Wild Gunman is a game that was first released in arcades in 1974 by Nintendo. The original version of the game featured a 16mm-projection screen that had the player shoot the gunman when his eyes blinked. If he or she did so at the right moment, the gunman would be shot down and killed. If they didn't, the player would be shot (in the in-game). The arcade was large and was part of the Simulation System that also included Shooting Trainer, which was much less exciting than its dueling counterpart.
Players move their tanks through a maze on screen, avoiding mines and shooting each other. The tanks are controlled by two joysticks in a dual configuration. Pushing both joysticks will move the player's tank forward, and pulling them both back causes the tank to stop. Moving the right joystick forward while pulling the left joystick back will cause the tank to turn right, while reversing the motion will cause the tank to turn left. The players are represented by one black and one white tank sprite, and mines are denoted by an "X". Points are scored by shooting the opponent or when a player runs over a mine; the player with the highest score at the end of the time limit wins the game.
Tank was also one of very few games to be ported onto 1st generation consoles, usually under the title "Tank Battle".
1974 saw the release of Nishikado's Speed Race, an early black-and-white driving racing video game. The game's most important innovation was its introduction of scrolling graphics, where the sprites moved along a vertical scrolling overhead track, with the course width becoming wider or narrower as the player's car moves up the road, while the player races against other rival cars, more of which appear as the score increases. The faster the player's car drives, the more the score increases.
In contrast to the volume-control dials used for Pong machines at the time, Speed Race featured a realistic racing wheel controller, which included an accelerator, gear shift, speedometer, and tachometer. It could be played in either single-player or alternating two-player, where each player attempts to beat the other's score. The game also featured an early example of difficulty levels, giving players an option between "Beginner's race" and "Advanced player's race".
Speed Race would be the first in a long-running series of ar
The first pinball videogame.
It is a simple black and white pinball table with basic gravity simulation and controllable pinball flippers. Developed by Terry Niksch and Harold Lee for Atari.
Airfight is an early 3D graphics-based multi-user flight simulator, created on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Control Data Corporation (CDC) PLATO system.
The software was the first ever 3D flight simulator and the first multi-player flight simulator. The first version was developed by Brand Fortner with Kevin Gorey in the summer of 1974. After its release, it became the most popular game on PLATO until Empire became more popular. This software probably inspired the UIUC student Bruce Artwick to start the company Sublogic, which was acquired and later became Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Gran Trak 20 is the follow-up to Gran Trak 10. Unlike the original game it allows two people to race each other, a significant innovation since neither game features computer-controlled cars.
Touch me challenges the player to remember the sequence of sight and sound, and correctly repeat the pattern. The drop of the quarter in the top-mounted acceptor activates the computer to present a single-tone sound. When the sound occurs, the corresponding button lights to give a visual clue. Then the game pauses long enough for the player to "confirm" the sound to the computer by pressing the same button that lit. Oops! Wrong button? ERROR number one… and a lighted window tells the player he's goofed. Then another chance… the sound and lighted button are repeated by the computer. Another pause … right! You've hit the right button(s) in the right sequence, and the game goes on to another sound sequence. Every correct player response adds an additional sound/note to the sequence. "Beep – beep – bloop – beep – bloop" … Did you correctly repeat those sounds when the buttons lit? Sorry, only three errors per game. You'll have to insert another 25¢ and try again!
Clean Sweep is a variation of the popular Pong theme of the time. It looks like a mix between Breakout and Pac-Man, but it was created before both of these games.
A soccer-themed ball-and-paddle game by Atari released in conjuction with the 1974 FIFA World Cup held in West Germany. It was the first Atari arcade game to be produced in a cocktail format.
Released in the arcades in april 1974, Basketball was a landmark title, notable for several firsts in video gaming. It was the first basketball video game, the first video game to use sprites, and the first to represent human characters. It is also the first known Japanese-developed game to be released in North America.
Gran Trak 10 was a single-player racing arcade game released by Atari in 1974. The player raced against the clock, accumulating as many points as possible. Primitive diode-based ROM was used to store the sprites for the car, score and game timer, and the race track. The game's controls — steering wheel, four-position gear shifter, and accelerator and brake foot pedals — were also all firsts for arcade games.
Quadrapong is a four-player version of Pong by Atari Inc. subsidiary Kee Games, and designed by Steve Bristow.
Quadrapong was the first cocktail cabinet arcade video game. The cabinet consists of a woodgrain 35" x 37" cocktail cabinet. Two control paddles are mounted on each side of the cabinet, with a horizontally mounted Zenith television diagonally set in the cabinet.
Two, three, or four players move their paddles to defend their goal area, consisting of openings in the players' walls. Each player starts with four points, and loses one point each time the ball penetrates their goal. If all four points are lost the player's paddle is removed and the goal "closes", creating a solid wall and removing the player from the game. The game continues until only one player is left.
Qwak! is a duck hunting light gun shooter arcade video game developed by Atari and released in 1974.
In the game, ducks fly one at a time across the screen, and the player shoots at them using a light gun attached to the game cabinet. The player gets three shots per duck; ducks change direction away from missed shots and fall to the bottom of the screen when hit. A screen overlay adds images of reeds and a tree branch, and an image of a duck is added to a row at the top of the screen whenever a duck is hit. Games continue until a time limit, set by the machine operator, is reached.
Qwak! is most likely the inspiration for the 1984 Nintendo Entertainment System light gun game Duck Hunt.