20th Century Gamer

Canyon Bomber (1977) was almost ridiculously uncomplicated. A single button per player was used to drop bombs. There were no other controls. Players flew back and forth in either a blimp or a biplane, with no control of speed or height. Below was a ravine filled with barrels numbered lowest at the top and highest at the bottom, representing the score earned when the barrels were destroyed. A player’s bombs could miss barrels altogether and hit the ground only three times before the game was over. A one-player option pitted human against a computer bomber.

Because there was no control over flight speed or height, each bomb dropped was a hopeful prediction of where it would land. As the number of barrels grew rare and the ground was exposed, timing the bombs became remarkably difficult.

The Atari 2600 version of Canyon Bomber was released in 1978. The black, gray, and white arcade graphics were replaced with bright colors and the numbered barrels represented by colored rows of blocks. The overall experience was similar to the arcade, however the smaller play field and increased pace of the game felt more frenetic and less strategic than the original. Also included in the cartridge was Sea Bomber, a compelling variation of Canyon Bomber with underwater subs as targets.

Rarely as a kid did I clear the barrels from the arcade screen, yet every time those failures motivated me to insert another quarter and try again. The objective seemed so obtainable, if only I could build my skill or get lucky with that last bomb.

Before video games, puzzle books were a favorite pastime for many who enjoyed a mental challenge. Maze puzzles were a popular genre. Readers used a pencil (or an ink pen for those with superior skill) to mark their path through a labyrinth, trying to get to the exit, center, or goal without hitting a dead end.

Atari’s Gotcha (1973) was the first maze video game. Two players chased each other through an actively changing maze. Gotcha wasn’t a particularly fun game other than its breast-shaped controls, an alternative Atari engineers came up with to mock the phallic nature of joysticks. Midway’s Amazing Maze (1976) was the first arcade machine that got the maze formula right, and without using breasts as a marketing or controller gimmick.

Amazing Maze didn’t exactly live up to the title, but it provided a solid and challenging diversion. Players started at opposite sides of the maze, and whichever made it to the other side first won the game. In the one-player game, a quarter awarded three mazes or indefinite play for as long as a winning streak continued. One trick was to use your opponent’s progress for navigation, so that once you were half-way through the rest was following their trail for a race to the finish.

Amazing Maze required eye-hand-coordination, but it also demanded more thinking than most of its contemporaries in the arcade. The human or machine competition was far less of a threat than the player’s ability to overcome the puzzle. The maze setting was the true opponent, and that set Amazing Maze apart from most video games in the period.

In the mid-70s, it was still unusual for games to have audio other than sound effects. Amazing Maze played elementary music (the term is being applied loosely) consisting of a series of a few notes that accompanied the player’s movement. At the time, the audio drew attention from customers and made Amazing Maze more interesting. Unfortunately, those same sounds are a cacophony to modern ears, with harsh tones and unvaried notes. Amazing Maze is still worth playing, but only if you can mute or disable the audio.

Almost immediately after Pong’s release, Atari was having problems with Pong clones selling better than Atari’s machines. Part of their problem was the coin-operated amusement industry distribution system, in which regional vendors had exclusive contracts. If one provider carried Atari, others in the area could not. Everyone wanted a piece of the lucrative Pong action, and clones were the solution for non-Atari vendors.

It became time for Atari to make clones of their own. Kee Games was secretly created by Atari in 1973. Great lengths were taken to create a public rivalry between Atari and Kee, an amusing marketing tactic considering that Atari employees were on the Kee board of directors. The deception worked, and both consumers and the amusement industry perceived Kee as Atari’s competition. This solved some of the distribution problems and channeled more of Pong’s profits back to Atari.

Apparently Kee Games wasn’t satisfied with producing only Atari clones, and in 1974 they released an original game. In Tank, two players maneuvered their tanks through obstacles to shoot each other. The game-play and graphics were unsophisticated, but Tank stood out from all of the Pong clones and top-down racing games. Kee’s success with Tank and other titles made them more profitable than Atari, and in December 1974 Kee was reabsorbed into the parent company. As an Atari subsidiary, Kee continued to make games until 1978.

The story might have ended there and Tank might have been forgotten if it were not for the Atari 2600. Combat (Tank-Plus from Sears) was the Atari 2600 pack-in cartridge from 1977-1982. Because it was included with the console, every kid with an Atari played Combat whether he wanted to or not. Unfortunately, all of Combat’s games required two players — this left kids to beg adults or wait for their friends to come over. As an only child at the time, I found myself trying to use both joysticks, one in each hand, in a feeble attempt to take on the role of opposing players.

Combat had 27 game variations, 14 of Tank and 13 of Biplane/Jet Fighter. Most of the games held limited interest both then and now, but Tank-Pong is still surprisingly fun. Instead of requiring a line-of-sight to shoot an opponent, Tank-Pong added ricochets off of obstacles and walls. Because of Tank-Pong and it’s continued playability, Combat is one of the few examples of a early console game that was better than the arcade original.