Long time record falls

[Pat K]

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/legendary-asteroids-record-smashed/1396032
April 6 5:52 P.M.
Asteroids

One of gaming's oldest records was just blown up. And it wasn't an easy shot.

After a grueling 58 hours of continuous play, John McAllister of Seattle, Washington officially became the best Asteroids player on the planet by scoring an unthinkable 41,338,740 points in the classic 1979 coin-op arcade game. The previous mark of 41,336,440 was set by Scott Safran back in 1982 -- the longest standing record in gaming -- and was considered virtually unbreakable.

"It's basically considered a Holy Grail," he told Portland TV station KGW. "It was a title that a lot of people would want, and I wanted it."

McAllister also holds the world record for the lesser known sequel Asteroids Deluxe, a mark he set in 2009. Before he's inducted into the record books, however, his efforts will have to pass the strict submission guidelines of official game scorekeepers, Twin Galaxies.

It's been a rough year for video game records. In March, a plastic surgeon toppled the all-time Donkey Kong mark, while back in January, a Connecticut man hopped his way to the new high score in Frogger.


Anyone else on here spend about a zillion quarters in the late 70's early 80's on this? 

[Ogre]

Dang. And I thought my score of 2 million was good.

[Ryan McGuire]

The classic games era were just slightly before my time, but I love playing them till this day. I even made a MAME cabinet that I had in my college apartment. I sold it on my way to NH though, maybe I'll build another one someday.

NH is quite lucky, we have the world's largest classic arcade game museum.. There's a great movie about Donkey Kong that features the museum too. It's available via netflix streaming too, well worth the watch

[KBCraig]

Ryan said what I would have added.

"Fun Spot" is the arcade mecca. Not that I'm into that genre; the last time I dropped a quarter, it was for Gallaga, and that was over 25 years ago. But, I love those guys who are so into it that they are still trying to defeat those old games.

[Russell Kanning]

i liked that donkey kong movie
i would think playing a game for hours would cease to be fun

[WithoutAPaddle]

The classic games era were just slightly before my time...

They weren't before my time.  Back in 1972, I played the first ever coin-operated video game - the one  that came out BEFORE Pong - at the Happy Hampton, a place that some of you may recognize as the arcade that went up in smoke a couple of months ago.

Without Googling, can anyone here name the first coin-operated video game?

And here's a New Hampshire video game trivia question.  What New Hampshire company designed Magnavox's Odyssey, the first ever, mass-produced video game (hint: it was a defense contractor)

[FreelanceFreedomFighter]

Computer Space or Computer Wars or Computer Space Wars or something like that was kind of like asteroids but had little dotted spaceships that you shot at and shot at you. It was sometime in the early-mid 70's and it was a big deal when they got one in at the place where my Daddy and I would go to play pinball. I don't know exact dates and can't remember the exact name, but you said "without googling", so... that's my best guess for the first coin-operated "commercial" game. From memory, it didn't have a big boxy cabinet like later games, but the one I remember had like a blue metallic finish on a sleek fiberglass body... looked very "futuristic".

Wait a sec... did I just give away how old I'm getting? 

[WithoutAPaddle]

Computer Space or Computer Wars or Computer Space Wars or something like that was kind of like asteroids but had little dotted spaceships that you shot at and shot at you. It was sometime in the early-mid 70's and it was a big deal when they got one in at the place where my Daddy and I would go to play pinball. I don't know exact dates and can't remember the exact name, but you said "without googling", so... that's my best guess for the first coin-operated "commercial" game.  From memory, it didn't have a big boxy cabinet like later games, but the one I remember had like a blue metallic finish on a sleek fiberglass body... looked very "futuristic".

Congrats!  It was Nutting's Computer Space.  The player controlled a craft that maneuvered like a ship on Asteroids but appeared dotted because that game used a raster scan monitor rather than a vector scan one.  Nutting's sleek, molded fiberglass cabinet was also used to house their subsequent knockoff of Pong. 

Wait a sec... did I just give away how old I'm getting? 

You have obviously missed your appointment at Carousel.  A Sandman assigned to you will be dispatched shortly.

[Ogre]

And indeed, I remember Nutting's game was a flop because the directions were too much for the drunk-targeted crowd to handle -- which is also why Pong was the first successful coin-operated "arcade" game.

But no clue on the NH trivia.

[WithoutAPaddle]

...And here's a New Hampshire video game trivia question.  What New Hampshire company designed Magnavox's Odyssey, the first ever, mass-produced video game (hint: it was a defense contractor)

But no clue on the NH trivia.

The answers is defense contractor Sanders Associates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders_Associates of Nashua New Hampshire, now a division of BAE Systems.  Odyssey's release as a home video game preceded that of coin-operated Pong by a couple of months, and more importantly, there was sufficient evidence to prove that its inception and creation preceded that of Pong, leading Sanders and Magnavox to victory in a string of patent infringement lawsuits against Arari, Bally/Midway etc.  I was actually pre-interviewed by one of Sanders's lawyers to assess my suitability to testify as a so-called expert witness in that litigation, but I quickly convinced them that I had nothing of value to contribute to their case.

Does anyone here remember the small New Hampshire company that made bootleg PacMan games in Hanover and Lebanon, back in the early 1980s?  If you ever met the owner/smuggler, Ernest Brauch, you would never have forgotten him.  He was sort of a cross between Professor Erwin Corey and Tiny Tim.