actual objects.

Playfield of Sega Time Traveler hologram laserdisc arcade game — Stage and actors in Sega’s Time Traveler hologram laserdisc arcade game, 1991

The trick was achieved by having an image from a monitor hidden in the cabinet bounced off a blacked-out semi-sphere mirror up onto the stage, giving the illusion of depth to the characters. Not really “holographic”, but a pretty nifty visual effect nonetheless.

Unfortunately, like Dragon’s Lair before it, Time Traveler was hindered by a lack of interaction. In the game players control old-west Marshal Gram (like Holo-gram….get it?) in his quest to rescue beautiful Princess Kyi-La of the Galactic Federation, and prevent the evil scientist Volcor from tearing time apart. To do so, gamers merely chose which direction Gram should move or whether to use his guns, with the results played out accordingly. And with Dragon’s Lair and the various laserdisc games that came in its sizeable wake, arcade patrons quickly tired of the effect of Time Traveler and moved on.

A screenshot from Dragon's Lair — Screenshot from Dragon’s Lair

DVD box and 3D glasses for Time Traveler, a DVD game by Sega/Digital Liesure 2000 — Screenshot from Dragon’s Lair

Time Traveler did pull in $18 million in sales upon release, and a fighting game called Holosseum utilized the same tech, although with sprites instead of actors, the next year. It also got a home DVD release from Digital Liesure in 2000, sans holographic effect but presented in 3D with included glasses. Holography in the arcades, at least according to Rick Dyer and Sega, might have been a pretty picture, but failed to leave a lasting image.

For more information on Time Traveler, Dragon’s Lair and the other games of the laserdisc craze of the early 80’s, you can check out my article here on The Dot Eaters: https://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=bitstory-article-2/dragons-lair-and-the-laser-game-craze

Atari’s Epic Dig Dug Commercial of 1982

Leave a reply

As part of a marketing push (an area where CEO Ray Kassar excelled at), Atari created a two-minute ad for arcade game Dig Dug. The funny thing about all this hoopla is that Atari hadn’t actually made the game: it was licensed by the company from Namco for release in North America.

Dig Dug, an arcade video game by Atari and Namco, 1982 — Dig Dug gameplay

Taking five days to film, the full ad ran in theatres during the summer of 1982, while a shorter 30 second version ran on TV. Originally, 60’s singing and dancing sensation Chubby Checker (The Twist) was to sing the catchy theme song in the ad, but Atari ultimately went with a younger singer, perhaps for reasons of demographics. You can hear Chubby’s version here on the Atari Museum Public Group on Facebook. The song was posted by Matt Osborne, the son of Don Osborne, who was Atari’s VP of Marketing at the time. Upon listening to it, I’m sure you’ll agree that Atari made a huge mistake not going with Chubby.

As for the visuals, the various special effects in the ad were handled by production designer Jim Spencer and crew, who among other projects had the effects-laden movie Poltergeist under their belt. They would subsequently work on films like Innerspace and Gremlins.

Created by advertising agency Young & Rubicam and directed by Manny Perez, the spot would go on to snag a 1983 Clio award in the Cinema and Advertising category. It might not be high art, but at least it reflects the most important aspect of the video game it’s shilling: it’s a lot of fun. It also got the job done for Atari; by their estimations the theatrical ad and shortened TV spots had by August of 1982 increased public awareness of Dig Dug by a whopping 227% over markets without the ads. This converted into 30% higher coin drops for the arcade game in those same markets. I can Dig that!

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

Sources:

Atari Coin Connection, “Dig Dug Meets Clio”, pg. 2, Aug 1983
Atari Museum Public Group, Facebook
1982 Entertainment Tonight segment on the making of Dig Dug ad
Cash Box. Industry News – Atari ‘Customer Day’ Stresses Closer Ties With Distributors”, pgs. 38 – 39, Feb 19 1983, retrieved from Internet Archive Sept 15, 2019
Cash Box, Nov. 13 1982 article “Atari Launches National TV Push for ‘Dig Dug’

Connecting the Dots: How Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Break Out

Leave a reply

After he dropped out of Reed College in Oregon, in 1974 Steve Jobs joined a small tech company by the name of Atari, working at their Los Gatos facility in California. Legend has it that he showed up in their lobby, scruffy and lacking in perfect bodily hygiene, and stated to the receptionist that he wouldn’t be leaving the premises until he got a job. Instead of calling the police, she brought Al Alcorn to talk to him, and was eventually hired. In spite of being brash and over-confident (or perhaps, BECAUSE of those traits), Atari CEO Nolan Bushnell took a liking to young Steve. One day he approached Jobs with a game idea. We break into the TDE archives to continue the story:

In 1976 Nolan Bushnell offers the young Jobs $750 to put together the hardware for Breakout, a variation on PONG designed by the Atari founder, but instead of knocking the ball back and forth the player uses the paddle to send the ball at a wall of bricks across the top of the screen. The game is black and white, utilizing the old pre-1979 chestnut of overlays on the screen to simulate colour. The main mission is to reduce the amount of dedicated chips used in the construction of the game, thereby greatly reducing the cost to mass manufacture it. Bushnell promises Jobs a bonus of $100 for every chip he eliminates from the design. Even though he is not much of an engineer or ace programmer, Jobs promises to finish the game in four days, when a typical game’s development time would be several months. It is his ace-in-the-hole Wozniak who actually builds the machine, spending four consecutive nights assembling the hardware and still holding down his daytime job at Hewlett-Packard. The two meet the four day deadline, with Woz shaving the number of required chips down to 45. Jobs receives his money, and setting the tone for their business relationship, he fails to tell his friend about the now $5000 bonus. He pays Wozniak his share of $375 from the original $750 payment and furthermore takes all the credit when Breakout becomes a hit 15,000 unit seller for Atari. But Woz receives far more than simple currency with his fling with Breakout…for instance, one night as he watches technicians apply the overlays onto the Breakout screen in order to simulate coloured bricks, Woz starts thinking about how he could have a computer generate real colours on the screen. The way his later computer designs would introduce colour to the world of personal computers stems directly from his work on the arcade game, as well as his love for gaming in general. His work with Breakout also gives him a valuable education in logic design and its integration with a TV signal. And he uses his version of BASIC language to manipulate his computer version of Breakout, and is amazed how powerful a tool software is in creating games. Woz’s amazingly tight design for Breakout baffles Atari engineers, and it has to be redesigned with more chips added to actually allow it to be manufactured.

Jobs would later approach Bushnell with the idea of Atari producing a new computer he and Woz had developed, but the Atari boss passed on the offer. Atari would end up competing against that product with their 8-bit 400 and 800 computer lines. Woz and Jobs did just fine with their own computer: the venerable Apple II, by the Apple Computer Company.

For more information on Breakout!, consult your local Dot Eaters entry.

Blood Flows Black and White on the Highway This Halloween.

Leave a reply

For Halloween night, let me point to the first game to terrorize parents over video game violence, Exidy’s 1976 Death Race.

In the game you drive a vehicle around a play field, chasing stick figures who flee randomly in all directions to avoid becoming a hood ornament. If and when you strike one, the victim screams and turns into a grave marker, complete with cross. If you have a buddy with you with a handy quarter, you can both mow down “gremlins”, as they were described in the game cabinet text, simultaneously.

Even though with 1976 black and white graphics things are barely sketched out for you, the game brought a firestorm of controversy, which only helped to increase sales for Exidy. They moved over 1,000 units of the game, their best-selling up to that point.

If you dare, read the history of the game the National Safety Council branded as “sick, sick sick”, here at The Dot Eaters.

This article was originally posted on The Dot Eaters Oct. 31, 2012

PONG Turns 40

Leave a reply

This article was originally posted to The Dot Eaters on Nov. 29, 2012

On November 29, 1972, a recently incorporated company in California named Atari announced the release of its first product, an electronic video arcade game called PONG. Two players would stand at the wood-grain and yellow cabinet, twiddling the control knobs that moved two paddles displayed on a B&W TV screen. With the paddles they would play an electronically abstract game of table tennis, batting a little white blip back and forth in an attempt to “Avoid Missing Ball For High Score”, as the simple gameplay instructions prompted.

Conceived by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell and designed by Al Alcorn, Pong was a smash success, giving birth to the video game industry. Fast-forward nearly 40 years later, in 2011 that industry was worth US$65 billion dollars.

Ad for a Pong-type home kit, Visulex 1975

This newfangled electronic Ping Pong thing comes home, 1975

Among other celebrations of Pong’s 40th birthday, an attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s largest game of Pong was made on Nov. 16, 2012. A 22-story version of the game, complete with festive lighting, was played on the side of the Downtown Marriott hotel in Kansas City, MO.

In a lead-up to the anniversary, earlier this year Atari announced the Pong Indie Developer Challenge. Offering a grand prize of up to $100,000, the company solicited independent app developers to submit their take on the venerable Pong. The three winners were announced on Aug. 2, and they will participate in a profit sharing scheme divided between the three Pong apps that will see them collect royalties up to the winning prize amounts. The top winner, the freemium-based PONG World by zGames, can be snagged at the iOS App Store here.

Pong put Atari on the road to becoming the fastest growing company in American history. It’s no stretch to consider that when you say Pong is 40 years-old today, you’re also saying the video game industry is 40 years-old. So like those tipsy patrons of Andy Capp’s bar in Sunnyvale California, who played the original Pong prototype until it broke and convinced Bushnell and Atari to produce the game commercially, raise a glass to the grand-daddy of the video game industry. Your serve, PONG!

You can play an updated version of PONG online at Atari.com for free.

For more information on the history of Pong and Atari, consult your local Dot Eaters article

Blast… or be blasted!

Leave a reply

The more I play Blaster, released by Williams in 1983, the more the game amazes me.

Designed by Defender creators Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar, it features a startling 3D perspective as you soar over an alien landscape, blasting giant robots and rescuing floating astronauts. The visual effects are nothing short of astounding, especially considering the time at which the game was made. It’s no surprise that several designers at Williams would eventually move on to work on the ground-breaking Amiga computer at Commodore, known for its graphical and aural prowess. Added to the allure of this and several other Williams games, such as Bubbles and Sinistar, is that it came in an indestructible plastic cabinet, named Duramold by the company. Rumour has it, however, that the plastic would shrink over time, causing the monitor inside to eventually be ejected like a champagne cork. Talk about 3D effects!

Enjoy the following video we made of Blaster gameplay.

As always, for more information on Blaster, Jarvis, Defender, and other things Williams, please consult your local Dot Eaters entry.

This article was originally posted on The Dot Eaters on Nov 14, 2012

Run, Coward! Sinistar Unleashed, by GameFX and THQ, Windows 1999

Leave a reply

This ad features another entry in the turn-of-the-millennium retro game remake sweepstakes. This time it’s Sinistar getting the reboot treatment, the 1982 Williams arcade classic by Sam Dicker, pictured below the ad in 1984.

Sinistar Unleashed, a video game for Windows

Run, Coward!

Sam Dicker, creator of Sinistar, 1984