Which Launch Title do You Prefer?

[Rob Mitchell]

Envision yourself as a typical teenager in 1977. It had been raining all about and your family had decided to remain home. You had been fortunate enough to own an Atari VCS/2600 and the 9 launch titles- of those titles, which would you most likely play?

 

I was that teenager in the fall of 1977. My family bought every launch title as they became available through Sears (less Math).

 

I played each single player game to death. And I would have friends over to play the four player games .. Yes we did buy a second set of paddles in 1977.

 

If I have to choose .. It's still Indy 500 (Race) for both the single and the two player games.

[JadeETC]

No love for Basic Math, eh?

 

I really like the Driving Controller, I wish more games used it. It's what makes Indy 500 so unique.

 

As far as 2 player games go, Air Sea Battle is the way to go. It's one of my favorite 2600 games.

[gorfcadet]

I still love Indy 500. When friends were over it was the go to multiplayer game. It was the Contra of its day.

[Coldheat]

I would like to resurrect this thread and see some more votes!

[AtariTexas]

Love me some Combat!

[Mef]

Good call, voted.

 

I picked both Indy 500 and Video Olympics - neither has a really good single-player variant, but let's pretend for a moment that Indy 500 counts as one.

Starship and Air-Sea Battle would be close runner-ups, Combat just a notch behind. To be honest the choice is extremely hard for me as personally - I think of those five as the games that defined the system at the time and for like next 3-4 years.

Simple but informative and clean graphics - almost like icons/tokens, multiple gameplay variations (to the point of being almost different games in one package), color-coded scores, rounds timed to hit the attention-span sweet spot, etc. And all of those are heavily two-player oriented unlike what I think of as Second Wave or Activision domination time.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Mef

[BassGuitari]

Still Star Ship for me.

[high voltage]

Air Sea Battle, for sure.

[Shawn]

Pong Sports (I hate calling it Video Olympics)

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Indy 500 is my favorite 1977 launch title. Followed by Combat and Air-Sea Battle. Still the best multi player driving game ever made. Especually "Crash n Score" and "Tag".

[toiletunes]

Street Racer ftw, followed by Video Olympics, Air Sea Battle, Surround, Indy 500, Combat, BlackJack, Star Ship, and Basic Math.

[dustfilledhobo]

I'm surprised someone chose basic math.

Combat for me.