Timeline | 1980-1983: Zork Trilogy

Zork I was probably one of the greatest Text-Adventure games ever released.

'Zork' was originally slang among members of the MIT community for an unfinished program (especially a game) and it was under this name that several programmers at MIT developed a game they would eventually name 'Dungeon'. They finished their program somewhere around 1977 but received a copyright violation notice from the publishers of 'Dungeons & Dragons' and so they renamed the game back to Zork and released it for PDP-10 mainframe computers (common in universities at the time).

Zork was an immediate cult classic among the university scene and so those same programmers decided to get together and form a company to publish and distribute Zork to the masses. As common computers of the time couldn't handle the entire game as it existed on the PDP-10, Infocom (the company they formed) split the game into three parts: Zork I, Zork II and Zork III. Each game was slightly altered and more content added so they could function as stand alone games and they began releasing the games, starting with Zork I on common computers of the day (Apple II, Commodore 64, IBM compatibles, etc.)

Zork I was released in 1980, the premise of the game was simple: you were an 'adventurer' presented with situations and questions and you entered commands into the game like 'open door' 'go to the right' and so on to navigate the story and find all the treasures to earn the title 'Master Adventurer' doing so give you a map to a 'stone barrow' which is where Zork I ends...

Zork II was released in 1981 and was a well received follow up to Zork I

...and Zork II begins! Zork II was very similar to Zork I in terms of gameplay (they are all three text-adventure games based on the same engine) but the storyline is a little different. In this game you are still looking for treasues, however collecting them is not the entire goal - in fact it will not win the game for you if you collect all 10, nor is collecting all 10 necessary to finish the storyline and advance the plot to win but some of them are.

The final game of the original Zork trilogy was released in 1983.

Zork III takes a slightly different path than I and II, in this game instead of looking for treasure to advance the plot you are trying to prove yourself worthy of becoming the 'Dungeon Master'. An interesting twist in this game is a time sensitive event, an earthquake that usually occurs somewhere around turn 130 that the player must have advanced for enough into the game to have gotten the key by that point or the game becomes unwinnable (also there are things you can't do until the earthquake alters the landscape).

The Zork games where very challenging, very engaging and tons of fun when they were released. Even as early Action-Adventure games were coming out Zork really defined the Text-Based Adventure game. Later Action-Adventure and RPG games were heavily influenced by the Zork Trilogy.


You can download all three of the original Zork games for free here:
http://www.infocom-if.org/downloads/downloads.html

GoG.com also has the Anthology and later Zork games available here (its about $10 for the entire series)
http://www.gog.com/game/the_zork_anthology

Collection | Atari 2600 - SSJGohan3972's Collection

Collecting for the Atari 2600 is relatively cheap and fun for those who enjoy Retro games.

My first experiences with an Atari 2600 came when my father would occasionally bring his down from the attic during the sleepy summers of my early childhood. While I would associate more with the SNES they purchased me a little later (I believe I was 7-8) I still have fond memories of Missile Command and Donkey Kong on that ancient (even then) machine. Unfortunately even though my father did eventually give me that Atari before I moved out, I lost it and the games in college in an apartment flood (it was a very sad day, I also lost the aforementioned SNES and a PS1).

Relatively recently (within the last few years) I have put some time, effort and of course money into trying to rebuild my old video game collection(s) and one of the ones I've had the most success in is the Atari 2600. The second-hand market for the Atari 2600 is quite healthy, there are hacks and homebrews still being made for the system (and its successors) and you can still find most of even the best games for the system for relatively cheap.

My current Atari 2600 Collection, hoping to make a new cover for River Raid soon.

My current Atari 2600 collection:
Adventure
Air-Sea Battle
Asteroids
Breakout
Combat
Defender
Dig Dug
Dodge 'Em
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
Golf
Haunted House
Home Run
Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom
Joust
Missile Command
Night Driver
Pac-Man
Pitfall!
River Raid
Space Invaders
Swordquest: Earthworld
Yar's Revenge

Dragonfire (not pictured)
Pole Position (not pictured)
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (not pictured)

The last three I need to make covers for as I haven't found any on thecoverproject.net or other sources.

My Atari 2600 dream wishlist:

Original Releases:
Donkey Kong
Mario Bros.
Frogger
Centipede
Galaxian
Swordquest: Fireworld
Swordquest: Waterworld
Superman
Custer's Revenge
Spider-Man
Pitfall 2: The Lost Caverns
Venture
Atlantis
Demon Attack
Cosmic Ark
Star Voyager
Phoenix

Homebrews:
Halo 2600
Princess Rescue (Super Mario Bros. 2600)
Space Rocks
Blinky Goes Up
Dungeon
FlaPing
Medieval Mayhem
Pac-Man 4K
Rainbow Invaders
Thrust+ Platinum
Warring Worms: The Worm (Re)Turns
Colony 7

Hacks:
Adventure Plus
Combat Redux
Defender Arcade
Galaxian Arcade
Pac-Man Arcade
Space Invaders Arcade
Wolfenstein VCS: The Next Mission
Venture II: The Abysmal Abyss

Future Atari 2600 Collection Plans:
I need to get an actual Atari 2600 to play these (I am currently just emulating the games I have but I want to play the actual games with the actual controllers). I also have an Atari Flashback 3 so I have a lot of the games on there as well.
I plan to slowly pickup games from my wishlist but not put a lot of money into it, just if good deals come by.

You can purchase Atari games on Amazon, Ebay and the like. Also game trading sites like GameTZ.com are quite useful. If you're interested in homebrew and hack games, reproductions and the like, AtariAge.com is an incredible resource.

Timeline | 1982: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial for Atari 2600

E.T. was a major hit in the movie theaters but a stinker on the Atari 2600

E.T. was taking the world by storm in 1982 and the rights to make a video game out of the IP were secured by Atari late in that year, despite the time Atari wanted a game out by Christmas and so in record time (something like 5 1/2 weeks which was an amazingly short period) Howard Scott Warshaw (a game designer at Atari) cranked out E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Atari was hopeful that the game would sell well due to the popularity of the movie and it did sell over a million copies, unfortunately the anticipation was that it would sell much more and was actually one of the biggest financial failures in video gaming ever.

A screenshot of E.T. on the Atari 2600

E.T. was an action-adventure game (in the vein of 'Adventure' and later games like 'The Legend of Zelda') in which the player took control of E.T. and tried to recreate the interstellar phone to 'phone home'. Unfortunately the graphics were barely legible, the gameplay was clunky and very little fun and the sound was terrible. The market was saturated after the 1982 holiday season and even though several good games came out in 1983 by the '83 holiday season the market had basically collapsed. E.T. has become a symbol of this 'Video Game Crash of 1983' and it was recently confirmed that Atari did in fact bury a large number of unsold cartridges of E.T. and other games in a landfill in New Mexico (reportedly 728,000 cartridges although there were many titles only some of which were E.T.).

Further Reading

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)

Timeline | 1982: Pac-Man for Atari 2600

Pac-Man was the biggest hit on the Atari 2600, just not big enough for Atari.

Pac-Man was released to Arcades in 1980 and was so popular that Atari immediately began production of a port for the Atari 2600 which was gaining popularity itself at the time. There was so much anticipation for the release of Pac-Man in 1982 that Atari ordered the production of 12 million copies of the game (more than the number of 2600s that had been sold to consumers by the time of the order). They changed the pack-in game for the Atari 2600 from 'Combat' to Pac-Man and heavily marketed the game.

A screenshot of Pac-Man the Arcade game

Pac-Man is a maze game in which the player has to navigate the entire maze to collect the glowing dots, and avoid the ghosts in the maze that are trying to kill you. If for some reason you have never played Pac-Man where the hell have you been! Get out there and play it, its great fun. The game was incredibly popular and spawned several sequels (Mrs. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Jr. etc.)

A screenshot of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600

Namco licensed Atari to do the american release of Pac-Man to the Atari 2600 home console (as they did with a lot of their Arcade games of the period, however Bally/Midway was licensed to make the us Arcade game). Unfortunately as Atari sometimes did, they pushed for a quick release and put less than adequate resourced into the production. The Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man is unpolished at best (and horrible at worst) even taking into account the limitations of the system the graphics are horrid and the gameplay is clunky and fails to really translate the joy of the arcade game.

Due mostly to Atari packing the game in with the system for the second half of its existance and their heavy marketing, Pac-Man would go on to become the best selling game for the Atari 2600 at around 7 million copies. Unfortunately this was significantly less than Atari had first anticipated (it is unknown whether they were able to reuse the other copies or if they along with the extra E.T. games ended up in the same landfill(s)).

Further Reading:

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_(Atari_2600)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man

Timeline | 1983: Galaxian for Atari 2600

Galaxian came late to the Atari 2600

The Space Invaders craze was still in full swing when Namco released Galaxian to the arcades in 1979 (1980 in the US). Galaxian expanded upon the concept of waves of alien crafts, but in this case the player piloted a ship in space with slightly more freedom of movement and the enemies could move a lot more as well - attacking in patterns, breaking off from the group and trying to collide with the player, and all the while shooting at you and moving side-to-side - Galaxian was pretty high paced action for the time.

A screenshot of the Galaxian Arcade game

I'm not sure why Atari didn't get around to porting Galaxian to the Atari 2600 until 1983, perhaps they had passed it up earlier and where now grasping at straws to respark the popularity of the 2600? (that is pure conjecture but it does fit with the times). By late 1983 the Atari 2600 had tanked in popularity, the US video game business had shrunk something like 90% and companies were going out of business.

Galaxian on the Atari 2600

The port of Galaxian for the Atari 2600 is so-so, not nearly as bad as Donkey Kong or Pac-Man but still not very good. Fortunately the gameplay is good enough to make up for the lack of polish in this port and the game itself is still enjoyable - if this was the last game you picked up for your Atari 2600 you could have done a lot worse (and many did... I'm looking at you E.T.)

Further Reading:

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxian

Timeline | 1983: Pole Postion for Atari 2600

Pole Position basically established the racing genre and was great fun both in the Arcades and on the Atari 2600.

Pole Position is the forerunner of the modern racing game, if you like Forza or Gran Turismo or even Mario Kart then you should pay homage to their great-great grandaddy.

The gameplay in Pole Position is very simple, you are driving a Formula 1 racing car and you go through a series of time trials, trying to stay on the track, avoid obstacles and get the best times.

A screenshot of the Arcade version of Pole Position

Released by Namco in 1982 (in Japan) and licensed to Atari for US Arcades and home consoles, Pole Position became the highest grossing Arcade game in the US in 1983 and Atari got right to work on a port to the Atari 2600.

Pole Position on the Atari 2600.

Fortunatley for games, unlike many late-era Atari 2600 ports, Pole Position made a triumphant transition to the Atari 2600. The graphics of the game were some of the best ever on the Atari 2600 (especially during its original run, some more modern home brews give it a run for its money though) and the gameplay from the arcade is almost 100% intact. Pole Position was great fun on the Atari 2600 and an awesome game to tide Atari 2600 owners over during the crash of 1983 while they waited for the NES...

Further Reading:

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_Position_(video_game)

Timeline | 1983: Mario Bros. for Atari 2600

Mario Bros. was a hit in the arcades and on the Atari 2600 before he ever went Super.

 Following the success of Donkey Kong (and its sequels), Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi (who would later design other Nintendo greats like Metroid and the Gameboy) collaborated on a spin-off that featured the main character - Mario (renamed from Jumpman) and his brother Luigi who would be plumbers fighting sewer pests in New York City - and so Mario Bros. was born (gotta love the crazy premises that spawn awesome games in the early days of video gaming).

The gameplay consisted of the player (Mario) and possibly a second player (Luigi) running and jumping around an arena dodging pests (bugs, turtles, etc.) that come from the sewer pipes. The goal is to jump and hit the platform above you while there is a pest on it which will cause them to flip over, then you can run around and jump up there and kick the pest away to kill it and get points. The premise is simple but the gameplay made for hours of fun.

A screenshot of Mario Bros. on the Atari 2600

Mario Bros. for the Atari 2600 was a much better port than Donkey Kong on the 2600 and is likely the best home console version of the game (except for the later NES version). The graphics were obviously a little lacking due to the limitations of the system as compared to arcade cabinets of the time, but the gameplay was intact and the game was fun as ever on the home TV.

Further Reading:

Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros.