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| Tennis | |
|---|---|
 Box art | |
| Developer(s) | Activision |
| Publisher(s) | Activision |
| Designer(s) | Alan Miller [1] : 76 |
| Platform(s) | Atari 2600 |
| Release | 1981 |
| Genre(s) | Sports |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Tennis is a sports video game for the Atari VCS (later called the Atari 2600) which was written by Activision co-founder Alan Miller and published by Activision in 1981. [2]
Tennis offers singles matches for one or two players; one player is colored pink, the other blue. The game has two user-selectable speed levels. [3] When serving and returning shots, the tennis players automatically swing forehand or backhand as the situation demands, and all shots automatically clear the net and land in bounds. [3]
The first player to win one six-game set is declared the winner of the match (if the set ends in a 6-6 tie, the set restarts from 0-0). This differs from professional tennis, in which player must win at least two out of three six-game sets.
Tennis received an award for "Best Competitive Game" and an honorable mention for "Best Sports Game" at the 3rd annual Arkie Awards. Arkie Award judges commented that "Tennis is as far removed from the primitive Pong -style games from which it derives as gasoline is from the dinosaurs", and specific praise was given to the game's "realistic illusion of depth" and its competitive aspects which allow for "hard fought contest[s]" and "glorious comebacks from the brink of defeat" and which give "more methodical players a chance to taste victory against the kings and queens of hand-eye coordination". [1] : 76
Covered in Video magazine's 1982 Guide to Electronic Games, Tennis was characterized by critics as "not terribly complicated", but also as "one of the few very good sports games for the Atari VCS". [4] : 52
Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle is a 1982 video game published and developed by Coleco for the ColecoVision and Atari 2600. The game is based on the television series The Smurfs. In the game, the player must brave a series of obstacles to rescue Smurfette from Gargamel's castle.
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.
Chopper Command is a horizontally scrolling shooter released by Activision for the Atari 2600 in June 1982. It was written by Bob Whitehead. The player flies a helicopter left and right over a scrolling, wraparound landscape, shooting down enemy airplanes to protect a convoy of trucks below.
Freeway is an action video game written by David Crane for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1981. In the game, one or two players control chickens who cross a ten lane highway filled with traffic. The goal is to set a high score in an allotted time. Every time a chicken gets across a point is earned for that player. Depending on the difficulty mode, a chicken is forced back a lane or sent back to the bottom of the screen when hit by a vehicle.
Dodge 'Em is a driving-themed maze game programmed by Carla Meninsky and published in 1980 by Atari, Inc. for the Atari VCS. Similar to Sega's 1979 Head On arcade game, Dodge 'Em is played on a single screen of four concentric roadways. Sears released the game for the "Sears Video Arcade" as Dodger Cars.
Wizard of Wor is an arcade video game released in 1981 by Midway. Up to two players fight together in a series of monster-infested mazes, clearing each maze by shooting the creatures. The game was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, Commodore Max, Atari 2600, and Atari 5200 and renamed to The Incredible Wizard for the Bally Astrocade. The original cartridge came with a cash prize offer to the first person to complete the game.
Vanguard is a scrolling shooter arcade video game developed by TOSE. It was released by SNK in Japan and Europe 1981, and licensed to Centuri for manufacture in North America in October and to Zaccaria in Italy the same year. Cinematronics converted the game to cocktail arcade cabinets in North America.
Ice Hockey is an ice hockey video game designed by Alan Miller for the Atari VCS, and published by Activision in 1981. Actor and comedian Phil Hartman starred in the commercial for the game.
Bowling is a sports video game published in 1979 by Atari, Inc. for the Atari VCS. It was programmed by Larry Kaplan who left Atari to co-found Activision the same year. The game is an interpretation of the sport bowling, playable by one or two players.
Boxing is a video game interpretation of the sport of boxing developed by programmer Bob Whitehead for the Atari VCS. It was published by Activision in 1980. It's one of the first video games developed by Activision. The game is based on Boxer, an unreleased 1978 arcade game from Whitehead's previous employer, Atari, Inc. Boxer was written by Mike Albaugh who also wrote Drag Race for Atari, a game cloned by Activision as Dragster.
Video Olympics is a video game programmed by Joe Decuir for the Atari 2600. It is one of the nine 2600 launch titles Atari, Inc. published when the 2600 system was released in September 1977. The cartridge is a collection of games from Atari's popular arcade Pong series. A similar collection in arcade machine form called Tournament Table was published by Atari in 1978.
Megamania is a fixed shooter video game developed by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600. It was published by Activision in 1982. A pilot of an intergalactic space cruiser has a nightmare where his ship is being attacked by food and household objects. Using the missile launcher from their space cruiser, the pilot fends off the attackers. The game was later released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit computers.
Dragonfire is a 1982 video game written by Bob Smith and published by Imagic. The player grabs treasure guarded by a dragon while avoiding fireballs. It was originally released for the Atari 2600 then ported to the Intellivision, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, ColecoVision, and TRS-80 Color Computer.
The Activision Decathlon is a sports video game written by David Crane for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1983. It was ported to the Atari 8-bit computers, Atari 5200, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, and MSX. Up to four players compete in the ten different events of a real-life decathlon, either in sequence or individually.
Phaser Patrol, written by Dennis Caswell, is the first numbered release by Arcadia for the Atari 2600 and the pack-in game for the Atari 2600 Supercharger accessory in 1982. The company changed its name to Starpath after launch, and the hardware was rebranded the Starpath Supercharger.
Space Cavern is a 1982 fixed shooter video game for the Atari 2600 developed and released by Games by Apollo. Players control a spaceship commander who has landed on a planet and must defend the ship against its hostile creatures. Games by Apollo founder Pat Roper was impressed by the game Demon Attack and tasked Apollo member Dan Oliver with making a game very similar to it.
Dragster, released in 1980 for the Atari Video Computer System, is one of the first video games developed by Activision.
Oink! is an Atari 2600 video game designed by Mike Lorenzen and released by Activision in 1983. Oink! is inspired by the fairy tale "The Three Little Pigs" and casts the player as a pig defending his home from a wolf bent on destroying it.
Laser Blast is a single-player video game developed and published by Activision in March 1981 for the Atari VCS console. Designed by David Crane, one of Activision's co-founders, Laser Blast places players in control of flying saucers attacking land targets.
Surround is a video game programmed by Alan Miller and published by Atari, Inc. for the Atari Video Computer System. The game has players navigate a continuously moving block around an enclosed space as a wall trails behind it. Every time the opposite player has their brick hit a wall, the opposing player earns a single point, with the winner being the first to collect ten points.
