My grandfather loved bowling, but got to a point where he physically couldn't do it anymore, right around when the Atari 2600 came out. When we got ours, he had a lot of fun with it and got his own 2600, and he played that old Bowling game the rest of his days. Keeping score on paper and everything.
Bald guy in the brown dimension throws a white ball at white dots, erasing them, and gets a super star and retrieves thw white ball, the cycle restarts
Our family had epic bowling tournaments with this game. You can't compare it to what is out there today. At the time...this game gave us some of the most incredible family memories that we still talk about to this day.
Bowling was a 2K game, or 2048 characters. That's it, it would fit neatly on two pieces of standard A4 paper. That they got a playable game out of so little space is incredible. One frame of this video likely contains more data than the entire 2600 games catalog, which easily fits on 2 floppy disks.
@@Archer690Channel you say nothing like them, but even watchdogs e3 presentation looks a hell of a lot closer than any atari game box did to the actual game
@@marcusborderlands6177 they knew the technology could not replicate the box art. Anybody who believed the game would look anything like it was delusional or living in the wrong millennium.
For anyone who has older family members who don’t get the appeal of video games, remember for most of their existence THIS was the caliber of games. They kinda had reason to shake their heads.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine hell, even Super Mario Bros (1985) is way ahead of atari2600 Then we have DOS and Windows9x stuff We have early Halo (actually was on Mac OS and Xbox I think) We got half life Yeah games got much cooler even still in the 10th century, over like 15 years Well I don't know too much cuz I was born in 2009 but like those games were actually pretty good And of course the legendary Minecraft (2011), later but still golden (talking about early releases, but not betas or earlier, so that's why I said 2011)
@@De19thKingJulionDon't forget, brown _pants_ were also common for the time!! As well as mysterious brown tracks in tight whities, which everyone wore... Mid-60s to mid-80s were a peculiar time in fashion. (😊 at least in my opinion; born in 83)
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE My parents' late 1980s travel photos even show a field of brown flowers under a brown sky! Crazy how recent colours came to the world lol
@@De19thKingJulion haha You sure you weren't looking at the Negatives? Or perhaps a Sepia photo? 😅 _edit: Purely out of curiosity if there even were any brown flowers, I looked... There are a few, but with the exception of the "Chocolate Brown Dahlia", I'd say that most you could argue are more _*_purple_*_ than they are brown..._ 🤷♂️😊
This was one of the ways early Activision was good: they used pixel art on the box that was stylized but at least resembled what you got on screen. Yes I know, Activision good is very alien sounding now
EA was the same way, with both of them born out of programmers getting tired of not getting credit within Atari. Once the founders left, the investors took over and turned them into the behemoth publishers that we know today. It’s why I’m glad Valve is a privately owned company and not publicly traded.
Every thanksgivings my uncle brings over his Atari and the whole family plays this game. And the person with the highest score says what they are thankful for first
The fact that this probably took a maths/computing graduate about two months to program tells you everything you need to know about the sheer difficulty of writing a game for the 2600. And how much worse a shovelware title could be. That said, I love the artwork on the Atari sports game boxes. It's stunning.
@Metal_Maxine yeah, you would be right. Because the 2600 was so slooooow the programmer would have to optimize a LOT in order to be able to compute everything in time for the next pixel to be drawn. That’s the reason why the 2600 has its signature “wide pixels” because they had to double the width of the pixels in order to leave the programmer time to do anything of value.
And also why they likely wanted it to be called "Game *Program",* as an upsell of what they're making. 😅 _"No no no, it's not JUST a game! It's a full blown program, with math and all the tribulations of coding!"_
As simplistic and bare-bones as it is, you gotta admit, that desire to get a strike mixed with the difficulty of getting it is actually a pretty good incentive to draw you in to the next roll and the next roll and the next. I can kind of see why someone thought this was marketable.
True. I played this game so much that I knew exactly where to line up and when to start the curve. Finishing a game below 300 was rare for me. I wish I could bowl like that in real life!
The kids need to remember that we had the following options during bad weather or school nights in 1980 when you couldn't go to a friend's: 1. Watch TV. Keep in mind: no cable or streaming. If you were in a big market you had the big 3, sometimes Fox, and PBS. During the day it was soap operas or repeats of 50s shows. 2. Something artistic, like Spirograph. 3. Read 4. Talk on the phone. If someone else didn't have to or you didn't mind your parents overhearing 5. Read (yes, saying 2x) 6. Play board games 7. "Find something to do or I will give you something to do." 8. Play games like this on the Atari. Doesn't seem so bad now does it? Plus you were likely breathing in secondhand smoke from one or both parents.
from my childhood, i had the "3rd zug" strategy start from either edge, bowl, and on the 3rd rolling sound aka "zug". go hard in the opposite direction, worked out well for me at least. zug zug zug zug zug
I'm surprised there's actually a bowler represented. Tell you what... in 1978, I was AMAZED by these simple graphics. This was a GAME you could play... ON YOUR TV! Wonder of wonders! In 1976, I had a friend who had an original PONG console and I couldn't WAIT to visit him just to play PONG. Trouble was, he'd eventually get bored with it, and PONG was no fun to mess with by yourself. But yeah, back in the day, these games were pure MAGIC! To this day, I still love playing my original Mattel Electronics hand-held "Football" game. Such fond memories of the fascination I had with these simple electronic devices. So cool!
Yes. The first generation consoles were all Pong: playfield, bars and ball(s). Learning the history of some of these Atari games, I was surprised that many were tested in the real world in arcade games using quarters. I thought they were made-up for the home console!
My Mom and Dad bought me an off-brand electronic handheld football game for Christmas one year. Loved playing on it, even after I figured out the patterns. I was in junior high school then. Wore the thing out by my senior year of high school. It’s a wonder that I got any studying done at all.
45 years ago this was actually a fun game to play with my dad. Of course it doesn’t compare to anything even just a few years newer but that’s not always what it’s about
I remember this game. I was pretty good at getting strikes and spares. Even the dreaded 7-10 split was possible. IIRC, I played the steerable all levels a lot.
I actually have good memories of playing this at my grandmas house on what was my dads Atari. It was fun enough but it definitely was a game you’d get bored of after one or two rounds
I actually enjoyed this game as a kid, even though I didn't like real bowling. The thing people need to understand that weren't around for this era of gaming is we never expected the game to look like the cover. To me and my friends, the cover was just portraying the fantasy in our minds that the game is trying to inspire. Everyone knew what their 2600 or Intellivision was and wasn't capable of. Similar deal as the cover of a book, or how action figures are always shown animated doing something cool, even though they are really just stiff pieces of plastic. The real action scenes were happening in our minds. Now we all have super computers sitting on our desks, so not much use for imaginations anymore.
@@lucencyto be honest most games on atari 2600 had a person-ish character but THIS ONE HAS DIFFERENT COLORS! they probably changed color mid-frame!!!!
Oh goodness, we inherited an Atari 2600 in the 90s and this was one of the mess of games that came with it. I haven't thought about this game in decades and now I'm realizing most folks are totally unfamiliar with what the most primitive games actually were. This was a reasonably playable game by the standards of the time.
Uh huh... "grain"... sure... lol I was kind of surprised there weren't any wood plank lines in the plane. I wouldn't think that would take too much coding storage... But I'm also not a coder, and I suppose it also would not have any 'shortcuts' like a modern coding languages do. Alright, fine, I retract my statement! lol _(still posting this, for the Almighty Algorithm's sake!)_
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE for context, one frame of this video quite possibly contains more data than the entire 2600 catalog of games. There is no extra coding storage
@@The_Silliest_Lilly heh Yea, I had seen that tossed around in a couple threads. It's pretty crazy how far we've come technologically in under a century! From building-sized vacuum tube computers, to a powerhouse WITH a screen that is a modern smartwatch, and also that I can get hundreds of Mb/s with sub-50ms latency from my Starlink service.... coming from outer-friggen-space! _(granted, low-earth orbit, but still outerspace!)_ Truly is mind blowing when you stop to think about it, isn't it?!
Not really similar imo. Is there unfun, expensive, overmonetized trash out there with inflated budgets? Sure, but there's also a ton of good stuff from smaller developers. Also, unlike the bad old days it's incredibly easy to get an idea if you'd like a game. Check out a video or stream, online reviews, digital purchases with universal no-questions-asked refund periods.
This was one of the original 2 dozen carts I had as a young child with my first game system (2600 Jr, around 1987). I played this so much. The ability to steer the ball made for a truly challenge-free experience. Still loved the game “whoops” for spares and strikes.
I remember as a kid in the early 80s going to Kmart and digging through a bargain bin of discount Atari games, spending my allowance then coming home and experiencing instant regret moments after turning on the console. Your video lasted longer than many times plugging in a game and realizing it was complete garbage. The shovelware back then was very real towards the end of the Atari era.
This feels like the type of game that only existed to fill a requirement. Like they had a checklist of sports they wanted included and bowling came up towards the tail end of that list. I suspect many Dads purchased this when they bought a system for the family so they could have a game for themselves. It's kind of endearing in that way
Bowling had peaked in the 1960s and plateaued after that. Bowling and leagues were still very popular in 1980 when it's slow and gradual decline was beginning. Video Gaming ironically probably killed bowling's popularity in a way.
I played duckpin bowling one season in a league. But yeah, they made games they thought parents would buy: 1979 saw Bowling, Casino, Slot Machine (retired 1980) and Backgammon. When the Intellivision came out it was bundled with Blackjack and Poker! How lame for kids! They say the trick in selling "flies" to fishermen is to sell what appeals to them, not what appeals to fish!
"Ok, so we're ignoring physics now" Ha! I remember a few games where your guy jumps and can change directions mid-air. First attempt at a fantasy world I suppose.
Fun fact my elder brothers mate brought a brand new 2600 round over Xmas in 1981 and being 5 yrs old it was magical 😊he kindly left it with the family and I think it wasn’t switched off for 240 hrs
Back in the day, they also had paper catalogs that sat with the games that had screenshots of the games themselves. They were usually either packed it with the console, a game or even in a display with the games that were for sale.
Yeah, I would pore over the catalogs. There were also game magazines with reviews, but until Atari sent out its Atari Age magazine (which essentially replaced its catalogs) kids didn't buy the game magazines. I do remember some stores had an attendant that would let you try out games. That's how I got Dodge 'Em along with Space Invaders. Then J.C. Penney's had a console that allowed you to play game 1 of various Atari games without an attendant, but not the 3rd-party Activision games.
Games at that time were programmed by a timer that gives a different seed each time you play depending how much time you touch the controls ahead the start screen, like Mario or Tetris, on Mario you actually can see this at the demo on the begging of the show where the character follows the same program each time but the one for the background changes, so each time demo it’s displayed you have a different result on how far Mario gets on the world
i was forbidden to play Atari at night as a kid, because the sound would travel up two floors and make people lose sleep. who knew that Bowling would be so noisy haha
Ironically this game was quite well received at the time and considered a graphical tour-de-force. Don't quote me on this but I think it was the first Atari game to have a multi-colored player sprite.
Superman came out the same year, so one of those games should get the honor. I'd have to look up a channel that does the histories of these games to see which.
The thing you do have to understand is this was the absolute best we had in 1978. By today's standards it looks like a first grader's computer programming project, but the storage technology wasn't there. The cartridges held 64kb of information. See what you could do with 64,000 bytes.
KITTY! Also: Come on, even real bowlers don't constantly throw the ball straight down the lane. This is a highly sophisticated physics simulation, thus you need to curve the ball into the pocket like the pros do!
Atari Bowling Logbook Challenge: Play game 1, difficulty B. Pro: score 200; Master: score 240; Wizard: score 280. I made 8 strikes twice (once 6 in a row) but couldn't make Wizard. Comparing this 1979 game to that of the Odyssey² in 1978, a reviewer said the latter doesn't play by ten pin rules! Sadly this video is another example of someone who can make videos but can't play or is unwilling to learn to play old video games well. Maybe it takes a week? I'd really like to see a series of videos by someone and his brother (or best friend) who played 1977-1981 two-player games competitively and can recreate them for our viewing pleasure.
Dude- on the Flashback Portable, which has thumb-pad control, it's an absolute blast. It's surprising how well 2600 games work on a portable; definitely better than with the original joystick, and the graphics are never an issue on a tiny screen. .
Keep in mind these games were like 3x more expensive than games are today. When Nintendo revived the market they used pixel art on early NES games so consumers would know what they’re getting into and want to actually buy it.
Indeed. I remember spending my Christmas money that my grandmother gave me $50, to buy Donkey Kong for the 2600. That was $50 back in 1982, do the currency conversion. Though the best 50 beans I ever spent! I played that game for like 100 hours!
@@CosmicCat202 I think $10 in ~1980 became $30 in ~2020, so that would be $150 for Donkey Kong! That may be one reason people were loath to abandon the Atari VCS/2600 for a "better" system, even though its time was pretty much up by the end of 1982.
As a person that played this and other Atari 2600 games, I can honestly say that it is very different to play this against someone else, like a friend of a family member. The game is still like that, but competing against someone makes it actually fun. Some games of the Atari 2600 were designed for playing against people and others were meant to be played alone. Haunted House is a game you play alone. This one, or Basketball, or Tennis, or Outlaw were all meant to be played against someone, and that made it actually fun.
That's somewhat fair. Hardware limitations did mean it often had to be one or the other. But as they say: 'Yeah, no @$&* it's fun to play with a friend. Everything is fun to do with a friend. Going to fetch water with a friend is fun.' Those 2600 Vs games that use the paddles are far more on the upper crust of what the original library had to offer. By lord, sometimes I wonder if the paddle shouldn't have been the primary controller for the console. Urgh, that single button joystick...
Things really changed with Space Invaders, Missile Command and Asteroids, which essentially made it a one-player console. From 1977-1980 it was a multi-player machine, with some games having 1-player options.
Loved this quick style review video please do some of the xonox double ender carts. Used to play Artillery Duel with my dad on his 2600 and he loved the Chuck Norris game on the other end.
When I was a kid I liked playing this game at a relative's. Remembering this, I was hoping to find an A8 computer version of this game because it's more convenient for me than the 2600 nowadays. I was disappointed to find that it doesn't exist. Apparently "Bowling" was a 2600 exclusive.
I got an Atari 2600, the new version, when I was about 5 or 6, in the early 80’s and I am sure I had this game. Funny thing I was never disappointed with any of the games. I had a cowboy shooting game that I liked, but I also had muppets maybe lost in space I think it was called, and I played that the most but I think the only thing remotely muppet related was the colour of the pixels, but god I loved that Atari. I can’t remember a time that I owned it that I ever didn’t run home from school and play it the second I got through the door.
0:45 omg Adelaide weather has been all over the place lately. I'm kinda over it. EDIT: Wait how did I just notice that screen was property of ABC and 2 how did you get it? That's awesome.
This game is very fun. It’s uncomplicated to play, scores correctly. The ‘physics’ of knocking down the pins equates accurately with real bowling. A game doesn’t necessarily need great graphics to be enjoyable!
I mean for a 2600 game, it's not bad, I'd have gotten a few hours of fun out of it when I was a kid. Be interesting to see someone dump the code of this and see what the algorithm is like, someone smarter than I am preferably.
My friens had an Atari still in the late 90s and we played the crap out of that Bowling game it was probably the most fun game he had for that system (he had an NES, Super NES and eventually a 64 as well so we weren't just stuck with the Atari)
The video bowling game in bars in the late 1990s and early 2000's was always a staple and fun to play with friends. Bars usually had bowling or the Golf game with the ball as the controller.
My grandfather loved bowling, but got to a point where he physically couldn't do it anymore, right around when the Atari 2600 came out. When we got ours, he had a lot of fun with it and got his own 2600, and he played that old Bowling game the rest of his days. Keeping score on paper and everything.
that is a tragic mental image
@@theharvardyard2356 I think it's pretty wholesome tbh
In some minds but not mine.
Cheers.
You know what, you're a smart fella, not like some other Turkey's on her
Bald guy in the brown dimension throws a white ball at white dots, erasing them, and gets a super star and retrieves thw white ball, the cycle restarts
The nes ball
Rolling a square ball because this is before circles were invented
one must imagine the bald guy happy
Don't forget that he does a dance to some psychedelic music when he gets a spare or a strike!
@@ozzie_goat They didn't invent the circle until Wii Sports Bowling
Our family had epic bowling tournaments with this game. You can't compare it to what is out there today. At the time...this game gave us some of the most incredible family memories that we still talk about to this day.
ONE frame of this video contains more data than the entirety of that video game cartridge.
Wild
Bowling was a 2K game, or 2048 characters. That's it, it would fit neatly on two pieces of standard A4 paper. That they got a playable game out of so little space is incredible. One frame of this video likely contains more data than the entire 2600 games catalog, which easily fits on 2 floppy disks.
@@Zerbey uncompressed, a frame should be around 4.3 megabytes
Compressed (TH-cam bitrate), about 33.3 kilobytes
Reminds me of the Google Stadia!
probably more than the entire Atari catalog
@@Xnoob545I'm genuinely curious how you figured that out and got those numbers.
I wish bowling sounded like that in real life
There would be a lot more drinking.
I wish I started flashing and beeping whenever I got either a spare or a strike
No, no you don't.
@@Wario-The-Legend that would be super fun honestly
@@blakksheep736 everyone takes their turn wisely planning it out so they don’t have to hear the dreaded crunch twice
My favourite thing about this era of games is the fully sick looking cover only for the game to look nothing like it.
"Everything today is so complicated. Don't you yearn for the days of 'Bowling', 'Golf', 'Skiing'? 'Eat', 'Sit'... 'Shoe'?"
-Caddy, 3 May 2024
and now the games look nothing like the trailers and announcements you see at expos or promotions
@@Archer690Channel you say nothing like them, but even watchdogs e3 presentation looks a hell of a lot closer than any atari game box did to the actual game
@@Archer690Channel Old habits die hard I guess.
@@marcusborderlands6177 they knew the technology could not replicate the box art. Anybody who believed the game would look anything like it was delusional or living in the wrong millennium.
For anyone who has older family members who don’t get the appeal of video games, remember for most of their existence THIS was the caliber of games. They kinda had reason to shake their heads.
if not their whole lives, then at least a lot of their formative years
I'm amazed that there's people who still think this is all videogames is, when that hasn't been true for 40 years.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine hell, even Super Mario Bros (1985) is way ahead of atari2600
Then we have DOS and Windows9x stuff
We have early Halo (actually was on Mac OS and Xbox I think)
We got half life
Yeah games got much cooler even still in the 10th century, over like 15 years
Well I don't know too much cuz I was born in 2009 but like those games were actually pretty good
And of course the legendary Minecraft (2011), later but still golden (talking about early releases, but not betas or earlier, so that's why I said 2011)
@@Xnoob545 it’s so funny to me that the NES literally had to re-prove that video games didn’t have to suck.
@@Xnoob545 also no way Halo was on Mac OS, I had a Mac at the time and we were lucky to get Age of Mythology.
My dad played this piece of shit so much that it was burned into our huge old wooden-console TV.
Brown game on Brown TV!
@@De19thKingJulionDon't forget, brown _pants_ were also common for the time!!
As well as mysterious brown tracks in tight whities, which everyone wore...
Mid-60s to mid-80s were a peculiar time in fashion. (😊 at least in my opinion; born in 83)
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE My parents' late 1980s travel photos even show a field of brown flowers under a brown sky! Crazy how recent colours came to the world lol
@@De19thKingJulion haha You sure you weren't looking at the Negatives? Or perhaps a Sepia photo? 😅
_edit: Purely out of curiosity if there even were any brown flowers, I looked... There are a few, but with the exception of the "Chocolate Brown Dahlia", I'd say that most you could argue are more _*_purple_*_ than they are brown..._ 🤷♂️😊
some people with 600 hours in Elden Ring? newbs
Dad with 1200 hours in Atari Bowling? true gamer
This was one of the ways early Activision was good: they used pixel art on the box that was stylized but at least resembled what you got on screen. Yes I know, Activision good is very alien sounding now
EA was the same way, with both of them born out of programmers getting tired of not getting credit within Atari. Once the founders left, the investors took over and turned them into the behemoth publishers that we know today.
It’s why I’m glad Valve is a privately owned company and not publicly traded.
@@piratebear3126 Luckily Gabe Newell is immortal, so there's nothing to ever worry about.
@@ThisNameIsNotTaken99 please don’t remind me, maybe they can upload his brain
Activision, pioneers of mine and other people's childhoods, now they're a shadow of their former glory.
Activision games were always better: better graphics, better gameplay, better everything.
As an atari collecter I don't know if my standards for atari games have gotten too low but this genuinely looked kinda fun.
Yikes
Unlucky 😬
Dragster, on the other hand, stank. (This was my childhood gaming console. I’m old.)
I could see myself enjoying it. Personally I played a good bit of games like Venture and Pitfall, if memory serves (it has been some time.)
I agree. It looks fun. I gotta find this.
I LOVED this game lol. I could see why it's not the best, but I have a load of memories playing this game with my dad.
I had this game and played the heck out of it as a kid. We didn't have a lot of games, but I enjoyed this one. The sound effects are nostalgic for me.
Every thanksgivings my uncle brings over his Atari and the whole family plays this game. And the person with the highest score says what they are thankful for first
Thats the most wholesome thing I've read on the internet for years. Sounds like a cool uncle.
“I’m thankful for my Nintendo NES!”
The fact that this probably took a maths/computing graduate about two months to program tells you everything you need to know about the sheer difficulty of writing a game for the 2600. And how much worse a shovelware title could be.
That said, I love the artwork on the Atari sports game boxes. It's stunning.
I think the graphics were more based on the raster lines on the TV
@Metal_Maxine yeah, you would be right. Because the 2600 was so slooooow the programmer would have to optimize a LOT in order to be able to compute everything in time for the next pixel to be drawn. That’s the reason why the 2600 has its signature “wide pixels” because they had to double the width of the pixels in order to leave the programmer time to do anything of value.
There’s a coffee table art book of Atari box art. It’s awesome.
And also why they likely wanted it to be called "Game *Program",* as an upsell of what they're making. 😅
_"No no no, it's not JUST a game! It's a full blown program, with math and all the tribulations of coding!"_
As simplistic and bare-bones as it is, you gotta admit, that desire to get a strike mixed with the difficulty of getting it is actually a pretty good incentive to draw you in to the next roll and the next roll and the next. I can kind of see why someone thought this was marketable.
Being able to hook the ball at the proper time is crucial to getting a strike. There is skill involved.
True. I played this game so much that I knew exactly where to line up and when to start the curve. Finishing a game below 300 was rare for me. I wish I could bowl like that in real life!
The kids need to remember that we had the following options during bad weather or school nights in 1980 when you couldn't go to a friend's:
1. Watch TV. Keep in mind: no cable or streaming. If you were in a big market you had the big 3, sometimes Fox, and PBS. During the day it was soap operas or repeats of 50s shows.
2. Something artistic, like Spirograph.
3. Read
4. Talk on the phone. If someone else didn't have to or you didn't mind your parents overhearing
5. Read (yes, saying 2x)
6. Play board games
7. "Find something to do or I will give you something to do."
8. Play games like this on the Atari.
Doesn't seem so bad now does it?
Plus you were likely breathing in secondhand smoke from one or both parents.
How are kids going to remember events that took place before they were born?
💯 Yet somehow, these were the best of times! 👍
from my childhood, i had the "3rd zug" strategy
start from either edge, bowl, and on the 3rd rolling sound aka "zug". go hard in the opposite direction, worked out well for me at least.
zug zug zug zug zug
I remember being around 5, and my mom and dad would play the Atari with me on Saturday nights.... ah the late 70's and 80's were the best
I'm surprised there's actually a bowler represented.
Tell you what... in 1978, I was AMAZED by these simple graphics. This was a GAME you could play... ON YOUR TV! Wonder of wonders!
In 1976, I had a friend who had an original PONG console and I couldn't WAIT to visit him just to play PONG. Trouble was, he'd eventually get bored with it, and PONG was no fun to mess with by yourself.
But yeah, back in the day, these games were pure MAGIC!
To this day, I still love playing my original Mattel Electronics hand-held "Football" game. Such fond memories of the fascination I had with these simple electronic devices. So cool!
Yes. The first generation consoles were all Pong: playfield, bars and ball(s). Learning the history of some of these Atari games, I was surprised that many were tested in the real world in arcade games using quarters. I thought they were made-up for the home console!
My Mom and Dad bought me an off-brand electronic handheld football game for Christmas one year. Loved playing on it, even after I figured out the patterns. I was in junior high school then. Wore the thing out by my senior year of high school. It’s a wonder that I got any studying done at all.
Finally, a new episode of Terrible Old Games You've Probably Never Heard Of.
A FITTING PUNISHMENT!
WILL YOU KEEP THE BLOODY NOISE DOWN I'M TRYING TO SLEEP IN HERE
Ooh, controversial!
No, no, I'm pretty sure I've heard of bowling before.
45 years ago this was actually a fun game to play with my dad. Of course it doesn’t compare to anything even just a few years newer but that’s not always what it’s about
I remember this game. I was pretty good at getting strikes and spares. Even the dreaded 7-10 split was possible. IIRC, I played the steerable all levels a lot.
I actually have good memories of playing this at my grandmas house on what was my dads Atari. It was fun enough but it definitely was a game you’d get bored of after one or two rounds
I actually enjoyed this game as a kid, even though I didn't like real bowling. The thing people need to understand that weren't around for this era of gaming is we never expected the game to look like the cover. To me and my friends, the cover was just portraying the fantasy in our minds that the game is trying to inspire. Everyone knew what their 2600 or Intellivision was and wasn't capable of.
Similar deal as the cover of a book, or how action figures are always shown animated doing something cool, even though they are really just stiff pieces of plastic. The real action scenes were happening in our minds. Now we all have super computers sitting on our desks, so not much use for imaginations anymore.
That high quality Trinitron really pulling it's weight on this game! 😊
So much aperture grille resolution, for all 80 pixels. haha
@@nickwallette6201 The absolute *_crispest_* 80 pixels you will ever see! 😅
Honestly for 1979 this seems decently fun, definetely way better than Football (plain-ass, normal, everyday, no question about it football)
Avgn reference
The artwork on the 2600 game boxes were fantastic.
Amazing how just seeing the cover of these old games brings back my memories of happier more innocent times.
I had this on a ds collection, legit loved playing it, me and my grandma would play it all the time in waiting rooms
Its worth mentioning that Bowling is only a 2K ROM game. So not even the 4K that became more common a year or so later in the 2600s life.
James: *does graphics reveal*
Me: "I mean... They're not actually that bad, all things considered."
Also: kitteh!
I was pretty impressed that we even got a person-shaped bowler and not just a ball.
@@lucencyto be honest most games on atari 2600 had a person-ish character but THIS ONE HAS DIFFERENT COLORS! they probably changed color mid-frame!!!!
Remember what it is... Atari 2600. Bowling is one of my favorite games for the 2600!
Oh goodness, we inherited an Atari 2600 in the 90s and this was one of the mess of games that came with it. I haven't thought about this game in decades and now I'm realizing most folks are totally unfamiliar with what the most primitive games actually were. This was a reasonably playable game by the standards of the time.
Atari box art really put the art into it. They certainly made it hard for you to have low expectations. Wood grain on the Atari never gets old 😂
Uh huh... "grain"... sure... lol
I was kind of surprised there weren't any wood plank lines in the plane. I wouldn't think that would take too much coding storage... But I'm also not a coder, and I suppose it also would not have any 'shortcuts' like a modern coding languages do. Alright, fine, I retract my statement! lol _(still posting this, for the Almighty Algorithm's sake!)_
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE for context, one frame of this video quite possibly contains more data than the entire 2600 catalog of games. There is no extra coding storage
@@The_Silliest_Lilly heh Yea, I had seen that tossed around in a couple threads. It's pretty crazy how far we've come technologically in under a century! From building-sized vacuum tube computers, to a powerhouse WITH a screen that is a modern smartwatch, and also that I can get hundreds of Mb/s with sub-50ms latency from my Starlink service.... coming from outer-friggen-space! _(granted, low-earth orbit, but still outerspace!)_
Truly is mind blowing when you stop to think about it, isn't it?!
I fondly remember that game! My fave Atari 2600 games were Space Invaders and Superman, though
It's something about these really old games like this that I really like.
0:20 basically were sitting in an era similar to this and am waiting for the current crash
Not really similar imo. Is there unfun, expensive, overmonetized trash out there with inflated budgets? Sure, but there's also a ton of good stuff from smaller developers.
Also, unlike the bad old days it's incredibly easy to get an idea if you'd like a game. Check out a video or stream, online reviews, digital purchases with universal no-questions-asked refund periods.
Skill issue, simply don't touch aaa slop
genuinly not at all man, there are a lot of AMAZING games
@@marcusborderlands6177 True, if you don't look only at AAA shovelware then you can find genuinely good games.
My father and I played this SOOOO often. So many fond memories.
This was one of the original 2 dozen carts I had as a young child with my first game system (2600 Jr, around 1987). I played this so much. The ability to steer the ball made for a truly challenge-free experience. Still loved the game “whoops” for spares and strikes.
Those were the days! so much fun with the technology we had available. pizza, soda, razzing friends, sleepovers, etc.. great times.
I remember as a kid in the early 80s going to Kmart and digging through a bargain bin of discount Atari games, spending my allowance then coming home and experiencing instant regret moments after turning on the console. Your video lasted longer than many times plugging in a game and realizing it was complete garbage. The shovelware back then was very real towards the end of the Atari era.
The uncontainable excitement in James's "yay😐" is a mood
This feels like the type of game that only existed to fill a requirement. Like they had a checklist of sports they wanted included and bowling came up towards the tail end of that list. I suspect many Dads purchased this when they bought a system for the family so they could have a game for themselves. It's kind of endearing in that way
Bowling had peaked in the 1960s and plateaued after that. Bowling and leagues were still very popular in 1980 when it's slow and gradual decline was beginning. Video Gaming ironically probably killed bowling's popularity in a way.
I played duckpin bowling one season in a league. But yeah, they made games they thought parents would buy: 1979 saw Bowling, Casino, Slot Machine (retired 1980) and Backgammon. When the Intellivision came out it was bundled with Blackjack and Poker! How lame for kids! They say the trick in selling "flies" to fishermen is to sell what appeals to them, not what appeals to fish!
The 84 crash only affected the American market. The European and Japanese markets were basically untouched, and went from strength to sternght
Americans: "The video game market is collapsing"
Brits: "heh. miner willy go brrr"
@@RAFMnBgaming 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@RAFMnBgamingi just moved to the uk from the us and now i understand why
@@connors3356ew why
Sternght, is that in Europe or Japan?
Used to have this game when I was younger. Would play it for minutes on end. Probably have to get it again for my collection
This was an awesome video. Just the right amount of coverage of an Atari game. More of this!
The most hilarious thing about this video is that after playing the game for 15 seconds he's already hooked on it, but won't admit it.
"Ok, so we're ignoring physics now" Ha! I remember a few games where your guy jumps and can change directions mid-air. First attempt at a fantasy world I suppose.
Videos keep getting better and better! Good job!
Fun fact my elder brothers mate brought a brand new 2600 round over Xmas in 1981 and being 5 yrs old it was magical 😊he kindly left it with the family and I think it wasn’t switched off for 240 hrs
Back in the day, they also had paper catalogs that sat with the games that had screenshots of the games themselves. They were usually either packed it with the console, a game or even in a display with the games that were for sale.
Yeah, I would pore over the catalogs. There were also game magazines with reviews, but until Atari sent out its Atari Age magazine (which essentially replaced its catalogs) kids didn't buy the game magazines. I do remember some stores had an attendant that would let you try out games. That's how I got Dodge 'Em along with Space Invaders. Then J.C. Penney's had a console that allowed you to play game 1 of various Atari games without an attendant, but not the 3rd-party Activision games.
Games at that time were programmed by a timer that gives a different seed each time you play depending how much time you touch the controls ahead the start screen, like Mario or Tetris, on Mario you actually can see this at the demo on the begging of the show where the character follows the same program each time but the one for the background changes, so each time demo it’s displayed you have a different result on how far Mario gets on the world
i was forbidden to play Atari at night as a kid, because the sound would travel up two floors and make people lose sleep. who knew that Bowling would be so noisy haha
Ironically this game was quite well received at the time and considered a graphical tour-de-force. Don't quote me on this but I think it was the first Atari game to have a multi-colored player sprite.
Superman came out the same year, so one of those games should get the honor. I'd have to look up a channel that does the histories of these games to see which.
that was one of the most played games on my 2600 back in the day lol. now it would bore me senseless
Not going to lie I thought the graphics were going to be much worse. I imagined it to be top town stick man
The thing you do have to understand is this was the absolute best we had in 1978. By today's standards it looks like a first grader's computer programming project, but the storage technology wasn't there. The cartridges held 64kb of information. See what you could do with 64,000 bytes.
James saying "on the other hand" with his hand on screen looking very hand like was coincidental and nothing else
This game ROM is an entire 2 KB of space. Meaning you could fit nearly 700 copies of it on a 3.5" floppy disk.
We've come a long way.
Yeah digital systems have improved unfathomably
Ever so slightly less physically demanding than actually bowling. Watch darts and bowling competitions for an immediate self-confidence boost.
KITTY!
Also: Come on, even real bowlers don't constantly throw the ball straight down the lane. This is a highly sophisticated physics simulation, thus you need to curve the ball into the pocket like the pros do!
This was my favorite game when I was about five.
One of mine too! Also Donkey Kong and Pitfall on the 2600.
Too bad he had to make a video making fun of it.
The video game industry in the states, not the rest of the world bro
I still love the art work from these games Amaze balls! Either way all the games delivered something to us 80s kids!
James' pre crash games.
Atari Bowling Logbook Challenge: Play game 1, difficulty B. Pro: score 200; Master: score 240; Wizard: score 280. I made 8 strikes twice (once 6 in a row) but couldn't make Wizard.
Comparing this 1979 game to that of the Odyssey² in 1978, a reviewer said the latter doesn't play by ten pin rules!
Sadly this video is another example of someone who can make videos but can't play or is unwilling to learn to play old video games well. Maybe it takes a week? I'd really like to see a series of videos by someone and his brother (or best friend) who played 1977-1981 two-player games competitively and can recreate them for our viewing pleasure.
I loved this game as a kid. But then again, I liked the "water" hand held game with the crab eating plastic balls.
Dude- on the Flashback Portable, which has thumb-pad control, it's an absolute blast. It's surprising how well 2600 games work on a portable; definitely better than with the original joystick, and the graphics are never an issue on a tiny screen. .
Love your videos man!!! Keep them coming! ✌️
Keep in mind these games were like 3x more expensive than games are today. When Nintendo revived the market they used pixel art on early NES games so consumers would know what they’re getting into and want to actually buy it.
Indeed. I remember spending my Christmas money that my grandmother gave me $50, to buy Donkey Kong for the 2600. That was $50 back in 1982, do the currency conversion.
Though the best 50 beans I ever spent! I played that game for like 100 hours!
@@CosmicCat202 I think $10 in ~1980 became $30 in ~2020, so that would be $150 for Donkey Kong! That may be one reason people were loath to abandon the Atari VCS/2600 for a "better" system, even though its time was pretty much up by the end of 1982.
I actually loved playing this game. I was probably 3 or 4, but I still loved it haha This, Berzerk, Ice Hockey, and Astroids were my faves then.
I played that game... well owned it. I don't recall Best scores or anything but I do remember that the movable ball was the most fun.
tell me why i read this as james rolfe and I was very confused as to why this wasn't an AVGN video.
As a person that played this and other Atari 2600 games, I can honestly say that it is very different to play this against someone else, like a friend of a family member. The game is still like that, but competing against someone makes it actually fun. Some games of the Atari 2600 were designed for playing against people and others were meant to be played alone. Haunted House is a game you play alone. This one, or Basketball, or Tennis, or Outlaw were all meant to be played against someone, and that made it actually fun.
That's somewhat fair. Hardware limitations did mean it often had to be one or the other. But as they say: 'Yeah, no @$&* it's fun to play with a friend. Everything is fun to do with a friend. Going to fetch water with a friend is fun.'
Those 2600 Vs games that use the paddles are far more on the upper crust of what the original library had to offer. By lord, sometimes I wonder if the paddle shouldn't have been the primary controller for the console.
Urgh, that single button joystick...
Things really changed with Space Invaders, Missile Command and Asteroids, which essentially made it a one-player console. From 1977-1980 it was a multi-player machine, with some games having 1-player options.
Loved this quick style review video please do some of the xonox double ender carts. Used to play Artillery Duel with my dad on his 2600 and he loved the Chuck Norris game on the other end.
Boxing for the Atari is where it's at. Had the Activision classics for PS1 and we played the hell out of pitfall and boxing. Hockey is good fun too
When I was a kid I liked playing this game at a relative's.
Remembering this, I was hoping to find an A8 computer version of this game because it's more convenient for me than the 2600 nowadays.
I was disappointed to find that it doesn't exist. Apparently "Bowling" was a 2600 exclusive.
I got an Atari 2600, the new version, when I was about 5 or 6, in the early 80’s and I am sure I had this game. Funny thing I was never disappointed with any of the games. I had a cowboy shooting game that I liked, but I also had muppets maybe lost in space I think it was called, and I played that the most but I think the only thing remotely muppet related was the colour of the pixels, but god I loved that Atari. I can’t remember a time that I owned it that I ever didn’t run home from school and play it the second I got through the door.
Hey James, biggest fan!
Bowling was a fun game. When you don’t have anything else, good enough is great.
This was my very first game on the Atari in 1980 🥳
And it was a lot of fun back then ☝️
My dad loved playing this game as a kid he’s 51
For 1978, that's a masterpiece
0:45 omg Adelaide weather has been all over the place lately. I'm kinda over it. EDIT: Wait how did I just notice that screen was property of ABC and 2 how did you get it? That's awesome.
A guy named James reviewing bad games? This will never take off. /s Love the content mang. 😎
This game is very fun. It’s uncomplicated to play, scores correctly. The ‘physics’ of knocking down the pins equates accurately with real bowling. A game doesn’t necessarily need great graphics to be enjoyable!
This was my mom and dad’s favorite game. The loved to do real bowling until moms elbow went bad.
What is funny is, I LOVED this game. 😂😂
That's actually alot better looking than I expected
Babe wake up james channel uploaded
I mean for a 2600 game, it's not bad, I'd have gotten a few hours of fun out of it when I was a kid. Be interesting to see someone dump the code of this and see what the algorithm is like, someone smarter than I am preferably.
This is miles better than the traumatic and disappointment of the game Challenge. Ghostbusters on the outside, mice biting a duck on the inside. 🙈
I loved this game when I was a kid!
The game is amazing and I still play it.
My friens had an Atari still in the late 90s and we played the crap out of that Bowling game it was probably the most fun game he had for that system (he had an NES, Super NES and eventually a 64 as well so we weren't just stuck with the Atari)
The video bowling game in bars in the late 1990s and early 2000's was always a staple and fun to play with friends. Bars usually had bowling or the Golf game with the ball as the controller.
My mom and I used this game all the time when I was a kid.
i like the rain sounds
Blowing
😳
Blowing balls
Wonder how that would look on the Atari 2600?
Just something about that screen colour. It just reminds me of like the Chin picnic if anyone here remembers that in Toronto?