Atari 50: Lunar Lander and Friends
- Plays All The Things
- Aug 16
- 3 min read
Let's do some more Atari!
1977 - Sprint 8. Sequel to Sprint 2 and Sprint 4, showing us that even in early days videogames had problems with numbering sequels. Shout out to Final Fantasy for being just about the only franchise that comes to mind that does this.
I immediately start off as a terrible driver but it's not long before I pick up the controls and I'm ripping around the track. This thing had fun gameplay and the basic elements of most future racing games where you need to control your speed to make it around a corner but you want to go quickly.
It's really meant for multiplayer but it's a nice touch that the other cars rumble around the track even if there aren't players taking their slots. Unfortunately you can't collide with the other cars. There are a couple different track options, all tracks exist within a single screen so everyone can see their car simultaneously. It's got astoundingly good sound effects for this era, you hear the rumble of engines and tires screeching.
Next up: Fire Truck!
Sadly the game itself isn't that fun, the two players drive around a fairly wide, mostly empty track with the occasional oil spill and try not to hit the sides. The rear player's job is pretty much just to entirely not screw up the front player's driving. A friend of mine would like to add that he saw this game at an arcade growing up but he could never get his mother to play it with him. Parents, play games with your children!
Even if the game sucks!
Now, Super Breakout!
This one feels a lot more fair than the original. The ball doesn't ramp up to quite the same ludicrous speed as the original and there isn't the randomized angle-changing from wall bounces anymore, thank god. Hits off the paddle feel more controlled as well. There still isn't side or downward collision with blocks, sadly, but this is a significant improvement to the game. The changes make it easier and it's only a few attempts before I break through the top row, aided in part by the holes which get you an additional ball.
All right, let's try Lunar Lander and land on the moon!
Low on fuel? Add coins.
This is some Kerbal Space Program shenanigans. (That actually might be a good game for the blog, come to think of it). But it's definitely trying to do physics-like stuff.
Oh cool, when you get close to a landing site the game 'zooms in' to give you a close-up view of the place you're trying to land.
Ok, gentle.... easy does it......
I think a 'two-mile wide crater' is a bit excessive, game!
So help me I WILL land on the 5x space in every one of these missions!
Yessssssss!
Ok, second mission:
Yeah! Landed that bitch first try!
Third mission - Strong gravity is really strong... uh....
Good news - the last mission puts the gravity back to 'Moderate' Bad news - "rotational rotation" being on means that once you start rotating, you continue rotating until you manually correct it.
This makes steeing much, much harder.
Still, we got this!
Thankfully we're not an an arcade and I'm not burning quarters on every attempt.
Lest you get the wrong impression, I really like this game! Lunar Lander is definitely worth trying out if you either enjoy a challenge or prefer your astronauts dead.
Comments