"mutoscope" is a beautiful word.
Going Super Old School! Class of ‘66!
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 On 06/06/2013 at 03:37 PM by KnightDriver See More From This User » |
Why go old school when you can go super old school! I mean, white-beard-growing Rip Van Winkle old school. Except this old man is a frickin’ martial arts ninja that’ll kick your sorry ass to Timbucktu like Gen Fu, Gouken and Shujinko combined! We’re talking 1966. “No way,” you say. “There weren’t any video games in 1966 KnightDriver!” Well, if you were an Electrical Engineering student at MIT with access to the PDP-1 supercomputer, you could play SpaceWar!. Play it today at the Computer History Museum in Cali on an authentic PDP-1 or play it in emulation here: http://spacewar.oversigma.com/html5/. It runs in a browser without any installation! Fantastic!
Imagine walking into a Penny Arcade in 1966 - the year Star Trek debuted on TV… IN COLOR! You could play an assortment of mechanical games, as shown in this Mission Impossible episode “Odds on Evil” (Just play from 50 sec to 1:40 to see it).
See there Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, created in ’64 by Marx toy co? Video game versions were made for Playstation in 2000 as Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots Arena and for GBA in 2006.
See there a Periscope-like game with a light emitting peripheral? The original Periscope, made by Sega, is an interesting game because it was the first game to cost a quarter, beginning the standard for arcades in the 80’s.
Periscope inspired the arcade video games Sea Wolf and Sea Wolf II, which I remember playing in the 80’s. Play Sea Wolf by Coastal Amusements today on iOS here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sea-wolf/id477771646?mt=8 (It doesn’t work apparently on my iPod Touch, however. Phoey!)
See also Pinball machines? Released in ’66 was Gottlieb’s Central Park, which you can play on the Pinball Arcade on PSN/Vita, and hopefully soon on XBLA. Also Williams’ Casanova, which is sadly not in video game version anywhere right now.
Finally, in this Mission Impossible episode, see a light gun shooter as Dan enters the room of old Mutoscopes and gets his mission. The most recent game like this in video game form is Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear for PS3, which is an on-rails shooter that you can use with PS Move and the assault rifle peripheral.
At home you would be outta luck for video games in ’66, but you could play any of the old chestnuts of board gaming fame, like Monopoly or Game of Life. My favorite though, which debuted in ’66, was the board game Fight in the Skies, a TSR WWI flying ace game inspired by the movie Blue Max, released that same year (the title on the youtube vid is wrong).
Fight in the Skies was played every year at Gen Con and was reissued as Dawn Patrol in 1982.
Unfortunately it is out of print but still available used on Amazon. You can get your grid and turn-based war action on in video game form in X-Com: Enemy Unknown today.
So, though video gaming wasn’t a thing in ’66, you could still experience mechanical games, light gun games and pinball at an arcade and go home and play hex based strategy board games. What’s really the difference today, but that it’s all done on a computer hooked up to a TV monitor?
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