Name That Videogame

[BurghFan]

Re: Name That Videogame

Guess I'll take the next one since bcruise can't do it from his phone.

[Burns11]

Re: Name That Videogame

Was the #5 all time selling game for Atari 2600, only behind games like Pacman, Pitfall, and MissileCommand. Was surprised it beat out other games like Kaboom, Adventure, and Space Invaders.

Plenty of info saying how it's a bad game, but when I was a kid, lots of other kids were playing it and having fun.

Selling a bunch of copies doesn't make the game good. The fact it was so broken and terrible, then selling so good, is the cause of the crash. Feeling duped on a full priced game like ET crushed consumer confidence, so people just stopped buying full priced games. Among my first gaming memories (I was born in 78 so I was 5 when the crash started) is being in a Zayres (now TJ Maxx) digging through bins of new $1-$5 Atari games, among them was ET.

But we are getting off topic, the answer is Berzerk

[Burns11]

Re: Name That Videogame

Since I'll be away for a bit, here is the next one, a little tougher so I included more than one shot, but I loved this game back in the day.

[bcruise]

....The hell? Some sort of JRPG/racing game?

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

[bigbob]

Re: Name That Videogame

If it wasn't for the bottom two screens, I would have probably said Pole Position, but I have no idea.

[Valdarez]

Re: Name That Videogame

Selling a bunch of copies doesn't make the game good. The fact it was so broken and terrible, then selling so good, is the cause of the crash. Feeling duped on a full priced game like ET crushed consumer confidence, so people just stopped buying full priced games. Among my first gaming memories (I was born in 78 so I was 5 when the crash started) is being in a Zayres (now TJ Maxx) digging through bins of new $1-$5 Atari games, among them was ET.

It wasn't broken, and it wasn't terrible for the time. It didn't cause the crash, which is info copy and pasted from the ever so incorrect wikipedia and spouted by the stupid angry video game nerd. Read this post and I'll leave it at that -- http://elder-geek.com/2010/05/in-def...a-terrestrial/

As a heads up for all posting images of games for us to guess, please don't use the URL of the image as that many times has the name of the game in the image URL. Instead, download the image to your computer, rename it, and then attach it to your post. That way we're forced to guess and can't cheat.

[Valdarez]

Re: Name That Videogame

Since I'll be away for a bit, here is the next one, a little tougher so I included more than one shot, but I loved this game back in the day.

Final Lap Twin?

[TracerBullet]

Re: Name That Videogame

Final Lap Twin?

A Google check says we have a winner here.

[Valdarez]

Re: Name That Videogame

Didn't play this one much, but it's based on one of the first set of books I read.

[JerzeyReign]

Re: Name That Videogame

Didn't play this one much, but it's based on one of the first set of books I read.

Why didn't we riot when game devs tried to pass purple trees on us?

[Burns11]

Re: Name That Videogame

It wasn't broken, and it wasn't terrible for the time. It didn't cause the crash, which is info copy and pasted from the ever so incorrect wikipedia and spouted by the stupid angry video game nerd. Read this post and I'll leave it at that -- http://elder-geek.com/2010/05/in-def...a-terrestrial/

ET sucked. I played it on Atari 2600, I still have the cartridge somewhere in my stash (but not a single working 2600 controller, those things might as well have been made of spun sugar). It was broken and terrible. I played it in the 80s, and I played it since. Not sure why you think selling a lot of copies is a defense for not sucking, and a defense for not being a cause of the crash. It's games Atari rushed like ET, and third party crap, that caused consumers to lose faith in games and simply stop buying. Atari and others were still producing games, people just stopped buying as a direct consequence of games like ET. Hell my family stopped buying games because of games like ET, if it wasn't for the fact that I was a little **** and would shut up for a $2 game, I wouldn't have had any new games before about 1986 when we were pissed we got a NES instead of a Sega Master System.

And since it seems to be the crux of your argument, the reason ET sold so well is because it was in bargain bins. I feel like that 1.5m number is low, but who can really be sure. Even if it's right, a game like ET retailed for $50 and it only grossed $25m while selling 1.5m? Do the math, at $50 it should have grossed somewhere around $60m. Why didn't it? Because it was chucked into bargain bins. That's all irrelevant though, because selling a lot is not a defense for a bad game shaking consumer confidence. If the consumer stops having the confidence to buy a game at $30+ and instead only buys when they are below $10, that's going to be a MAJOR issue with any company trying to sell games.

I'm going to finish my argument with this, Howard Scott Warshaw himself has said ET was garbage. He didn't even bother trying to defend it, or the fact he did the entire game himself in about a month, which is an astounding achievement no matter what the end product. The "worst game ever" stuff is hyperbole, but it doesn't change the fact the game stinks and was just another nail in the home vdieogame market.

That's the last I'm going to post on the matter, let's get back to the videogame guessing.

[Burns11]

Re: Name That Videogame

Didn't play this one much, but it's based on one of the first set of books I read.

The Black Couldron. It was before my PC days, but I've gone back and played everything Al Lowe has ever done, including the Winnie the Pooh game.

Edit: Next up:



Another game I LOVED.

[PVarck31]

Re: Name That Videogame

Casino Kid!

Here's one that goes waaayyy back.

[Valdarez]

Re: Name That Videogame

ET sucked. I played it on Atari 2600, I still have the cartridge somewhere in my stash (but not a single working 2600 controller, those things might as well have been made of spun sugar). It was broken and terrible. I played it in the 80s, and I played it since. Not sure why you think selling a lot of copies is a defense for not sucking, and a defense for not being a cause of the crash. It's games Atari rushed like ET, and third party crap, that caused consumers to lose faith in games and simply stop buying. Atari and others were still producing games, people just stopped buying as a direct consequence of games like ET. Hell my family stopped buying games because of games like ET, if it wasn't for the fact that I was a little **** and would shut up for a $2 game, I wouldn't have had any new games before about 1986 when we were pissed we got a NES instead of a Sega Master System.

And since it seems to be the crux of your argument, the reason ET sold so well is because it was in bargain bins. I feel like that 1.5m number is low, but who can really be sure. Even if it's right, a game like ET retailed for $50 and it only grossed $25m while selling 1.5m? Do the math, at $50 it should have grossed somewhere around $60m. Why didn't it? Because it was chucked into bargain bins. That's all irrelevant though, because selling a lot is not a defense for a bad game shaking consumer confidence. If the consumer stops having the confidence to buy a game at $30+ and instead only buys when they are below $10, that's going to be a MAJOR issue with any company trying to sell games.

I'm going to finish my argument with this, Howard Scott Warshaw himself has said ET was garbage. He didn't even bother trying to defend it, or the fact he did the entire game himself in about a month, which is an astounding achievement no matter what the end product. The "worst game ever" stuff is hyperbole, but it doesn't change the fact the game stinks and was just another nail in the home vdieogame market.

That's the last I'm going to post on the matter, let's get back to the videogame guessing.

I played it over and over again without a problem. Can tell you didn't even read the link I posted, and if you know 'anything' about the crash you'll know that it wasn't ET that caused it. At 5 at the time, you didn't really live it. Heck, Pacman had more unsold units than ET and it's the #1 selling game of the Atari 2600. Hint: Anything else going on in the 80's that might have been more relevant?

As for the fall of Atari, aka the 'video game crash', that was poor management. (Now I'm pulling from reading vs experience) - They were ordering CRAZY number of cartridges. Atari ordered 12 million copies of Pacman when there were only 10 million consoles! More copies of Pacman were destroyed than ET! Yet people still try to point to ET. *sigh* Atari failed due to poor management, over buying cartridge orders, and the lack of the 'no return' clause for video games all of which resulted in millions of unnecessary losses that sunk the company at a time when arcades were in their hay day and emerging competition was being seen by the little 'ole likes of a small company called Nintendo with a upstart NES console.

Your math is far off based on prices back then. Games didn't retail for $50, that's a relatively new pricing model from the XBox/Playstation 2 days. Atari 2600 games retailed for $20 when they were brand new. Used to save up for them via my paper route. Again, not someone who lived it, and whose major experience is based on reading. Lets be honest here, your first big console was more than likely the NES if you were 5 in 83. Mine was pong which was 2 paddles attached to a tiny little box and connected to TV without any real console in-between. Have over 200 games on the Atari right now from when I was a kid. Granted a lot of those are duplicates as my grandmother gave me her collection a couple of years back, but for the most part those games are ones I saved up for and bought each week, or every other week.

As far as the time it took to develop it, how long did it take back then to make Atari games? I mean, these games were very simple. Did it take years, months, or weeks? 5 weeks doesn't sound like much time, but Warshaw felt he could do it, meaning he didn't say no, so it obviously wasn't an unachievable task. In a world and time in history where studios hire 100s of employees and spend millions of dollars on production costs, 5 weeks sound ridiculous, but I have a feeling back then 5 weeks for a game by a single developer wasn't unrealistic, especially with a seasoned vet like Warshaw.

Quote from an interview with Warshaw --

Howard Scott Warshaw: I wrote about 6.5K of original code, and got another 1.5K of original graphics from Jerome Domurat, who was a good friend of mine, and a graphics designer at Atari. I did use 1-line rez graphics for E.T. With Raiders, it was going to be a game-play intensive thing, but on E.T., what I was going for was a game with some sentimentality to it. The whole thing with E.T. (the movie) was sentiment.
DP: Of course. You feel for him- he’s lost, and then he becomes sick…

Howard Scott Warshaw: I invented the idea of a 6-sided world that you could “float” around, and use the indicators, but it was very coarse – I was crushed for time. I calculated it out once that I had produced game code (finished, debugged, and documented) at 13 times the industry average! I had a development system at my house and just lived that game for a month. For the time I had, and given the problem I had to solve, I think I did a pretty good job with it.

So, I'm going back to my 1st statement vs pulling information from Wikipedia, reviewers like the Angry Video Game Nerd, or worst games of all times list who use the financial losses triggered from over buying cartridges to justify it's status. Now we can agree to disagree, as I know I disagree with most of the younger folks who have latched onto this topical meme and have no allusions of changing the pulp cultural tide as it relates to ET's place in gaming history. Kids / friends who played ET back then played the heck out of the game and enjoyed it. Oh, I'm sure there were folks that didn't like it and returned it, just as there were a ton of folks that were making use of stores return policies to return a game get a new game which became such a phenomenon that every store had to change the rules and development agencies had to come up with what accounts to a zero guarantee of playability, much less enjoyment, that we have to this day.

If there's anything that even this site has shown us is there's always people who hate games, and hate games we enjoy. As someone who enjoyed / has fond memories of ET, I can unabashedly attest that were/are far worse games on the Atari. As an example, since this is a sports site, Football on the Atari was a far worse game than ET ever could have been and I'm sure if I went through my games I could easily find another dozen or more that were worse in graphics, gameplay, or sound. I'd be very surprised if ET would even crack the top 20 of the worst video games available on the Atari 2600.

Still have my Atari (and grandma's now) and all the controllers I've tried still work (can't say I've tried each and every one). Same for the NES. Have a feeling in 20 years they'll still work while I'm using my XBox 360 as a paper weight or in combination with a sledge hammer as a stress release outlet.

[Valdarez]

Re: Name That Videogame

The Black Couldron. It was before my PC days, but I've gone back and played everything Al Lowe has ever done, including the Winnie the Pooh game.

Most folks don't realize it as the game came out after the movie was released, but The Black Cauldron (1965) is a fantasy novel by Lloyd Alexander, the second of five volumes in The Chronicles of Prydain. I don't know how I was turned onto these books, but it was the first set I read as a kid, immediately followed by the Lord of the Rings which was far too dry for a 5th grader. For me, it was one of those neat occurrences where there's a book, movie, and a computer/PC game at a time when that rarely occurred.