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Sorcerer's Apprentice | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Atari, Inc. |
Publisher(s) | Atari, Inc. |
Designer(s) | Peter Niday |
Programmer(s) | Peter Niday |
Composer(s) | Robert Vieira |
Series | Fantasia |
Platform(s) | Atari 2600 |
Release | 1983 |
Genre(s) | Tower defense |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Sorcerer's Apprentice is a video game for the Atari 2600, based on a sequence from the film Fantasia .
The player plays as Mickey Mouse in two different screens of play. One screen has various objects falling from the sky and he has the ability to shoot something up at them and catch certain things. The second screen involves him rushing up and down stairs trying to intercept an army of walking brooms to stop them from getting to the bottom and causing the room to flood more.
Randi Hacker for Electronic Fun with Computers & Games said: "Our only hypothesis is that it instills a healthy fear of brooms and cleaning paraphernalia which means that, when the kids who play this game grow up more people will need to be employed as maids". [1]
Atari Age said that Sorcerer's Apprentice is a wonderful cartoon videogame treat for the whole family. [2]
Video Games magazine said that "it's not a total disaster, but in light of the other child-oriented games recently released by Atari, especially Pigs in Space and Snoopy and the Red Baron, it is a disappointment". [3] TV Gamer said that "not the most difficult game ever created but then it is designed for younger gamers. The graphics are pretty good and overall the game is to be recommended to young gamers and Walt Disney fans". [4]
The Vid Kid's Book of Home Video Games gave the game an overall rating of B. [5]
Pitfall! is a video game developed by David Crane for the Atari 2600 and released in 1982 by Activision. The player controls Pitfall Harry, who has a time limit of 20 minutes to seek treasure in a jungle. The game world is populated by enemies and hazards that variously cause the player to lose lives or points.
Miner 2049er is a platform game game developed by Big Five Software and published in December 1982. It is set in a mine, where the player controls the Mountie Bounty Bob. The player controls Bounty Bob through multiple levels of a mine, with the goal of traversing all of the platforms in each level all while avoiding enemies and within a set amount of time.
Time Zone is a multi-disk graphical adventure game written and directed by Roberta Williams for the Apple II. Developed in 1981 and released in 1982 by On-Line Systems, the game was shipped with six double-sided floppy disks and contained 1,500 areas (screens) to explore along with 39 scenarios to solve. Produced at a time when most games rarely took up more than one side of a floppy, Time Zone is one of the first games of this magnitude released for home computer systems. Ports were released for Japanese home computers PC-88, PC-98 and FM-7 in 1985.
Gorf is an arcade video game released in 1981 by Midway Manufacturing, whose name was advertised as an acronym for "Galactic Orbiting Robot Force". It is a fixed shooter with five distinct levels, the first of which is based on Space Invaders and another on Galaxian. The game makes use of synthesized speech for the Gorfian robot which taunts the player, powered by the Votrax speech chip. Gorf allows the player to buy two additional lives per quarter before starting the game, for a maximum of seven lives.
Chuck Norris Superkicks is a video game produced by Xonox in 1984. It was later sold as Kung Fu Superkicks and Super Kung Fu when the license for the use of the name Chuck Norris expired. The game was produced for the Commodore 64, VIC-20, Atari 2600, and ColecoVision as part of Xonox's double-ender cartridge line.
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom, known as Zoom 909 in Japan, is a pseudo-3D rail shooter released as an arcade video game by Sega in 1982. The player controls a spaceship in a third-person perspective, adapting the three-dimensional perspective of Sega's earlier racing game Turbo (1981) for the space shoot 'em up genre. It uses the Buck Rogers license, referencing the space battles, though Buck himself is never seen.
Demon Attack is a fixed shooter video game created by Rob Fulop for the Atari 2600 and published by Imagic in 1982. The game involves the player controlling a laser cannon from the surface of a planet, shooting winged demons that fly down and attack the player in different sets of patterns.
Robert S. Harris, nicknamed RoSHa, is an American designer and programmer who created several 1980s home computer and console games, including War Room and Killer Bees!.
Killer Bees! is an action video game written by Robert S. Harris for the Magnavox Odyssey2 and published in 1983.
Starmaster is a video game written for the Atari 2600 by Alan Miller and published in June 1982 by Activision. The game involves the player travelling through space attacking enemy starfighters who are invading starbases. The player traverses through a map called the galactic chart to destroy all the enemies and survive against oncoming enemy attacks and crashing with meteors.
Robot Tank is a first-person shoot 'em up written by Alan Miller for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1983. It is similar in design to Atari, Inc.'s Battlezone tank combat arcade video game and more so to its 2600 port. Robot Tank adds different systems which can individually be damaged—instead of the vehicle always exploding upon being shot—and weather effects.
Big Bird's Egg Catch is a video game for the Atari 2600 developed by Atari, Inc. and Children's Computer Workshop and published by Atari in 1983.
River Raid is a video game developed by Carol Shaw for the Atari Video Computer System and released in 1982 by Activision. The player controls a fighter jet over the River of No Return in a raid behind enemy lines. The goal is to navigate the flight by destroying enemy tankers, helicopters, fuel depots and bridges without running out of fuel or crashing.
Frostbite is a 1983 action game designed by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600, and published by Activision in 1983. The game has a player control Frostbite Bailey, who must hop across several ice floes to collect ice while avoiding falling in the water and avoiding the hazardous natural elements such polar bears and snow geese.
Cosmic Ark is an Atari 2600 game designed by Rob Fulop and published by Imagic in 1982. The objective is to gather specimens from different planets in a spaceship which contains the survivors from the city of Atlantis. There are two versions of the cartridge. One allows the player to toggle the starfield display with the Black & White / Color TV switch. In the other the starfield cannot be disabled.
Rawson Law Stovall is an American video game designer and producer. He started out as a video game journalist, the first to be nationally syndicated in the United States. In 1982, ten-year-old Stovall's first column appeared in the Abilene Reporter-News, his local newspaper. He got the column in ten publications before Universal Press Syndicate started distributing it in April 1983; by 1984, the column, titled "The Vid Kid", appeared in over twenty-four newspapers. After being reported on by The New York Times, Stovall was featured on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and earned a regular spot on Discovery Channel's The New Tech Times. In 1985, he helped introduce the Nintendo Entertainment System at its North American launch.
Assault is a 1983 fixed shooter video game developed and published by Bomb for the Atari 2600. Controlling a spaceship fixated at the bottom of the screen, gameplay involves the player shooting projectiles towards an enemy mothership that deploys smaller ships to attack the player. The player must also prevent enough projectiles from touching the bottom of the screen.
Lifespan is a video game written by John O'Neill for Atari 8-bit computers. It was published on cartridge by Roklan in 1983, then released on disk in 1985 by Antic Software.
CommaVid Inc. was a game developer and publisher for the Atari 2600 that released six games between 1981 and 1983, plus a programming tool for the console. The company was founded by Dr. Irwin Gaines, Dr. John Bronstein, and Dr. Joseph Biel under the name Computer Magic Video, which was shortened to Com Ma Vid, or CommaVid. It was based in Aurora, Illinois. In addition to developing its own titles, CommaVid ported the arcade game Venture to the 2600 for Coleco.
The Blade of Blackpoole is an adventure game written for the Apple II by Tim Wilson and published in 1982 by Sirius Software. It was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, FM-7, PC-88, PC-98.