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70s Gaming


On 07/02/2022 at 11:59 AM by KnightDriver

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Studying 70s culture and media this month. What about gaming?

Here's an article from the Guardian I just read by Keith Stuart. And here's his top 15 in list format:

01. Galaxian
02. Asteroids
03. Space Invaders
04. Breakout
05. Lunar Lander
06. Star Raiders
07. Sprint 2
08. Zork
09. MUD 1
10. Oregon Trail
11. Western Gun
12. Sea Wolf
13. Computer Space
14. Mattel Auto Race
15. Pong

Not a bad list. I've played most of them. Here's my list. 

1. Lunar Rescue
2. Lunar Lander
3. Super Breakout
4. Bowling (AVCS)
5. Night Driver
6. Galaxian
7. Astroids
8. Space Invaders
9. Indy 800
10.Sea Wolf
11. Pong

For the remaining four, I'd list other games I really liked in the 70s. 

12. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 
13. Squad Leader (Avalon Hill)
14. Victory At Sea (Avalon Hill)
15. London Cabbie Game (board game)

 


 

Comments

SanAndreas

07/02/2022 at 06:19 PM

I've played all of the games on the top list except for Computer Space MUD 1, Mattel Auto Race, and Sprint 2. I've played plenty of derivatives of Computer Space, including Atari's Space War. One game from the 70s that I played that isn't on the list was Temple of Apshai.

Fun fact: the best selling video game hardware of the 1970s wasn't the Atari 2600. It was Nintendo's Color TV Game, which was a Pong clone sold only in Japan. Even in the 1970s Nintendo was still the king, lol.

KnightDriver

07/06/2022 at 03:03 PM

Temple of Apshai. I see there was a Mac version. It would've been cool to play it on that platform back in the 80s when I had a Mac. 

SanAndreas

07/07/2022 at 07:35 PM

I played an Atari 8-bit remake of Temple of Apshai plus its two sequels, Upper Reaches of Apshai and Curse of Ra. It was very abstract even as a remake. It had graphical player character and monster sprites, but you were supposed to use the paper documentation that came with the games for descriptions of the dungeons, which were depicted as simple walls and floors. So it was kind of a hybrid of a computer RPG and a pen-and-paper game. You were even supposed to create your character based off of your D&D characters. I had a pirated copy, and didn't have the documentation. I also didn't play D&D, so I just gave all my characters stats of 18 and +9 armor and weapons.

KnightDriver

07/08/2022 at 11:22 AM

Interesting. I still have some character sheets from long ago I could use. 

For shame giving yourself all 18s and not rolling them properly. Haha. 

Cary Woodham

07/03/2022 at 08:11 AM

I've played most of those games on your ist, but not in the time period they were released.  During that time, I was playing games like, "Being Born," and "Pooping in my Diaper."

The first video game I probably played was Pong, but at the time I didn't realize it was a video game.  My dad built our first TV from a Heathkit parts catalog, and he instealled a Pong clone in it, so channel 3 was always set to Pong.  I didn't think it was a video game, just something you could do when there wasn't anything else on TV.

The first time I realized I was playing a video game was when I first played Pac-Man.  But by then the 70s were over.

One game from the 70s I really did enjoy as a little kid was Atari's Fire Truck.  But that probaby had more to do with how little kids just like fire trucks!

SanAndreas

07/03/2022 at 07:01 PM

My dad built one of those Heathkit TVs. For a long time, the TV tube with the bare circuitry sat on a console in our living room. My parents made sure to put the fear of God into me if I ever touched anything behind the screen. A little later, my dad built a console to house the TV, so they didn't have to worry about me electrocuting myself. We had a TI-99/4A computer hooked to it that my dad would let me use on special occasions, and my sister had an old Pong clone console. I thought it was just cool making stuff on a TV screen move. My mom also had a TRS-80 computer, but since that had its own monitor includede, it wasn't as neat as making things move on the living room TV.

Cary Woodham

07/03/2022 at 08:54 PM

On special occaisions, we'd hook up the Apple ][+ to the Heathkit TV so we could play games in COLOR!

KnightDriver

07/06/2022 at 03:05 PM

I didn't play some of those back then either. Those Mattell handhelds though. My friends and I played a bunch of different Mattel handheld sports games. Also, Simon. 

Super Step Contributing Writer

07/04/2022 at 12:00 AM

Man, I did not know Oregon Trail was a 70s game. Dysentery all the way into the 90s!

KnightDriver

07/06/2022 at 02:55 PM

I didn't know it was made in the very early 70s too. I always thought it was some game on school computers in the 80s. Not sure I ever played it either. 

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