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Atari Archive
13  décembre     04h43
Atari Archive: the book
Kevin Bunch    I don’t know how often folks check this website, but I wanted to bring your attention to something I am exceedingly proud of that came out this year: my book Entitled Atari Archive Vol. : , this covers the first two years of the Atari VCS’s life and then some. If you’ve seen the video ...
07  novembre     21h04
Hunt & Score (Memory Match) October 1978
Kevin Bunch    If you’re going to sell a specialized controller, it’s important to ensure you have games that are going to make good use of it. It’s unlikely that Breakout would have worked particularly well if it didn’t have the paddle controller, and Brain Games makes excellent use of the keyboard controller to...
02  décembre     17h17
Codebreaker October 1978
Kevin Bunch    the release of the Atari keyboard controllers in the fall of necessitated the development of games that actually use them. Atari’s developers were in need of game ideas that could play to the keyboards’ strengths, and as such turned primarily to existing mental puzzles and computer programs....
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Brain Games October 1978
Kevin Bunch    The vast majority of the early VCS games covered so far were games that the developers were personally interested in putting together. Whether these were ports of popular arcade games, conversions of tabletop timewasters, or novel concepts, marketing had largely stayed out of the way on what games...
15  novembre     01h35
Basketball October 1978
Kevin Bunch    We’ve seen a slow progression of video game sports through the s up to this point, both on the VCS and off of it. Pong was a deeply simplified version of ping pong, and all the other sports games on the original Magnavox Odyssey were functionally the same basic thing. The same holds true for
11  novembre     19h16
Breakout (Breakaway IV) October 1978
Kevin Bunch    It’s undeniable that Atari initially made its name with Pong. This simple two player take on a tennis game was an incredible arcade success for the company, with competing clone machines popping up in the years following its debut. Even the earliest years of the home console market saw an...
07  novembre     00h37
Flag Capture (Capture) October 1978
Kevin Bunch    This game is something of a treat for these early years of the VCS. Not only is it an original game concept, it’s actually a pretty nifty title in its own right. Flag Capture doesn’t exactly have name cachet like Combat or Outlaw, and arguably it’s one of the more overlooked non sports games from...
05  novembre     23h12
Outlaw (Gunslinger) October 1978
Kevin Bunch    Coming as it did at the tail end of westerns’ day in the sun, the old American west might not be the most popular setting in video games, but it has popped up a few times over the years, from Wild Gunman to Sunset Riders up to the recent Red Dead Redemption games. But if
03  novembre     02h11
Slot Racers (Maze) October 1978
Kevin Bunch    Most of the Atari VCS games we’ve looked at so far are ones where you know what you’re getting into just from the title. A game named Indy is probably about racing. Space War is most likely going to have you fighting in outer space. Blackjack is going to involve playing cards, and so
18  août     02h17
Home Run (Baseball) October 1978
Kevin Bunch    I don’t think it’s a secret that baseball, as a sport, doesn’t lend itself well to early video game consoles. One team is always going to have nine players on the field, while the other is dealing with their batter, along with any base runners they might have on the field at the moment. Meanwhile, ...