This July, the NES, or the Famicom as it was known in Japan, will turn 30. To commemorate this event, Nintendo is offering a game a month at the apropos price of 30 cents, up to and including July.
Here is the list:
Jan - Balloon Fight (NES)
Feb - F-Zero (SNES)
Mar - Punch-Out! Featuring Mr. Dream (NES)
Apr - Kirby's Adventure (NES)
May - Super Metroid (SNES)
Jun - Yoshi (NES)
Jul - Donkey Kong (NES)
They are the full versions of each game. Pick up one of these classics each month on the Wii U eShop and get yourself psyched for the summer celebrations!
With the 27th anniversary of the proper launch of the Atari 7800 this month, here is a little retrospective on the console.
While the Atari 7800 might be historically viewed as a misfire on Atari's part, we can at least appreciate the console for what it is. The console was intended to get a headstart on the NES as Nintendo had already approached Atari and asked them if they wanted to handle distribution rights in North America for the console for them. While in retrospect this was a boneheaded move times were different and Atari was a self sufficient company who wanted to remain that way.
After some legal tussling the proper launch of the console was delayed until 1986 and in a somewhat questionable strategic move the 7800 launched with games that were developed 2 years before and as such seemed dated.
The POKEY poking around.
What about the console itself? It's an interesting beast being capable of playing 2600 software in addition to 7800 games. The hardware was similar to Atari's earlier systems in that it rendered in between scanlines. The audio hardware was also identical to the 2600 in the console itself but developers could include a POKEY sound chip in the cartridge to enhance the soundtrack of a game. The POKEY was a flexible chip that could be used for a few different things but was mostly used for music generation in the Atari 8-bit family.
What about the games? Unfortunately due to limited developer support the 7800 library pales in comparison to the Master System and NES. That isn't to say the console doesn't have its fair share of great games though! The console featured a brilliant conversion of Commando which used the POKEY chip to enhance the sound. This game really stands out as one of the best on the console.
Screenshot of Commando.
Another great game that used the POKEY was Ballblazer which was a fast paced 3D tank shooter with a great soundtrack.
This doesn't look like much here but it's actually quite amazing.
Other beloved games in the Atari 7800 library include the brilliant Ninja Golf which incorporates ninja combat into a traditional game of golf, Midnight Mutants, Desert Falcon and even Xevious!
Ninja Golf being both brilliant and incoherent.
The Atari 7800 really is a great little console. It's sleek, has a well designed controller and for collectors the library of games is definitely one that is within the realm of completing. The games themselves are fun to play as well with Atari staples like Joust and Centipede rounding out some great third party efforts. In honour of this somewhat forgotten gem from gaming past I highly recommend you pick one up on eBay as the 7800 really deserves another play for its birthday. Any Atariphiles out there want to weigh in on the 7800? It'd be great to hear memories from when you were younger or just some nice thoughts about the console! For more information on the Atari 7800, consult your local Dot Eaters entry.
On November 29, 1972, a recently incorporated company in California named Atari announced the release of its first product, an electronic video arcade game called PONG. Two players would stand at the wood-grain and yellow cabinet, twiddling the control knobs that moved two paddles displayed on a B&W TV screen. With the paddles they would play an electronically abstract game of table tennis, batting a little white blip back and forth in an attempt to "Avoid Missing Ball For High Score", as the simple gameplay instructions prompted.
Conceived by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell and designed by Al Alcorn, Pong was a smash success, giving birth to the video game industry. Fast-forward nearly 40 years later, in 2011 that industry was worth US$65 billion dollars.
Among other celebrations of Pong's 40th birthday, an attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest game of Pong was made on Nov. 16, 2012. A 22-story version of the game, complete with festive lighting, was played on the side of the Downtown Marriott hotel in Kansas City, MO.
In a lead-up to the anniversary, earlier this year Atari announced the Pong Indie Developer Challenge. Offering a grand prize of up to $100,000, the company solicited independent app developers to submit their take on the venerable Pong. The three winners were announced on Aug. 2, and they will participate in a profit sharing scheme divided between the three Pong apps that will see them collect royalties up to the winning prize amounts. The top winner, the freemium-based PONG World by zGames, can be snagged at the iOS App Store here.
Pong put Atari on the road to becoming the fastest growing company in American history. It's no stretch to consider that when you say Pong is 40 years-old today, you're also saying the video game industry is 40 years-old. So like those tipsy patrons of Andy Capp's bar in Sunnyvale California, who played the original Pong prototype until it broke and convinced Bushnell and Atari to produce the game commercially, raise a glass to the grand-daddy of the video game industry. Your serve, PONG!
