Showing posts with label cover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cover. Show all posts
Monday, 6 April 2015
Cover to Cover Adventure International Spring 1981 Catalog pp 19 20
Were looking at two more pages from the substantial Adventure International catalog, marketing Scott Adams classic adventures as well as a number of other products in the early days of home computer gaming circa Spring 1981.
Page 19 features a combined house ad and distribution/submission solicitation -- thats Scott Adams himself on the right, Im not sure who the pirate is but I suspect hes making bootleg copies of the products while Scott looks the other way. Or soliciting drugs, depending on how you interpret his word balloon:
I always wanted to see this ad in full color, because it captures Peppys original cover art for many of these vintage products -- I suspect it was run in that format in magazines but I havent run across it.
Page 20 devotes an entire page to the sophisticated (by 1981 standards) sci-fi simulation trilogy, Galactic Saga:
The package consists of three separate experiences -- Galactic Empire, Galactic Trader and Galactic Revolution -- and was created by one Doug Carlston, who with his brother Gary would later found the software publishing powerhouse Brøderbund Software. Later Adventure International catalogs credit the game to Brøderbund instead of Carlston personally, and Wikipedia lists Galactic Empire as the companys first product, but at least in its very early days this burgeoning giant relied on another company for distribution.
More to come in the not-too-far-off future!
Read more »
Page 19 features a combined house ad and distribution/submission solicitation -- thats Scott Adams himself on the right, Im not sure who the pirate is but I suspect hes making bootleg copies of the products while Scott looks the other way. Or soliciting drugs, depending on how you interpret his word balloon:
I always wanted to see this ad in full color, because it captures Peppys original cover art for many of these vintage products -- I suspect it was run in that format in magazines but I havent run across it.
Page 20 devotes an entire page to the sophisticated (by 1981 standards) sci-fi simulation trilogy, Galactic Saga:
The package consists of three separate experiences -- Galactic Empire, Galactic Trader and Galactic Revolution -- and was created by one Doug Carlston, who with his brother Gary would later found the software publishing powerhouse Brøderbund Software. Later Adventure International catalogs credit the game to Brøderbund instead of Carlston personally, and Wikipedia lists Galactic Empire as the companys first product, but at least in its very early days this burgeoning giant relied on another company for distribution.
More to come in the not-too-far-off future!
Cover to Cover Activision Atari 2600 1989 Catalog pp 4 5
Were looking at the 1989 Activision/Absolute/Imagic product catalog -- all the companys then-current offerings for the rapidly-becoming-obsolete Atari 2600.
Page 4 continues to clear out the warehouse -- thats speculation on my part, actually, its possible that Activision was producing new cartridges for some of these titles -- with several more Activision classics:
Space Shuttle by Steve Kitchen was a remarkably complex shuttle takeoff and landing simulation that transformed the 2600s bank of switches into game controls to supplement the systems standard joystick; later versions for computers were more sophisticated, but this was a creditable simulation on the humble Atari console. Brother Garry Kitchens Keystone Kapers was a fast-paced, colorful chase game that remains one of my favorite 2600 cartridges, and River Raid was a vertically-scrolling shooter that squeezed a lot of action out of limited resources. It was designed and programmed by Carol Shaw, one of the few prominent female designers in the video game industry at the time.
Page 5 promotes several games that might have been in development during the first wave of home videogames but didnt see release until Atari revived its system after Nintendo revived the industry. We have two Absolute Entertainment titles, which were also available for the more powerful Atari 7800, and a 2600 version of one of the games that helped Activision survive the mid-80s crash:
Title Match Pro Wrestling was a one-on-one wrestling game with player-vs.CPU and two-player modes; given the challenges of programming the AI, its no surprise that the graphics are rather limited and the gameplay a bit tougher than it needed to be. Skateboardin was a side-scrolling skateboard platformer that pushed the 2600 technically but wasnt a particularly memorable game; the NES pretty much owned side-scrolling territory and this attempt at doing the same looked extremely dated on release. The 7800 versions looked significantly better, but are not pictured here; the second one sported the "upgraded" moniker of Super Skateboardin on Ataris more sophisticated console, itself a casualty of the crash that was brought to market late, just in time to look a bit long in the tooth.
Activisions licensed Ghostbusters works well on the 2600, considering that it originated on the considerably more powerful Commodore 64 several years earlier. Activision survived the crash in part because it had a more diverse product line -- it hadnt put all its eggs in the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision baskets, so when those markets vanished seemingly overnight its computer titles saw it through the tough times. (The company also had some cash reserves, I would guess -- Imagic had also started to branch out, but didnt survive; perhaps Imagic depended too heavily on computer ports of its classic but aging Atari 2600 games.)
Tomorrow, well wrap up this little trip down memory lane -- just two more pages to go.
Read more »
Page 4 continues to clear out the warehouse -- thats speculation on my part, actually, its possible that Activision was producing new cartridges for some of these titles -- with several more Activision classics:
Space Shuttle by Steve Kitchen was a remarkably complex shuttle takeoff and landing simulation that transformed the 2600s bank of switches into game controls to supplement the systems standard joystick; later versions for computers were more sophisticated, but this was a creditable simulation on the humble Atari console. Brother Garry Kitchens Keystone Kapers was a fast-paced, colorful chase game that remains one of my favorite 2600 cartridges, and River Raid was a vertically-scrolling shooter that squeezed a lot of action out of limited resources. It was designed and programmed by Carol Shaw, one of the few prominent female designers in the video game industry at the time.
Page 5 promotes several games that might have been in development during the first wave of home videogames but didnt see release until Atari revived its system after Nintendo revived the industry. We have two Absolute Entertainment titles, which were also available for the more powerful Atari 7800, and a 2600 version of one of the games that helped Activision survive the mid-80s crash:
Title Match Pro Wrestling was a one-on-one wrestling game with player-vs.CPU and two-player modes; given the challenges of programming the AI, its no surprise that the graphics are rather limited and the gameplay a bit tougher than it needed to be. Skateboardin was a side-scrolling skateboard platformer that pushed the 2600 technically but wasnt a particularly memorable game; the NES pretty much owned side-scrolling territory and this attempt at doing the same looked extremely dated on release. The 7800 versions looked significantly better, but are not pictured here; the second one sported the "upgraded" moniker of Super Skateboardin on Ataris more sophisticated console, itself a casualty of the crash that was brought to market late, just in time to look a bit long in the tooth.
Activisions licensed Ghostbusters works well on the 2600, considering that it originated on the considerably more powerful Commodore 64 several years earlier. Activision survived the crash in part because it had a more diverse product line -- it hadnt put all its eggs in the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision baskets, so when those markets vanished seemingly overnight its computer titles saw it through the tough times. (The company also had some cash reserves, I would guess -- Imagic had also started to branch out, but didnt survive; perhaps Imagic depended too heavily on computer ports of its classic but aging Atari 2600 games.)
Tomorrow, well wrap up this little trip down memory lane -- just two more pages to go.
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