Video Olympics

Video Olympics is a video game programmed by Joe Decuir for the Atari 2600.[1] It is one of the nine 2600 launch titles Atari, Inc. published when the 2600 system was released in September 1977. The cartridge is a collection of games from Atari's popular arcade Pong series. A similar collection in arcade machine form called Tournament Table was published by Atari in 1978.[2]

Video Olympics
Developer(s)Atari, Inc.
Publisher(s)Atari, Inc.
Designer(s)Joe Decuir[1]
Platform(s)Atari 2600
Release
  • NA: September 11, 1977
Genre(s)Sports
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Video Olympics was rebranded by Sears as Pong Sports.

Gameplay

The games are a collection of bat-and-ball style games, including several previously released by Atari, Inc. as arcade games. The games use the Video Computer System's paddle controllers,[3] and are for one to four players (three or four players requires a second set of paddles).

Games
The Hockey variation

Video Olympics includes 50 games and variations:[4]: 30 

  • Pong - The classic table tennis simulation.[5]: 42 
  • Super Pong - A Pong variation where each player has two paddles.[5]: 42 
  • Robot Pong - A solitaire Pong variation.[5]: 42 
  • Pong Doubles
  • Quadrapong - A four-player, four-wall Pong variation.[5]: 42 
  • Foozpong - Based on Foozball, this Pong variant has the players control a vertical three-paddle column.[5]: 42 
  • Soccer[6]
  • Handball - A handball simulation.[5]: 42 
  • Ice hockey
  • Hockey III - An ice hockey simulation where players can catch and shoot the puck at the opposing goal.[5]: 42 
  • Basketball - A basketball simulation.[5]: 42 
  • Volleyball - A volleyball simulation where the traditional (Pong-style) left-right volley is swapped for a top-bottom volley. Players can volley or spike.[5]: 42 

Reception

The cartridge and its individual games were reviewed twice in Video magazine. In the Winter 1979 issue of Video, the cartridge was reviewed as part of a general review of the Atari VCS where it received a review score of 8.5 out of 10, and its constituent games were characterized as "old standbys" but "still lots of fun".[4]: 33  A more thorough review appeared in Video's "Arcade Alley" column in the Summer 1979 issue where the release was generally praised for "tak[ing] Atari's Pong concept and explor[ing] it to the limit." Individual games were singled out as well, with praise for Volleyball and Robot Pong (described as "astonishingly good"), and criticism for Handball (for its use of a visually disturbing blinking paddle rather than an absent paddle to indicate inactive players), and Basketball (described as primitive compared to Atari's own 1978 version of Basketball).[5]: 42 

See also

References
  1. Hague, James. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers".
  2. Tournament Table at the Killer List of Videogames
  3. "AtariAge - Atari 2600 Manuals (HTML) - Video Olympics (Atari)".
  4. Kaplan, Deeny, ed. (Winter 1979). "VideoTest Report Number 18: Atari Video Computer". Video. Reese Communications. 1 (5): 30–34. ISSN 0147-8907.
  5. Kunkel, Bill; Laney, Frank T. II (Summer 1979). "Arcade Alley: Atari Video Computer System". Video. Reese Communications. 2 (3): 42, 43, and 66. ISSN 0147-8907.
  6. "Creative Computing (Better Scan) 1978 07". July 1978.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.