[Retro Monday] Lunar Lander
[Retro Monday] is a series that takes a look at games of the past. Expect articles chock full of interesting information; how the game ties into the political, economical, and cultural situation of its time; and most importantly, pretty pictures.
This week’s focus? Lunar Lander. There’s not much information on it, but that won’t stop me from presenting some interesting stuff to you all.
Lunar Lander is one of the first video games I played upon coming home from the hospital as a baby. The controls are simple and the results of hitting a key were immediate. This was perfect for my little toddler mind. Did I know what I was doing? No. I only knew that hitting the ground at the wrong angle would cause certain death. Did I have fun? You bet I did.
Let’s take a look at a game whose name I didn’t discover until a mere four years ago.
Lunar Lander
[Retro Monday] Ninja Gaiden
The little-article-that-could has now become a full-fledged weekly column. [Retro] will run (to the best of my abilities) once a week on Mondays. The format will be very similar, with articles chock full of interesting information; how the game ties into the political, economical, and cultural situation of its time; and most importantly, pretty pictures.
We’ll be taking a look at Ninja Gaiden in the arcades.
Ninja Gaiden, courtesy of Wikipedia
[Retro] Gauntlet
All of us got our start somewhere, whether it was seeing Star Wars as a kid, listening to Radiohead as a teen, or taking a biology course in college. While I owe Zelda: Ocarina of Time the honor of solidifying my desire to work in the games industry, there were several games before that point that influenced me and what I wanted to do. One of those games was Gauntlet Legends for the N64. Released in October of 1998, I played it a few months before I ever played Ocarina of Time. I could rent Gauntlet whenever I pleased, whereas OoT was property of my older brother. Ignoring the fact that I was only 8 and playing a T-Rated game, I had a blast. I loved the hack-n-slash dungeon crawler and it opened up a new world of games to me. I later went on to play Baldur’s Gate, The Bard’s Tale (PS2 and iOS!), and several others in that same vein.
Below is a written version of the picture-iffic presentation (or pecha kucha) I gave on the original Gauntlet, the harbinger of the hack-n-slash genre. We were to tie together the game with contemporary issues (at the time) and present how it influenced arcade culture and how it was influenced by pop culture. Without further ado, check out the written form after the jump!
Gun Fight
Gun Fight was released in 1975 on arcade cabinets everywhere within the US. Prior to that, however, Gun Fight had an interesting history. It was originally entitled Western Gun in Japan and was designed and programmed by Tomohiro Nishikado, of Space Invaders fame. It was published by Taito and released in Japan and Europe. The decision was made to then adapt it for Western audiences. This would be the first time a Japanese game was licensed for release to America. The title was changed to Gun Fight because it was thought that American players may find the current title odd or confusing. Dave Nutting and Tom McHugh of Dave Nutting Associates adapted the game for its new audience, making a few changes along the way.
Tom McHugh programmed Gun Fight a little differently than Nishikado—his programming and architecture called for the game to use an Intel 8080 computer microprocessor. It was the first arcade game ever to use a microprocessor, and the smooth frame rate and crisp graphics caused others, including Nishikado, to use microprocessors to their advantage in the future. Visually, Gun Fight was nice to look at—it ran at 60 frames per second at a resolution of 265 x 224 pixels. It made use of a black and white raster monitor with a yellow screen overlay, allowing the characters to look a bit more colorful than their counterparts in competing cabinets.
Michelle
