Page 45 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #4

by Kyle Snyder
buildings one by one. The player has control
any of us classic gamers be- catch-the-rocks game from Atari was cutesi-
cam
M e entranced with arcade fied with a "mad bomber" and bombs featur- of side mounted weapons that fire at an
angle towards the enemies. Although the
games back in the early 80's. Magazine ing lit fuses. Of course, this would be the antagonists move in different patterns, and
articles, TV news reports, and, of course, classic cart KABOOM! And, MEGAMANIA,
actually seeing blockbusters like Space In- while unique for its use of hamburgers, bow the arcade game adds two smart bomb style
weapons, the similarities are unmistakable.
vaders, Asteroids, and Pac-Man wherever ties, and diamond rings as enemy craft... It's interesting in today's lawsuit happy
we went got us curious. Video arcades, (Perhaps the designer had fears of getting world to note that there was a time, not too
however, were just entering their golden era fat, social gatherings, and commitment?)
at this point. They had been around since was really a close copy of Sega's 1980 ar- long ago, when companies regularly bor-
rowed ideas from one another. Could you
the mid 70's, but just weren’t accessible in cade shooter, ASTRO BLASTER. imagine that happening now?**
location or attractive to the average crowd. Even Imagic aped an arcade title once, Let's play MARIO THE HEDGEHOG on my
Nevertheless, when Atari debuted the although in a stripped down disguised form.
Video Computer System in 1977, it Imagic's ATLANTIS cart borrows heavily PlayStation, shall we????

immediately took the gaming world by from the 1981 Taito release COLONY 7. **Ed note: It’s happened! See
storm. Fairchilds were stored in the Both games feature airborne enemies at- page 44!
closet, Odysseys were relegated to the attic, tacking a stationary city, destroying the
and Pong units were sold at yard sales.
Atari needed software, and FAST!!! Existing
cartridges were selling well, and in an effort
to expand the library, Atari looked back to
the arcades for ideas. At that point, they had
already adapted many of their arcade
games, such as Canyon Bomber, Outlaw,
and Breakout. But they had to look at other
arcade titles, those not made by Atari, for
inspiration. Many of those old arcade
games, with the huge boxy cabinets and
blocky black and white graphics, were re-
leased for the 2600 with brand new names,
presumably to avoid licensing fees.
Take, for instance, Midway's 1976 coin- Dodge ’em (Atari) Head-On (Gremlin)
op, AMAZING MAZE. The computer gener-
ates a random maze with tiny little passages
and tons of turns and dead ends. The
player, or players, either race the clock to
exit the maze, or compete against each
other to see who can escape first. This was
directly cloned in Atari's MAZE CRAZE, the
only addition being extra variations and
color graphics. Or how about HEAD-ON, a
1979 Gremlin coin-op involving a race car
that drives around a track, eliminating dots
as it goes. A computer controlled car travels
in the opposite direction, trying to crash into
the player's racer. Sounds like Atari's
DODGE ‘EM cart, doesn't it? And then there Avalanche (Exidy)
was CIRCUS, Exidy's first big arcade hit Kaboom! (Activision)
back in 1977. Help some wacky clowns pop
rows of balloons by sliding a teeter-totter
underneath them to help them gain altitude.
Points are awarded for each balloon burst,
and a bonus is given when a complete row
is reduced to tatters. Here Atari only slightly
hid the original name, by calling it CIRCUS
ATARI.
This practice was not lost on other car-
tridge manufacturers. Activision, long rev-
eled as a great innovator, borrowed a few
early arcade titles themselves. DRAG
STRIP, a 1977 Atari coin favorite, was trot-
ted out under the Activision label as DRAG-
STER. Likewise, AVALANCHE, a 1978 Circus Atari (Atari) Circus (Exidy)
Classic Gamer Magazine Summer 2000 45