| VIDEO OLYMPICS |
  Video Olympics...what's in the name. The title conjures up visions of a 2600 cartridge that would include synchronized swimming, shot put, pole vaulting, the decathlon, the high jump, and a bunch of olympic stuff probably not yet possible or thought possibe....but what is this really.....PONG, about 58 variations of pong, ranging from the original Pong, on up to the whole Tennis for Two oscilloscope game from the 50's (touted as "Basketball" at the end, hilarious as Atari had their own horrible, hilarious basketball game at the time that had all the eeriness of a Five Nights at Freddy's death minigame).Actually, the Sears version was branded "Pong Sports", a bit more fitting, considering you have Pong, Fooze Pong, Football (Pong), and Basketball (Pong). However, of course it seldom gets mentioned, there's far more impressive stuff going on in 1977 than just Pong, when you have ports of Tank, Air-Sea Battle, Super Breakout, Night Driver, and later groundbreakers like Space invaders, Adventure, and Pitfall to play. Who the heck wants to recreate what was on possibly their first, one-game, dedicated console from 1973? So Video Olympics sort of came and went and was mostly forgotten except by the 12 people who continued to play Pong after Space Invaders came out. Apparently this is Mt. Icarus before the Events of Kid Icarus - My Experiences This was one that came with the Heavy Sixer I got at age 15 with a pile of other early releases, most of which I've traded/sold at this point. I've kept it because of what it is and has - the O.G. Pong. The game that lauunched Atari and the arcade industry single-handedly in 1973, and brought us consoles via dedicated units first, then the 2600 later on, even though other titles like Combat overshadow this release. Honestly, I popped it in and was surprised they even made a Pong for the 2600. Because that, at the time, would have been like releasing Super Mario Bros. on the Super Nintendo. It was only after the dawn and growth of retro-gaming in the mid 1990's that game manufacturers releasaed "updated" versions of their older products like this. To be honest, this could have been the first ever case of something like Super mario All-Stars, or all the Arcade releases for the NES when it came out. It's like an anthology of the video games that came before and just after Atari formed in 1972. People in the late 70's/early 80's, for better or worse, were looking to the future in some way. Unlike now, everyone's looking to the past for comfort, and seeing the fture as a bleak nightmare. Take me back to the late 70's please, I'd rather be playing pong, fixing computers in a labcoat, and watching The Cars on their first tour. |
