Ahhhh, 1978! Atari was emerging as a video game giant with their 2600 VCS system that thrilled millions oblivious hi-def, internet connected, motion controller future that awaited 30 years later. These were times that a giant block with 4 smaller blocks on it really did look like a race car, triangles shooting dots at each other was a super-realistic looking space war, and prison breakouts were simulated with a line bouncing a dot against rainbow striped bricks! And though times were simpler, a new Atari system still cost close to $200 and games ranged $30-$40. Adjusting for inflation, that’s like buying a $700 game system with $90 games! But everything was so magic, people just had to have them.

Game fan magazines were still in their infancy, so Atari promoted their lineup with catalogs that came in each game. This is one of their earliest that uses the fun cartoon style that was prevalent in graphics of the time (look at old Dynamite magazines, or games like Payday from the ’70s and you’ll see what I mean). The theme of this April 1978 catalog is pretty high concept. An average Joe can live out his fantasies by playing a bunch of different games. Let’s explore, shall we?

First you get a look at the system and the many controller options that came with it. I love how they emphasize that the “crisp bright color” is only available on color TVs. It’s sad that there were likely people who would be pissed off if that wasn’t clear. They also make it clear that they build in “special circuits to protect your TV”. There actually used to be a big problem when folks would hook up their Atari games to big screen projection TVs, because the fixed borders and scores would often burn straight into the tube! The visual and functional simplicity of their joysticks is still appealing after all of these decades. A classic design that brings back nostalgia. You just moved and shot, back then. None of this 12 button nonsense that spoiled kids are used to these days.

The Indy 500 Game was actually pretty damn fun, because it came with special controllers (which were pretty much just free-spinning versions of the Atari paddles), and had a great ice track version of the game. Video Olympics, however, was just 50 different versions of Pong that got dull pretty quick.

Starship is actually one of the first games Atari discontinued. Even though Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica were popular, this game was a dog and not very fun to play. Street Racer didn’t last very long, but may be the very first split screen 2 player game ever made. Mario Kart owes a tip of the hat to this one.

Blackjack was later replaced by a more diverse version called Casino. That chick on his shoulder has to be one of the goofiest looking girls, ever. Now Surround was a great game, and Tron completely ripped it for the light cycle scenes, and arcade game-play. Crude as it was, the “Video Graffiti” was the first game that let you draw pictures on your TV. As you would expect, most 10 year old boys tried to draw naked ladies, and as you would expect, they looked about as hot as the boxy babe in the example above.

Atari tried to go educational by having a math program, that of course no kid wanted to play. It was pretty much just a video version of flash cards, and you needed special keypad controllers to use it, making it a big investment for a minimal payoff. Air-Sea Battle was a passable target shooting game that let you play vs. a computer or another player.

Here we have a section bragging about how inventive they are, while shamelessly stealing from Star Wars all in the same centerfold. Space War never took off, but it was a pretty fun version of Combat in space, with a rotate/thrust type flying style that worked very well.

Baseball wasn’t too bad for what it was, but I had a lot of fun playing Outlaw. The one player game was lousy, because you just had to do ricochet shooting around catches to hit bouncing targets (just like the real Wild West!), but the two player version was about as close to Halo as us poor kids of the ’70s were going to get.

Breakout was a lot of fun and still holds up as an all-time classic game. Hunt & Score was just a video version of concentration.

More word games for the key pad controller. Hangman was OK against the computer, but they had nice variant where the other player could come up with the word. This was especially handy in homes that didn’t have paper and pencils.

At this point, Football and Basketball were still in development, so all you get are the artwork without the simulated game screens.

And here’s a handy chart for you to see what controllers you’ll need for each game, even though each box clearly told you which one you needed, too.

I still have an Atari tucked away, with an old school TV to enjoy once in a while. Though they are crude by today’s standards, there’s a simple fun to them that still rings true and honest. It’s also amazing when you consider that many of these games only took up 3-5K of memory. There’s sentences in Microsoft Word that take up many times that.

It’s funny, looking back, how totally awesome these games were to us. We didn’t think the graphics were lousy at all, until something better came along. And as Intellivision, Colecovision, NES, and many others were released, it was amazing to look at the progress. It’s hard to believe that as fantastic as games look and play now, how different they might be in an other 30 years. Live action 3D hologram scratch and sniff love sleeve adventures, await us all!

-Robert Berry
rberry@retrocrush.com