Vintage Games by Bill Loguidice; Matt Barton

Author:Bill Loguidice; Matt Barton [Barton, Bill Loguidice; Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Computers, Video & Electronic, Video Games, Programming, Video Games - History, Games, History, vl-nfcompvg
ISBN: 9780240811468
Google: M_bFdsP9L7oC
Amazon: 0240811461
Publisher: Focal Press
Published: 2009-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

198 Chapter 14 POLE POSITION (1982): WHERE THE RASTER MEETS THE ROAD

consisted of running over people (later called “gremlins”) to earn points. An otherwise utterly forgettable game, Death Race attracted the attention of the mass media, and the resulting controversy marred the image of the neophyte arcade industry. Such hysteria is still with us today, as any fan of Grand Theft Auto (see Chapter 9 ,

“ Grand Theft Auto III (2001): The Consolejacking Life”) can easily attest.

Screenshot from Atari’s Night

Driver with simulated plastic

overlay.

Some of the leftover cabinets from

Highway

were used for

Atari’s Night Driver , released in 1976. Night Driver was a different kind of racing game. Superfi cially, it resembled the older electromechanical games, which offered a scrolling road rather than a fi xed view. Atari’s game was black and white, and the car was merely a plastic overlay glued to the bottom of the screen.

The “night driving” aspect of the game was a brilliant design decision, as it justifi ed the sparse graphics, which consisted of rectangular refl ectors that demarcated the road. The challenge came from taking sharp turns at high speeds; there were no other cars. Despite all these limitations, the game deserves some respect for offering some semblance of the fi rst-person perspective that would become such an integral part of later racing games.

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