General gaming

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• How The Atari 2600 Shaped Pop Culture
• To the Last Cart: The Enduring 2600 Collector Community
• The Odd Couple
• Interview: Double Fine's Ron Gilbert Takes Us On a Trip Into The Cave
• The Bright Side of the Early '80s Video Game Crash

How The Atari 2600 Shaped Pop Culture Posted: 26 Sep 2012 04:04 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600 How The Atari 2600 Shaped Pop Culture Cover Story: Atari's classic home console has affected our lives in ways we never anticipated all those years ago. T he Atari 2600 certainly exerted its influence on the games industry. Released in October of 1977, the console was also called the VCS, or "Video Computer System," as seen on its original packaging. It was the first home video game system from the young Atari company, who to that point had only produced a few arcade titles. While the 2600 was not the first device to bring video games into the home, it would soon become the first to break through to mainstream success and begin permeating pop culture at large. Just as the VCR had done for movies, and television would ultimately do for sporting events, the Atari 2600 finally presented the public with a device that could pose the same entertainment value as the arcades in the comfort of one's own home. Dazzling colors, signature sound, iconic gameplay, and even an arcade-style joystick were available for players. The possibilities seemed limitless, and the Atari 2600 caught on as millions upon millions of game cartridges flew off the shelves.

To the Last Cart: The Enduring 2600 Collector Community Posted: 26 Sep 2012 02:01 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600 To the Last Cart: The Enduring 2600 Collector Community Cover Story: The story of Digital Press, Atari Age, and an enduring love for classic games. T oday, video game collecting is not a terribly uncommon hobby. People who have grown up playing video games have gone back to relive their childhood, while the younger crowd has looked backward to see the gaming experiences they have missed. Nowadays the collector focus centers on the gaming platforms of the late '80s and the '90s, but dig around and you'll find the die-hards: The original collectors and their younger successors, those who look beyond low-res graphics and limited audio to find the timeless (as well as the terribly dated or even awful) games beneath. One of the oldest and best-known websites for collectors to collaborate online is Digital Press. Founded by Joe Santulli, alongside his longtime friend, Kevin Oleniacz, it originally appeared as a fanzine -- one of the amateur print newsletters popular in the pre-Internet days of the '80s and '90s -- before eventually morphing into a comprehensive video game rarity guide and hub for collectors and gamers alike to chat about their hobby. Before the website, in the early days of the '90s, it was initially difficult to connect with other Atari and general classic gaming fans, let alone find information about the 2600 and its contemporaries.

The Odd Couple Posted: 26 Sep 2012 12:21 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600 The Odd Couple Cover Story: One hacker's quest to make a love connection between the Atari 2600 and R.O.B. the Video Robot. I n 1977, when video games were making their first timid steps out of arcades and into homes, systems like the Atari 2600 kept their connections to the outside world simple. There were no USB connectors, no HDMI ports, and no wireless connectivity. For your 300 dollars, you were given an RF jack to connect your console to a television set, two joystick ports, and an A/C jack to power the machine. While each system used its own power supply, most used the same 9-pin connector for joysticks, and nearly all plugged into the television set with the same palm-sized RF switch box. It wasn't even close to state-of-the-art -- that RF box produced fuzzy images with the ghost of Archie Bunker in the background, and game controllers were limited to one whopping button -- but it got the job done. After the industry shakeup of 1983, the companies which made game systems distanced themselves from the standards of the past and introduced their own connectors. The reward for gamers was a boost in performance; the responsive four-button controller of the NES was a step up from Atari's standard issue joystick, and the Master System's A/V jack split the machine's audio and video signals, resulting in a crisper picture. However, these proprietary ports locked out devices from competing systems, marking the start of a more territorial video game industry. These days, you're lucky to coax last generation's peripherals to work with today's consoles... and lord help you if you try to use the latest device for the Xbox 360 with a competing system!

Interview: Double Fine's Ron Gilbert Takes Us On a Trip Into The Cave Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:50 AM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet Interview: Double Fine's Ron Gilbert Takes Us On a Trip Into The Cave Delving into the past, present, and future of the adventure game pioneer. By: Marty Sliva and Bob Mackey September 26, 2012 It's no secret that we here at 1UP are huge fans of the adventure game genre, so it goes without saying that we owe a debt of gratitude to Ron Gilbert for his seminal work on titles like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island. Through sensible puzzle design, ample amounts of character, and hilarious dialogue, he helped usher in the golden age of point and click adventures. So it's no surprise that when Gilbert revealed that his next title, The Cave, would be developed at Double Fine alongside his former partner in crime Tim Schafer, we got excited. A little while back, we got to sit down with Gilbert and pick his brain on his prior work, the genre's sensibilities, and how The Cave just might be the next great adventure game. 1UP: The idea for The Cave has been in the back of your head since even pre-Maniac Mansion. What's the reason that this is happening now, as opposed to at some point in the last 20 years?

The Bright Side of the Early '80s Video Game Crash Posted: 26 Sep 2012 10:31 AM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24 | 35 YEARS OF ATARI 2600 The Bright Side of the Early '80s Video Game Crash Cover Story: An entire industry circling the drain brought one benefit to the especially frugal. W hile we're still three years from the flying cars promised to us by Back to the Future Part II, our futuristic 21st century does offer one distinct advantage over the creaky, old past: simply put: video games are everywhere. From cell phones to browsers to key chains, gaming's often-free price of entry now allows for a much larger audience that otherwise wouldn't have the budget or interest to invest in moderately pricey hardware. And on that note, just think how inexpensive our hobby has become in just four decades; 35 years after the launch of the Atari VCS, it's almost shocking to think that gaming consoles once entered the market at prices nearly identical to modern ones -- and that's without accounting for inflation. So if you happened to be a proud, mustached '70s dad out to pick up this new "Atari" thing for your undoubtedly wood-paneled, 300-pound television, you'd be plunking down 200 dollars for the privilege -- that's roughly 700 dollars today. All this, just to take part in simulated ping-pong? It's no wonder that arcades proved such a popular alternative to these weighty investments.

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