The Silver Age of Home Video Games

[Flick James]

We all know the golden age of the first Nintendo system and games like the original Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. But what about the systems that came before? I grew up with an Atari 2600, the one that came with two square joysticks that had a single "fire" button. There were other competing systems, like ColecoVision and Magnavox Odyssey 2, but the Atari 2600 dominated the market. In my very middle middle class neighborhood, about 20% of the kids had one, and I was one of them. I think I got it on Christmas in 1978. One of my best friends also had one, and we actually made a coordinated effort in our schemes to ask for new games from our parents. We didn't both ask for the same games, so that way, what I had he didn't, and what he had I didn't. I wish I had been that resourceful in other areas of my life. He had Pitfall, and Missile Command, and Pac Man, while I had Space Invaders, Asteroids, and the precursor to all fantasy-based video games, Adventure. Does anybody remember Adventure? Talk about primitive. Look at the image below:



Yes, the square dot on the right is the player's character. And what's that arrow symbol next to the square dot? Why, his sword, of course. That should be obvious. Oh, and then there's the dragon in the middle of the screen that I'm supposed to kill with the arrow-sword, and if I fail and the dragon eats me, the square dot actually goes into that donut-hole area in the dragon's belly. Amazing. And the object to the left? That's the chalice I have to retrieve after I kill the dragon and take back to the golden castle.

I make fun, but Adventure was the first video game that allowed a player to store and select items. I spent countless hours trying to solve the game and go through complex multi-screen graphical mazes, like this:



There's that f**king dragon again, and here I am holding a key. Where's that blasted arrow I call a sword?

This is what I grew up with. This is what came before the Nintendo and the Playstation. This was everything to a boy like me in the late 70's and early 80's. Memory lane, indeed.

[Skull]

lol... My dad was funny at times. [parents were devorced since 1973]

My mother told him she wanted me to get a computer (this was around 1981?) so he got me an Atari 800 computer... I had Star Raiders (which was much better then the 2600) and Q*bert.



Although it wasnt my first video game system... I had a pong system around 1978-1979 but the system offered a gun that you could shoot at the floating pong dot. (but it turned out that all you had to do is shoot the gun in the middle of the screen)

we got a 2600 syestem I think around 1982-83, the prices were cheap and the Atari 800 games costed too much.

[Mr. DS]

My brother had an Atari 2600 which I honestly played more than him.  I think I was about 6 when I first started.  We had so many games and each one we thought were cutting edge for their time.  I recall wasting hours playing Combat with my brother and those memories are fond ones.  I played many others like Demon Attack, Pitfall, Spiderman, Asteroids, Keystone Capers, etc.  

I also rocked the Commodore 64 for gaming.  Stuff like Maniac Mansion and Strip Poker.

[retrorussell]

My absolute faves for each system I had back then:

Pitfall II (Atari 2600)
Asteroids (Atari 2600)




Burgertime (Intellivision)
Astrosmash (Intellivision)
Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure On Cloudy Mountain (Intellivision)






Didn't much play any of the other systems at the time, until I got an NES in 1986 or 1987.

[JaseSF]

I had an Atari 2600 which was really a very expensive gift from my parents at the time (and perhaps the one I most cherished from my childhood). I remember the games were quite expensive too although I had a few. I remember really loving Plague Attack (a quirky shooter where you're a toothpaste tube firing at stuff trying to mess up your teeth) and Barnstorming (where you got to fly a plane down through barns and up again - which was amazing fun to me and my friends). Defender, a space style shooter game, came free with the system and I eventually got so good at it I could get the top score repeatedly over and over again. I also had the Ice Hockey game which had pretty lame graphics but I still played it endlessly too. Of course, several of my friends had Ataris too and I recall it being some of the best fun I ever had playing games like Pac-Man, Qbert and Dig Dug with friends. I also recall playing the Colecovision and the Intellivision (mainly Pong) at the homes of other family friends. Eventually a cousin got a Nintendo and we played Donkey Kong and a Popeye game quite a bit.

[Jim H]

A friend of mine bought an Atari 2600, an Atari 7800, two controllers for each, and a box with about 15 or 20 games for $5 at a garage sale.  I bought it from him for $4 later on, probably around 1999.  I've since purchased maybe 15 or 20 more games.  They cost $1 at my local video game store.



Berzerk is the game I played most recently.  It's pretty fun.  I like the Atari, though I'll admit I have to play it in small doses of 20-30 minutes at a time. 

[The Burgomaster]

I remember playing this old Atari football (American football, that is) game with my cousin back in the 1970s:



Then we got really excited when Intellivision came out with this "state of the art" football game:

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

Does anybody remember Adventure? Talk about primitive. Look at the image below:



Yes, the square dot on the right is the player's character. And what's that arrow symbol next to the square dot? Why, his sword, of course. That should be obvious. Oh, and then there's the dragon in the middle of the screen that I'm supposed to kill with the arrow-sword, and if I fail and the dragon eats me, the square dot actually goes into that donut-hole area in the dragon's belly. Amazing. And the object to the left? That's the chalice I have to retrieve after I kill the dragon and take back to the golden castle.

I make fun, but Adventure was the first video game that allowed a player to store and select items. I spent countless hours trying to solve the game and go through complex multi-screen graphical mazes, like this:



There's that f**king dragon again, and here I am holding a key. Where's that blasted arrow I call a sword?

Yep, I remember Adventure! I got it sometime around 1980 or 81' for a Christmas present.  There was also a little secret to the game. If you took every single onsrceen game object to the room with the magic barrier, (the line that went down from the top of the screen) you could actually pass thru the barrier and see the credits for the game.

I also remember getting swallowed by the dragon, (ending the game) and seeing your little onscreen guy inside the dragon's stomach.  And then there was that bat that would take everything on you.  Those were the days...

[Umaril The Unfeathered]

A friend of mine bought an Atari 2600, an Atari 7800, two controllers for each, and a box with about 15 or 20 games for $5 at a garage sale.  I bought it from him for $4 later on, probably around 1999.  I've since purchased maybe 15 or 20 more games.  They cost $1 at my local video game store.



Berzerk is the game I played most recently.  It's pretty fun.  I like the Atari, though I'll admit I have to play it in small doses of 20-30 minutes at a time. 

Yeah, I had Berzerk for my 2600 too.  Of the arcade games that Atari reproduced, this one was the closest to the arcade version (imho anyhow) and all you needed was the electronice voice to complete the image.

[voltron]

I was really, really spoiled as a kid. I had a Vic-20, which was Commodore's precursor to the C64 (which is easily my favorite old school gaming system). I also had an Atari too. Remember when my grandmother got me this one as a gift when I was little......

[Flick James]

I was really, really spoiled as a kid. I had a Vic-20, which was Commodore's precursor to the C64 (which is easily my favorite old school gaming system). I also had an Atari too. Remember when my grandmother got me this one as a gift when I was little......

Pretty much looks like Adventure

[voltron]

Here's a Vic 20 game I remember having (and one of the first "movie" games I can recall there being out there)....Alien!!





Makes the 2600 and the C64 look pretty mindblowing, huh?

[retrorussell]

On the crappy end of the spectrum..

Intellivision's Donkey Kong

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

My absolute faves for each system I had back then:

Astrosmash (Intellivision)
Dungeons & Dragons: Adventure On Cloudy Mountain (Intellivision)

Grew up on Intellivision. Astrosmash was my favorite. I remember being young and seeing that there was a teleport button and it blew me away. For D&D was able to make it through parts of the game the the dragon noise always creeped me out way too much. Ended up having pops play the rest of the way through.

[The Burgomaster]

I also remember the early PC games.  They had no images, just text.  They were sort of like playing DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS.  The text would describe a situation and you would type in your action.  Based on what you typed, the story would advance along one of several paths and some new text would pop up telling you the results of your action and setting you up for the next action.  I had a RAMBO game and Steven King's THE MIST.

For example, in RAMBO the text might be, "You see a group of enemy soldiers."  You might type in, "Shoot."  Then the text might say, "You killed one soldier, but the others are firing back at you."  The game would go on and on like this until you either won or picked the wrong action and got killed.  It was "state of the art" then, but would probably be pretty dull now.