Video Games – Page 2 – theLogBook.com

No love for Studio II

Just before Valentine’s Day, RCA kills its Studio II home video game console, whose blocky black & white graphics and library of “edutainment” cartridges have proven to be no competition for the more game-oriented, full-color consoles from Fairchild and Atari over the previous two Christmas shopping seasons. 120 employees directly involved with developing for or assembling the Studio II and related products are laid off from RCA’s facility in Swannanoa, North Carolina as a result. The company makes no further attempts to break into the video game business.

Gypsy Juggler

Sunnyvale, California-based Meadows Games releases the arcade video game Gypsy Juggler in the United States.

Fire Truck

Atari releases the arcade video game Fire Truck, which requires two players to steer both ends of a speeding fire engine.

Home Run (Atari 2600)

Atari releases the baseball cartridge Home Run for the Atari 2600, beefing up the new console’s sports game library but not exactly wowing baseball fans with realistic graphics or game play.

Basketball (Atari 2600)

Atari releases the Basketball cartridge for the Atari VCS, one of the earliest home video games to show a vaguely 3-D perspective, and probably the best-known early sports game in the console’s library.

Space Invaders

After its introduction in June in Japan, Space Invaders is introduced to the United States by Midway Manufacturing. Its space-war-themed action arrives just in time to cash in on the public’s fascination with space and science fiction, making it a major hit (the game is already well on its way to causign coin shortages in its native Japan). In America, it pushes the arcade video game industry into high gear, priming both the industry and the public for the boom years ahead. Space Invaders‘ success also convinces Taito to start an American operation rather than continuing to license its arcade games to Midway.

Avalanche

Atari releases the arcade game Avalanche, challenging players to catch falling rocks in a bucket without dropping anything; this game later serves as the basis for Activision’s Atari VCS cartridge Kaboom!.

Super Breakout

Atari releases the arcade video game Super Breakout, a sequel to the hit 1976 coin-op Breakout.

Space Wars

Cinematronics introduces the first vector graphics arcade game, Space Wars, designed and programmed by Larry Rosenthal, using Rosenthal’s “Vectorbeam” technology. The game is based on the 1960s mainframe game Spacewar!. The high-resolution vector graphics technology, which offers better graphics (at the cost of limiting them to black & white displays), becomes an arcade mainstay as other manufacturers such as Atari and Sega begin using similar displays.

Football

Atari Football Atari releases the two-player arcade game Football, a refined version of an internal project called Xs and Os that has been in development for some time. Though it’s a well-executed basic football game, Football’s real innovation is its trackball controller, giving players fluid analog control over their onscreen counterparts.

Breakout (Atari 2600)

Atari releases the Breakout cartridge for the Atari VCS, one of the console’s first-ever ports of an existing arcade game and – thanks to two years of advancements in technology – a more sophisticated game than the coin-op that inspired it, which could only display black & white graphics.

Slot Machine (Atari 2600)

Atari releases the Slot Machine cartridge for the Atari VCS, designed and programmed by future Pitfall! programmer David Crane.

Odyssey²

Having originally announced a programmable video game console in 1977 before almost cancelling the project, Magnavox launches its first cartridge-based video game console, the Odyssey². Though intended to compete with the Atari VCS, the Odyssey² is at a disadvantage thanks to its underpowered Intel processor and a limited graphics set.

Speedway! / Spin-Out! / Crypto-Logic! (Odyssey²)

Magnavox releases the video game cartridge Speedway! / Spin-Out! / Crypto-Logic! for the Odyssey² video game system. This is the pack-in game included with every system.

Starhawk

Cashing in on gamers’ desire to fly down a tightly-enclosed trench blowing away enemy spaceships, Cinematronics introduces the “Vectorbeam”-powered arcade game Starhawk.

More about Starhawk in Phosphor Dot Fossils

Take The Money And Run! (Odyssey²)

Magnavox releases the video game cartridge Take The Money And Run! for the Odyssey² video game system, designed and programmed by Ed and Linda Averett. This is a two-player maze game that predates Pac-Man.

Basketball

Atari releases the two-player arcade game Basketball, which features one of the earliest instances of a basketball court drawn in a vaguely 3-D perspective. Like its Football predecessor from Atari, Basketball uses dual trackball controllers.

Superman (Atari 2600)

Atari releases Superman as a cartridge for the Atari 2600. This is the first major synergy between Atari and fellow Warner Communications unit DC Comics, riding on the renewed interest in the character generated by the 1978 movie.

Warrior

Warrior Cinematronics gives arcade players the chance to fall on their swords – or their opponent’s sword – in the first-ever head-to-head fighting video game, Warrior. Combining the company’s “Vectorbeam” vector graphics with a brilliantly colorful backdrop illuminated by blacklight, Warrior is a feast for the eyes and becomes an arcade cult classic.

Lunar Lander

Some ten years after the real thing put men on the moon, Atari invites arcade space pilots to try their own luck at the controls of the Lunar Lander. A tricky, brainy game based on real physics, requiring players to cancel out unwanted motion in two axes without running out of fuel, the results are perhaps a little too real: quite a few vector-graphic Eagles fail to land in one piece, and quite a few disgruntled pilots don’t come back to try again.

Galaxian

Arcade game maker Midway introduces the coin-op video game Galaxian in American arcades. The game, originated in Japan by Namco, is the first entry in a fruitful relationship between the two companies; another game in the works at Namco will prove to be huge windfall for Midway in 1980.

War Of Nerves! (Odyssey²)

Magnavox releases the video game cartridge War Of Nerves for the Odyssey² video game system, designed and programmed by Ed and Linda Averett. With an emphasis on giving orders to a robot army not directly under the player’s micro-managed control, this may be the earliest example of a real-time strategy video game.

Activision founded

Boxing Fed up with Atari’s refusal to grant them bylines on the best-selling games they’ve been designing and programming for the Atari VCS, Atari employees Alan Miller, David Crane, Larry Kaplan and Bob Whitehead quit their jobs and form the first third-party video game software house, Activision, with former music executive Jim Levy aboard as the new company’s CEO. Infuriated, Atari files a raft of lawsuits alleging theft of trade secrets, but is ultimately unable to get an injunction preventing Activision from releasing games for the VCS.

More about Activision in Phosphor Dot Fossils

Asteroids

Atari releases the vector graphics arcade game Asteroids, a space game with as much Newtonian physics as can be simulated in a tiny amount of code. As one of Atari’s biggest hits to date, with over 50,000 cabinets produced, a sequel and home console ports are inevitable.

Intellivision

After over a year of play testing and preparation, Mattel Electronics launches the first major competitor to the market-dominating Atari VCS video game console: Intellivision (short for “Intelligent Television”). Boasting superior graphics and a library of the first-ever licensed sports titles (though licensed by various pro sports leagues, rather than by specific teams or individuals), Intellivision is well-poised to enter a market where sports games are all-important.

Star Raiders (Atari Home Computers)

Atari releases the computer game Star Raiders for the Atari 400 and 800 home computer systems, programmed by Doug Neubauer. This is a very early example of a game in the first-person “cockpit” space shooter genre gaining wide popularity.

Mystery House (Apple II)

Sierra On-Line releases its first computer game, Hi-Res Adventure #1: Mystery House, for the Apple II computer. Pairing simple text descriptions with even simpler line art, the game marks a turning point in computer adventure games, and sets Sierra on a course to become one of the best-selling game software houses of the ’80s.

Space Invaders (Atari 2600)

Atari releases the home version of Space Invaders as a cartridge for the Atari 2600, the first time that a video game company has licensed another company’s game for home play. (All of Atari’s arcade ports up to this point have been home versions of Atari arcade games.) It turns out to be an astute move: Space Invaders is the “killer app” of the VCS, becoming so popular that the cartridge boosts sales of the system needed to run it.

Missile Command

Atari scores a direct hit on arcades everywhere with Missile Command, a game which reminds video game-obsessed youth that the Cold War is still on. (In the months it takes to develop the game, programmer Dave Theurer has recurring nuclear-war-themed nightmares.) Cementing the trakball as a viable controller for fast-paced, non-sports games, Missile Command inspires a popular home video game cartridge (which, in the interest of not giving young gamers nightmares, dispenses with the Cold War theme in favor of a science-fiction explanation of the missiles’ origin).

Alpine Skiing! (Odyssey²)

Magnavox releases the video game Alpine Skiing! for the Odyssey² home video game system in North America, designed and programmed by Ed and Linda Averett. The game is released later in Europe for the equivalent Videopac console, and in France for the Jopac.