Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer SystemMIT Press, 2009年1月9日 - 192 頁 A study of the relationship between platform and creative expression in the Atari VCS, the gaming system for popular games like Pac-Man and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that “Atari” became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms—the systems underlying computing. This book, the first in a series of Platform Studies, does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. Adventure, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the Atari VCS—often considered merely a retro fetish object—is an essential part of the history of video games. |
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第 1 到 5 筆結果,共 86 筆
第 4 頁
... games, many of which established techniques, mechanics, or entire genres that continue to thrive today on much more technologically advanced platforms. Although several companies fielded consoles, by 1981 the Atari VCS accounted for 75 ...
... games, many of which established techniques, mechanics, or entire genres that continue to thrive today on much more technologically advanced platforms. Although several companies fielded consoles, by 1981 the Atari VCS accounted for 75 ...
第 5 頁
... game , for the Atari VCS in 1978 . 3 Engage with Half - Life 2 and you could find your avatar , Gordon Freeman , surrounded by attacking enemies who provide supporting fire for each other , dodge , and hide behind cover , powered as ...
... game , for the Atari VCS in 1978 . 3 Engage with Half - Life 2 and you could find your avatar , Gordon Freeman , surrounded by attacking enemies who provide supporting fire for each other , dodge , and hide behind cover , powered as ...
第 6 頁
... VCS helped develop ( such as the vertical scroller , which was fostered by Activision's River Raid ) do not define important sectors of today's videogame market . Others remain influential , such as the graphical adventure game , the ...
... VCS helped develop ( such as the vertical scroller , which was fostered by Activision's River Raid ) do not define important sectors of today's videogame market . Others remain influential , such as the graphical adventure game , the ...
第 11 頁
... game form were almost identical to those of Pong, and became the essence of Combat, the title that was included with the original VCS package. The simple elements present in these early games would be the basis for the console's ...
... game form were almost identical to those of Pong, and became the essence of Combat, the title that was included with the original VCS package. The simple elements present in these early games would be the basis for the console's ...
第 12 頁
... VCS needed to account for two goals— the ability to imitate existing successful games and some amount of ver- satility — as they designed the circuitry for aspecial - purpose microcomputer for video games . Material factors certainly ...
... VCS needed to account for two goals— the ability to imitate existing successful games and some amount of ver- satility — as they designed the circuitry for aspecial - purpose microcomputer for video games . Material factors certainly ...
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action-adventure action-adventure games Activision appear arcade game Asteroids Atari VCS ball bitmap Bogost Bushnell button BYTE BYTE chip coin-op games color clock Combat computing systems controllers created creative culture digital media display draw early electron Empire Strikes Back game’s gameplay genre high score HMOVE home console home video games horizontal innovation Intellivision interaction interface joystick licensed machine maze missile move Nintendo objects offered on-screen Pac-Man paddle Parker Brothers PDP-10 Adventure pixels plane Platform Studies play player playfield graphics Pong port processor Qotile released Revenge Robinett scan line screen Slot Racers snowspeeder sound Space Invaders Spacewar sprite graphics Star Castle Star Wars switch tank games technique television text adventure titles two-player variations VCS Adventure VCS cartridge VCS games VCS hardware VCS Pac-Man VCS platform VCS program vertical Video Olympics videogame Warshaw Yars