Gaming in January, 1982

And thus 1982 begins in computer entertainment… The third issue of CVG is published in Britain, the second issue of CGW is published in the US. The two magazines continue on their own separate ways, CVG covers a wider variety of hardwares and games, while the CGW remains Apple II and wargame centered. Even CGW could easily be called an Apple magazine, as most the games covered in the January, 1982 issue are for the Apple II. Though it is necessary to mention, that most of these games would appear within a year or two on both the Atari 8-bit computers and the Commodore 64.

Regarding the hardware, in CGW aside from the Apple II, the TRS-80 and the Atari 8-bit are also covered with the same order of importance. In the CVG, the most often referenced hardware is the ZX-81, but there is also detailed coverage on the Atari 8-bit and VIC-20 hardwares, showing their emerging importance. Of the other platforms it is probably the TRS-80 which is worth mentioned from this side of the Atlantic as well. The hardware prices are largely the same, what is worth mentioning here is the 550£ price tag on an 80 column Atari printer, and the 230£ price on the VIC-20 80 column printer. Printers which are more expansive than the computer it is used for… sounds crazy huh? And I almost forgot it, but there is the 50£ price which let’s the computer buyer to get a cassette drive, which was probably the most economic way to get a working computer together.

Now let’s discuss the software, hoping that we can find some more interesting stuff than in the bleak December of 1981…

The first software to mention is Jumbo Jet Lander(Atari400/800/32k) which is the first flight simulator discussed on this page, and o’, what a good program it is. First, the graphics are quite good and quite fast, and a simulation is very satisfactory for one of the first PC sims. There is also Cracks of Doom(PET), which is the first Lord of the Rings game and is a text adventure. The third interesting game in CVG, is Soft Porn(Apple II), which is one of the earliest erotic games, a text adventure, and caused some controversy among the readers of the magazine. But is it a good game? Well, it does not sound to be a good game, and actually I couldn’t care less, when there are much better games around.

In CGW, the covered games are hugely different. First there is an SSI strategy, Napoleon’s Campaigns(Apple II/48k), which sounds very-very interesting, though I think I would skip on this one for now. The next one is Swordthrust(Apple II), which is called by the writer of the article the best RPG he ever played with up until that point. Galactic Empire(Apple II/48k, Atari/32k) follows, where the developer himself describes the game. There are a few older games mentioned for the Apple II. Zork and Castle Wolfenstein, which could have been easily the games of the years 1980 and 1981 respectively. Zork is unavoidable in the history of games, though it is not my cup of tea, I tried to make the initial steps in the game. Castle Wolfenstein is another game I have never completed, but it is so easy to see the great grandfather of Metal Gear in it, so I could easily rank higher than Eastern Front as the best game of 1981. There is also Ultima, which is another highlight of the year 1981, I hope I don’t need to detail why. And next there are the Battle of Siloh and Shattered Alliance, two great games from SSI which will be converted to other 8-bit platfroms in the future. Of these Shattered Alliance is the more important, because this is one of the first fantasy strategy in the world.

The attack of the the clones are another interesting things: there is a small section in CGW, mentioning these games, but there are 3 blatant ripoffs of famous arcade games available for the Atari, showcasing the early issues of copyright in gaming. The copied games are not less famous than Pac Man, Defender and Galaxian.

This is it, 1982 opens strong. And there are still many things to come from this year.

 

Gaming in November, 1981

November, 1981.

A very important month in gaming. On the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean there are two gaming magazines published for the first time. One is Computer Gaming World, the other is Computer and Video Games.These two magazines became influential and stable figures of the video game industry for many years, and now they can present us an interesting history of video games, video gaming hardware and video gaming journalism.

From the onset the two magazines differ. Computer Gaming World(CGW) is shorter, barely 40 pages. At the same time Computer and Video Games(CVG) boasts 104 pages. Opening up the two magazines they differentiate further: CVG is full of ads and pictures, it is not unlike modern magazines, except the lack of screen shots and the black and white print. On the other hand CGW has a rather laid back design, it might be a bit plain to the modern reader. But, to tell the truth, I find CGW more readable and better organised.

The platform of choice is a very interesting part of the two, it easily reflects the differences of the market between the two countries. CGW, an American magazine, covers 3 platforms: Apple 2, Atari 400/800 and TRS-80, in order of importance. Whereas CVG covers the ZX81, VIC20, Commodore PET, TRS-80, MZ80K, Acorn ATOM and AppleII computers and the Atari VCS console and some arcade games as well.

Fortunately, among the pages of CVG we can see some hardware prices listed, so let’s see what it costed to be a computer gamer in 1981: An Atari VCS costed 95£; an Atari 400/16k RAM: 345£; Atari 400/32k: 395£; Atari 800/16k: 645£. Atari disc drive: 345£; Joystick 14£. ZX81/1k: 50/70£ kit/built. Printer for ZX81: 50£, 16k RAM: 50£.

The surprising is that it was cheaper owning a base ZX81 than the Atari VCS. Now it is important to mention, that the base ZX81 was shallow compared to the Atari VCS, but arguably there were some good 1k games. By looking at the other ads, we can say, that by November 1981 the average computer had about 8/16k of RAM, even for ZX81 users it was an advised upgrade path.

In Europe, especially, the disk drive was uncommon, and this remained this way for the next few coming years. It can be easily understood, that when the disk drive prices were about the same as the computer, only a few customers were interested buying them. At least when they had a cheaper option, which were tapes!

The graphics were mostly colour graphics. The ZX81 lacked colours, but for that price there were sacrifices to be made.

Now, there are 2 interesting features in these old magazines: one is, that CVG contained game listings. Yes, in those good ole’ times you not only bought your games in stores, but you took your favourite gaming magazine, and typed in the games you found in them. Well, I have never done that, but if the games were similar to those of my old C64 BASIC books, then I don’t envy those people who did. In CGW they went in a different direction: they have professionals writing about the industry. And in the first issue of CGW, it is no-one else, but Chris Crawford who is present to write about the future of computer wargaming. For those, who don’t know Chris Crawford; he is the guy, who put together Eastern Front, one of the early highlights of computer strategies and the organizer of the original Game Developer’s Conference himself.

Now onto the games…

Most of the games covered in CGW is for the AppleII in the first place.To just mention a few, there are Torpedo Fire, a submarine simulator for Apple II/48k; RobotWar: a programmable arena game for the AppleII; B1 Nuclear War: a cold war nuclear bomber simulator with a physical map for Apple II/16k, President Elect: an election simulator for the Apple II, Eastern Front for Atari 400/800/16k.

Now in CVG we can find games like Dinowars(TRS-80) a dinosaur fighting game;Towering Inferno(MZ80K) a maze game;SeaWorlf(VIC) an arcade submarine game; Wizard of Wor the home computer version of the classic arcade game; Gold Rush(VIC20) a puzzle game centered around the gold rush of the West Coast. All in all, the big difference is the strategy/simulation orientation of CGW versus the more arcade/action orientation of CVG. The most prominent games of these are Eastern Front and Wizard of Wor, probably these are the most remembered of these by the people. The graphics in case of the Atari 400/800 are rather pleasing, however the other platforms are widely inferior, so most of the games were made with rather humble graphics at this time.