Chronogamer - Atari Video Pinball (Atari, 1977)

RSS Bot · July 7, 2007

Thanks for all of the nice comments and PMs. You have no idea how much they push me forward on this project, not that I've ever considered abandoning it, I just get slow sometimes.

See, now we're "retro-chronogaming" -- playing the old games that we missed the first time we tried playing all those old games! I've got a few movies this time, so sorry to those on 56k lines.

Atari Video Pinball (Atari, 1977)

The pictures below are of the Atari Video Pinball console. This is the version of the console which is, sadly, lacking in the faux woodgrain finish. On the top of the console, you can see the large knob. That's for controlling the paddle of the Breakout game included within the console. If you look on either side of the console, you can see what appear to be knobs protruding from either side. Those are actually oversized buttons used to control the pinball flippers in the video pinball variations.

//

The person who thought of placing the flipper buttons on the sides of the console in imitation of the location of the flipper buttons on an actual pinball machine was either inspired, or just doing it the only way that made sense to them. This location of the controls has huge potential as when one starts hitting those buttons they start feeling that, 'hey this is just like real pinball!' kind of feeling.

A quality found in most PONG games is that they are 2-D and Zero G. When not being manhandled by an ENGLISH controller, as on the Odyssey, PONG balls normally sail across the viddy screen in a nice straight line. They also demonstrate an admirable symmetry in their angles of incidence and reflection when interacting with the upper and lower walls of the PONG playfield. In Video Pinball, they've kept the 2-D but they've added a G. Instead of a uniform straight line, the ball travels through graceful parabolic arcs interrupted only by a bunch of junk on the screen masquerading as pinball accessories.

Yes, I love the concept of adding gravitiy. Yes, I love the placement of the controls. The trouble with this pinball game is the activity of the on-screen flippers. For this, you'll need a visual.

Atari Video Pinball Gameplay Movie (6.14 MB)

(No, Sony is not a sponsor of my chronogaming. Though that IS a good idea. I should contact them and see if an arrangement could be made...)

Our experience with this game was not unpositive. The ball moves well and interacts with the various, um, squares in a satisfying way. The touble is in those flippers. They appear to not exist between their open state and their closed state, almost like how electrons disappear when moving through energy shell levels. At the end of that last clip, you can see that the flippers can indeed act on the ball when it is in that "in-between" below the exit but above the bottom of the abyss. However, flippers that appear to merely "switch" between open and closed aren't flippers at all. Yes, they should be called "switchers" or "binary state gates" something more clever but at the moment, I got nothin'.

You can see on the playfield, that there are some "drop switch" like squares that go away after the ball hits them a few times and they turn a few different colors. They'll reset after all of their brethren also drop away. You can also see the graceful parabolic movement of the ball. This play experience has potential, I just don't like those flipper wannabees.

Breakout

//

This dedicated console is also dedicated to Breakout! Yes, the arcade smash hit is now available in your home! The big round dial serves well as the controller. My son and I found this version of Breakout to be, well, hard. The ball really picks up speed quickly and every seven or so hits puts very shallow angle on the ball's trajectory that's a pain in the paddle to hit. I should note that, unlike Video Pinball and the yet to be discussed Basketball, Breakout is in good old fashioned Zero G.

It should also be mentioned that one of the Pinball variations uses the Breakout paddle instead of the pseudo-flippers. I wasn't crazy about the gameplay for that version of Pinball either, but I prefered it to the flippers.

Basketball

There are two Basketball variants and they illustrate my contention that one of the cool things about the Atari Video Pinball console is that the console itself essentially is the controller. It doesn't merely contain the controls; you practically hold this thing while playing Basketball or Pinball. Here is a video of my son playing one of the basketball games. Notice that his left hand is on one of the pinball buttons and his right hand is on the dial controller.

Controller shown and Basketball being played on Atari Video Pinball (3.95 MB)

::ASIDE::For those who care, that's a 34" Sony WEGA Flattube HDTV which I bought in 2004 just a few months before the Plasma HDTVs that you can hang on your wall got much cheaper. Poor market timing on my part, as that behemoth weighs over 100 kilograms. Underneath you see a Wii, a fat modded Korean PS2, a moded Korean Halo green Xbox and a Platinum GameCube with a matching Platinum Game Boy Player underneath it (don't see many of those, do ya? ) Yes, my kids take videogames for granted, but I make it very clear that these are MY toys.::END ASIDE::

The side button is used to give the ball a "boost" in its bounce. To score a basket, you try to maneuver the ball and paddle to a point from which you use the "boost" to get the ball through the top of the net. Which is better shown in the next vid...

Video of Basketball gameplay on Atari Video Pinball (3.45 MB)

The numbers at the top of the screen are, from left to right, the current score, the high score and the number of balls left. Notice also that, again, we've got gravity in this one.

Here is one more video of the other Basketball varient.

Deep net Basketball on the Atari Video Pinball console. (3.17 MB)

This version is a little harder because you have to get the ball a little higher to consider it "in" but, as you can see, getting it in through the side can also work. Also note the net moves to the other side when a basket is scored.

Up to four players can play any of the games by taking turns. Hmm, I don't know how it displays the scores after four people play. It probably cycles through them, but I didn't think to check while playing. When my daughter stops playing Hello Kitty on the 'Cube and I'm done cleaning the kitchen I'll have to check.

Next entry we'll laugh at my pathetic and failed attempts to fix my Coleco Combat.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?a...;showentry=3546