February 2017 is 1968

On 02/01/2017 at 03:59 PM by KnightDriver

My music listening project for this year is to listen to as much music as I can from each year starting with 1968. I'm slowly adding music to my iPod playlist every night, month by month. So far I have stuff like Blue Cheer's Vincebus Eruptum (with the song "Summertime Blues"), Iron Butterfly's debut album Heavy, Steppenwolf's debut album containing the hit "Born to Be Wild", Blood, Sweat & Tears debut album Child Is Father to the Man, Mothers of Invention's We're Only in it for the Money, and Joni Mitchel's debut Song for a Seagull. I mention this because I'm also investigating what games were out that year. Here's a breakdown:

Board: Strat-O-Matic Football. I remember playing a football game with a grease pen on a plastic field. I don't think it was this, but it's still interesting to me. Taking a statistical angle on sports seems somthing very ahead of it's time. It was many decades later before a real team used such an approach to build a team as described in the book Moneyball. What video game relates? I'm not sure aside from football games, which I don't play. I'll have to think about it. Maybe you have an idea.

Arcade: Sega released Periscope in 1968. This is a electro-mechanical submarine game with a realistic periscope device you look through to shoot at ships. I thought of playing something with Submarines. All the submarine sims are on PC but a few console games have them, most notably the Battlestations games: Battlestations Midway and Pacific. I got Pacific the other day and Midway is in the mail. Midway is backwards compatible on XBO, so I'll play that on the weekend. Pacific isn't so last night I set up my 360 at home. I'll try it tonight.

Pinball: I listed lots of pinball machines but I couldn't find a single one in any video game collection. There might be one hidding on that electronic multi-table machine at Pinball Gallery, but they don't list any on their web site. So, I may go over there again this month and see.

Comics: 1968 was the debut of the Marvel character Ultron. I thought it was interesting because the film Avengers: Age of Ultron came out in 2015. So I looked up his appearance in games and found that he's a boss in Marvel Ultimate Alliance (on order), a playable character in Disney Inifinity 3.0 (perfect because I have the figure and need to play the XBO version of the game for a new set of achievements), and a boss and playable character in Lego Marvel Avengers (I'll have to find a way to get that game).

So I have a lot to play on top of trying to finish the Borderlands series. If I budget my time well, I can do it and give myself even more blog matterial.

BaD #1 in the bag!

Matt Snee Staff Writer

02/01/2017 at 04:09 PM

damn Ultron originated in 1968? That's kind of fucked up.

KnightDriver

03/03/2017 at 11:24 PM

I was reading 2001 A Space Oddessy and realized that it is also about an A.I. gone bad and came out in 1968. Also, Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" came out, also about artificial intelligence. What was going on in '68 that got people thinking about A.I. . Seems like a thing for the 21st century not the 20th.

03/04/2017 at 10:28 AM

that's science fiction, man! We're ahead of the curve!

Super Step Contributing Writer

02/01/2017 at 05:13 PM

It's 1968? I see some sociopolitical similarities, but where's all the good music?

02/23/2017 at 02:57 AM

Ok, how about: The Zombie's Odyssey & Oracle, Pink Floyd's A Saucerful of Secrets, Grateful Dead's Anthem of the Sun, Moody Blues' In Search of the Lost Chord ("Ride My Seesaw"), Deep Purple's Shades of Deep Purple ("Hush"), Cream's Wheels of Fire ("White Room"), Jeff Beck's Truth, The Band's Music from Big Pink, Procol Harum's Shine on Brightly, Hendrix's Electric Lady Land, CCR's debut, Beatles' White Album, Walter Carlos' Switched on Bach, Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation, Jethro Tull's This Was, and Traffic's self titled album ("Feelin' Alright?"). And that's just the highlights.

02/23/2017 at 03:36 AM

I meant where is all the good music in 2017? I was saying I see political turmoil today, but nowhere near the same amount of memorable music.

02/24/2017 at 01:55 AM

Yea, right. I'm not hearing any. Kinda weird, it is.

mothman

02/01/2017 at 08:14 PM

Iron Butterfly was the first concert I ever saw.

02/23/2017 at 02:41 AM

Oh cool! I'm so jealous. I got into them fairly recently. I like "Unconscious Power" off their first album, Heavy.

daftman

02/01/2017 at 11:26 PM

Egads, Marty, we've traveled all the way back to 1968! But where are all the pinball machines??

02/02/2017 at 03:57 PM

They are everywhere. Just not many left around today.

goaztecs

02/02/2017 at 12:04 PM

Wow when I think of the late 60s I really don't think video games but that periscope game sounds like a game I used to play in arcades in the 80s (probably a modern version).

02/02/2017 at 03:37 PM

I think I came across it in the 70s in some arcade. I seem to remember it being at my local flea market where they had an arcade in the 90s too.

Thing was, there weren't any video games in the late 60s but there were certainly arcades full of pinball, Ski Ball and electro-mechanical games like Periscope. There was even a Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots made for the arcade. I saw it in a Mission Impossible episode.

Ranger1

02/02/2017 at 10:01 PM

Interesting project you've given yourself.

02/03/2017 at 02:08 AM

I get tired of my own interests. Then I get tired of the popular interests. Then I make up games to lead me to titles I might not normally try. So interesting.

PixlBit