#0003 BreakOut

The next game on the list is none other than the 1976 blockbuster (lol) "Breakout"! Developed by Atari,  in 1976. After the success of Pong four years earlier,  many clones started springing up, and for good reason.  It was something new and fun that nobody had ever experienced before. It was only natural that people wanted more.

  

So after four years of trying to compete with other Pong clones such as "TV Ping Pong" or "Bally playtime", Atari answered the best way they could by producing more innovative games such as the seers exclusive Home Pong, which in it's self was ingenious. You like playing Pong once a week at the pizza parlor? You tired of spending 25¢ a pop? Then try Home Pong.  It's the same game, but you can play it at home...  Any time you want.... Mind=blown! And Breakout. Nolan Bushnell came up with the concept of a different kind of Pong, where instead of being a multiplayer sport simulator, they would take the ball and paddle, turn it on its side and use the ball to beak bricks on the top of the screen. It is the very essence of what a good squeal is. Instead of making the same game,  only bigger, like many triple A game companies do even today. They took the same basic concept that made Pong so great, and used it to explore completely new ideas. It was new, and it was something that could only be done in a video game.

Personally? I enjoyed it.  I mean,  it's simple,  but breaking through those blocks and finally making it to the top is a very satisfying experience. Overall, the game is still fun to play and I recommend it for anyone who has not played it, and just wants to kill 15 minutes. You might be surprised at just how addicting it can be.

And for anyone who wants to know more about the history of Pong,  Breakout, and Atari in general. I highly recommend this article from the good people at pong-story.com where I got most of my research from.

Next up: Boot Hill

#0002 Pong

Many people, especially older crowds who were young adults in the seventies, when asked what the first video game was will immediately say Pong. And while this isn't technically true, (heck,  the first game on my list was Oregon trail, a very widely played game.) there is logic in the reasoning.

Apparently, when the game was first released by then newcomers Atari in a local bar in 1971, the owner of the bar called the game developers complaining that the game wasn't working anymore. The engineer who installed the cabinet came over to have a look at the it to find that the game was just fine,  what was wrong was in just one evening the quarter slot had been completely filled. And in that evening, in that smokey bar in Sunnyvale California, the video game industry as we know it today was born.

The game consists of a small square called a ball,  and two rectangles called paddles.  You have to hit the ball past the opponents paddle to score, and avoid letting the ball get  past your own paddle. it is an incredibly simple, and can be summed up by saying "hit the ball to score points". So simple that nearly anyone can understand the concept. This is the whole reason that the game took off in the first place, it's accessibility, it's simplicity, and it's surprising attention to detail. Yes detail, for how simple the game is, it still has a couple of quirks that make it just that more “believable” for example, when you hit the ball with the paddle, depending on how far to the edge you hit it the ball will travel at a greater or lesser angle, this is called “English” and is what gives it strategy, rather than just predicting where the ball will travel. Besides the game's “English” is the surprisingly complex AI for the computer player. They could have more easily made the paddle play the game perfectly, making all the right moves and never letting the ball past it, but it does not. In fact, the AI is actually pretty fair, not letting you win the entire time, but also not being perfect. Just the right balance for the beginner player.

It's hard to imagine just what it was like seeing pong for the first time. Imagine being 10 years old walking into a Pizza parlor in 1973, you had heard of Pong, a game played through a television. It combined two of your favorite things, games, and TV. You look over at the pinball tables and see it, for the first time. Pong. The dim light from the cabinet softly illuminating the arcade corner. You'd grown up with TV, those three channels that you could watch, but never take control of. This was different. It was TV, and you actually could control it. The game was simple, sure, but it was still mind blowing to experience something like this for the first time.

The game went on to be an international success and just like with all great games, “clones” soon popped up, stealing Atari's thunder (more on that in a later article). But without Pong, video games as we know them might not even exist. Computer games? Sure, but arcades and consoles? Probably not. The game is available for free at Atariarcade.com, everyone who considered themselves a gamer if they have not already, owes it to themselves to go play this piece of history and pay homage to the ball and paddles that paved the way for games today.

Up next: Breakout

#0001 Oregon Trail

#0001 Oregon Trail

 Alright! Our quest begins with an admittedly surprising first entry. Oregon Trail. Yeah, you know that game you used to play in elementary school? Teachers thought it was educational, but you just played it so you could name your character Kenny and make him die of starvation? Yeah, the first version of this game was released in 1971! Making it even older than Pong.

Developed Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971, and then aquired by MECC in 1974, and has then been releaseing sequals and remakes for the game ever since, making it the longest running game series in history!

In this game you play as a wagon leader and must move his family from Independence Missouri to

Willamette Valley, Oregon via Covered Wagon. That's over 2000 miles, or, 3219 Km that'd be quite a rough move even today with our moving vans, cars and such. But in 1848, traveling such a distance was almost unheard of, there was a good chance that you could DIE from such a journey. And... You usually do. I mean, it's actually really hard to play this game and NOT have one of your family die from measles, or a snakebite, or dysentery, or typhoid, or cholera, or exhaustion, or starvation, or drown in a river because you decided it would be a good idea to just try and float your waggon across the snake river to save a couple bucks on a ferry. 

See, this is another aspect of the game, decision making. From the very beginning you must make decisions that will effect the entire course of the game. Do you pack tons of supplies to ensure that you're comfortable? Or do you pack light to enable faster traveling? Do you leave in march to reach Oregon before winter? Or do you leave later to try and avoid the crowded trails? No matter what you choose it's safe to bet that it'll be no cake walk. In my journey, I decided to buy 8 Oxen to make sure that I could lose a couple and still be more than okay. But before I even reached the first land mark a thief stole ALL of them. My only option was to wait until someone was kind enough to trade me a couple oxen so I could make it to the next town and buy more. That's honestly where this game shines. In it's dificulty. It really makes you think about how hard it might have been for people traveling to the west.

Overall, this game is absolutely phenomenal for it's time. Considering that It came out a full year before Pong, yet it has graphics that even the Atari 2600 could later have a hard time replicating, along with fairly complex game mechanics that make you really feel like you're traveling the west. It's such a good game that I don't know a single person that did not grow up playing it. All in all, I'd recommend that you go and give it a shot, but let's be honest, you probably already have.