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Mezrabad

Entry posted by Mezrabad

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Welcome back to what I'm now calling Chronogamer LE. The LE stands for Low Effort. If I have to really work up any enthusiasm to play something then that's too much effort, so I will learn what I can about it, read the manual, maybe do some research and play it for as long as I can stand it. If I try to get more involved in it, I'll end up going down a sort of procrastination rabbit-hole where I put it off for, like, half a decade or more and it blocks me from moving forward. I've recently learned I can blame ADHD for this, so, yay for me.

 

Oh, by the way, I found Random Terrain's page that presents some optimal guessing regarding the release dates of games released to be played on the Atari VCS. Nice Job, RT! Your have made it a lot easier for me to get back into this.

 

Bridge (Atari VCS, 1980, Activision)

 

The manual for Activision's Bridge will not teach you to play Bridge. You have to have that knowledge ahead of time. You can get that knowledge from YouTube. You'll learn that it normally takes four people to play this game. You can learn everything you need to get started in about 10 minutes or even less. If you have three other people that you want to hang out with and try a new card game, then this could possibly be an interesting game. Maybe. I'd have to really like at least one of the other people involved to even think about playing any card game these days. Okay, I take that back. I did enjoy playing some Texas Hold-em prior to the Pandemic, but there was money involved and also an attractive woman, so, I guess we understand what motivates me. (It wasn't the money.)

 

Activision's Bridge is for a single player. Like the manual, I don't want to teach you anything about playing Bridge. Sorry. Kinda. Don't look at me like that, just go to YouTube.

 

Regarding this video game: I can see that there is planning and some tactical thinking involved. I can see the appeal of playing this as a social card game with other people. I can see the appeal of having a video game version of Bridge to help a player practice to improve how they play the game. I can even appreciate Activision's Bridge as a way of exploring how to think about playing the card game Bridge. These are worthy and noble pursuits and I admire the courage it must've took for Activision to produce this as one of the four games they debuted in 1980. (Edit: This game DID come out in 1980, but it was not one of the four debut games. They were: Boxing, Checkers, Dragster and Fishing Derby. I'll get better at playing these things in order now that I have a better order for them, but I've dreaded playing Bridge for so long that I needed to get it out of the way so that I could just get back to doing this.)

 

That doesn't mean I have any interest in ever playing it again. Also, I'm a little resentful that I've learned to play a card game that I'll probably never ever play. This is where I'd give the game an emoji rating but it's been so long since I've posted I don't even remember how to do them. In this case it would be one of those "meh" emojis. :|  Oh... okay, that was easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for reading!

 

I might go on YouTube with these articles and show actual game play. I know that I've almost done this in the past and then deleted my YouTube. Sorry about that.

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Nathan Strum

Welcome back! (Yes... I'm a month late. But I don't get over to the blogs much anymore. Including my own.)

 

I like the LE concept. I may have to adopt it for my own blog's Homebreviews, since I fall victim to the "ugh... that game is going to be sssoooo much work to review" (crawls in a corner and binge watches episodes of Columbo instead) syndrome as well.

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ubersaurus

You may appreciate the list of release dates I’ve been maintaining for the array of early home consoles on Atariarchive.org - Bridge, for example, seems to have been a December 1980 game. Welcome back!

Edited by ubersaurus
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SoundGammon

Bridge is also the only game Activision released a fixed version. There was a bug in the way the computer made bids/plays and Activision fixed it and released it. The way to tell the fixed version is that the cart label picture is actuality a real screen shot, not a mock up like all the others! 

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Mezrabad
On 5/13/2021 at 8:37 PM, SoundGammon said:

Bridge is also the only game Activision released a fixed version. There was a bug in the way the computer made bids/plays and Activision fixed it and released it. The way to tell the fixed version is that the cart label picture is actuality a real screen shot, not a mock up like all the others! 

 

Wow! I wonder if this is the earliest example of a "patch" being released for a game. :o

 

On 5/12/2021 at 7:01 PM, ubersaurus said:

You may appreciate the list of release dates I’ve been maintaining for the array of early home consoles on Atariarchive.org - Bridge, for example, seems to have been a December 1980 game. Welcome back!

1. UBERSAURUS!!! Hiiii! Good to see you!!! and 2. I will check out atariarchive.org!

 

On 4/20/2021 at 4:10 AM, Nathan Strum said:

Welcome back! (Yes... I'm a month late. But I don't get over to the blogs much anymore. Including my own.)

 

I like the LE concept. I may have to adopt it for my own blog's Homebreviews, since I fall victim to the "ugh... that game is going to be sssoooo much work to review" (crawls in a corner and binge watches episodes of Columbo instead) syndrome as well.

I'm gearing up to stream and capture the game play. I toyed a little while with the idea of "starting all over" but Nelio said some wise words about it (which I can't remember exactly, but I'll paraphrase) "Nah, don't bother starting over, just keep going!" (again, he didn't say that, but that was the takeaway.)

 

Ooooh, I used to watch Columbo as a kid! (Though, because of that show, I swear I was about 50 years old before I finally learned how to spell "Colombia".)

 

 

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