pitfall – Obsolete Gamer

“I would have never predicted the classic gaming movement where people continue to play their favorite games 30 years later and who bring in a new generation by exposing their kids to the classics,” he stated. “Sure, we tweaked the games to a fine point and we felt those games were the best games on the market at the time, but it still surprises me when classic gaming enthusiasts tell me that for pure game play, modern games fail to live up to the standards we set back in the day.”

NES

Eric Bailey

Amagon

Considering the patterned movements of many of the enemy obstacles, this already creates the inherent issue of requiring the player to undergo trial-and-error gameplay techniques in order to conquer the game, which provides a very repetitive, unenjoyable time. Even when Amagon is able to transform into the much (much, much) more powerful Megagon, it is still for a limited time, and ultimately a cartridge cannot rely solely on a single appeal in order to make a great game.

Blog

Patrick Scott Patterson

The Classic Gaming Birthday Round Up

Capcom introduced this one-on-one fighter to arcades on August 30, 1987 in two different cabinet styles. The first featured two pressure sensitive “punch” pads while another marked what would be the first-ever six button layout on a fighting game. While the original Street Fighter was only a modest success, the impact of the game on video game history cannot be fully stated in a short article. Street Fighter II, first introduced in 1991, became the biggest arcade hit since Pac-Man and spawned an entire generation of fighting games. Today, the Street Fighter franchise is one of the most competitive scenes in all of professional video gaming.

Mobile Games

J.A. Laraque

Activision Classic Anthology available now for mobile devices

Experience the best retro classic games from the 2600 era with the all-new Activision Anthology App for tablets and smartphones! Available for the first time on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android devices, gamers can play the original games that started it all. Activision Anthology gives gamers KABOOM!™ for FREE and access to 45 Activision and Imagic games including: PITFALL!™, RIVER RAID™, THE ACTIVISION® DECATHLON, BARNSTORMING™, STAMPEDE™, PITFALL II, ENDURO™, DEMON ATTACK, and many more!

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Did you know: Vol 1

There is a little more to this story. With the success of Pong, created by Nolan Bushnell, he and Steve Bristow came up with an idea to create a single player version of Pong and so the concept of Breakout was born. Steve Jobs was tasked with creating the game and brought on Steve Wozniak to help engineer the game. After a lot of sleepless nights and other adventures the project was done. Now in the end Atari had to do some reworking to Wozniak’s design before the final product was released, but overall that is why Steve Jobs got the credit for the creation of Breakout.

Blog

J.A. Laraque

Mobile Reboot of Pitfall coming soon

It looks as if Activision Leeds is working on a reboot of the Atari 2600 classic Pitfall. In the original game, your goal was to guide Pitfall Harry through a jungle filled with dangerous hazards such as crocodiles, scorpions and even the deadly barrel. “We’ve been working on Pitfall since earlier in the year when we set up and it has been really good to revisit that and bring it to a modern audience,” Martyn Brown director of Activision communications said. Pitfall celebrates its 30th anniversary this year so it makes sense to see a reboot in the works and what better place than a smartphone. A release date has not been established yet, but look for it to be available before the end of the year.

Company Representatives

J.A. Laraque

Melissa Burns: The Museum of Mobility History

Pitfall Harry entertained me for a week straight in the early 80’s while I was stuck at home trying to deal with the Chicken Pox. Even at a very young age I loved the thrill of completing a task under a tight deadline, and collecting all those treasures while timing the hazards just perfectly was the ultimate in entertainment. It kept me hooked well after I recovered from the pox.