For this edition of ?Pure Imagination?, I am going to be going back to the roots of the article, and reviewing a box and game set for the Atari 2600 system. Chances are that you have played the game of mini golf at some point during our childhoods, or if you are a parent, played it with your children. (Maybe even as an adult you like playing the sport with a date, or if you are like some of the people that I know, after having a drink or two to add to the challenge.) When the Atari 2600 was first released, a lot of games that could be easily recognized were turned into video games, in hopes that the recognition alone would help sell copies of the cartridges. (That is after all, how Pong came to be.) Thus, ?Miniature Golf? was created for the system. How does the game stack up with the artwork?
What we see on the box art for the Atari version is obviously, a miniature golf course. We have 5 people playing the game: Three in the foreground, and two of them kind of in the background. The three primary players on this box art show very excited people playing the game. The main player that has just had a successful shot is in a position where he looks like he just won the PGA Tour of 1978. The woman in the red also looks extremely happy that her friend has made the final putt, complete with awesome 1970s era hair. The one in the jeans (which I can honestly not tell if it?s a boy, or a girl with short hair), looks a little TOO excited to be at the course. Meanwhile, the two players in the background seem just a little too professional for miniature golf. It?s almost as if they are on an actual golf course, thinking to themselves, ?I wish they would hurry up and finish so I could start the next hole.? Hell, this sport is supposed to be fun and relaxing! Lighten up!
The obstacles on the course are some of your basic mini golf fare, but in some cases, the shots would be next to impossible, or too easy. There?s the obvious castle style hole and the naturally occurring logs in an upright position. Those are standard. But the first one that really comes to mind is that famous miniature golf hazard, the windmill. But either the artist never played the game in his life, or it was a hole for children or beginners. Most of the time, the blades of the windmill are the hazard, but as you can clearly see, they are WAY above the balls reach. (Now that I look at it again, there doesn?t even seem to be a tunnel running under the windmill either! So how DO you get the ball through it?) Aside from all of that, take a look at the green to get to the eighteenth hole. Do you see how narrow and awkward that pathway is? I don?t know about you, but I have never seen a mini golf hole be THAT impossible to get to! It would take at the very least three shots just at that part of the hole alone!
We see a lot of palm trees throughout the course, as if the artist didn?t know if they were at a full size course or the child?s equivalent. (Not that I haven?t seen a lot of trees around a mini golf course, just not nearly as many.) We also see the building that I assume is the office where you would get your balls and putters for the game. Just like a lot of Atari box artwork, there is a moon. (I don?t know what it was with Atari and the night time? I guess back in their wild days, they worked a lot of night shifts.) The one thing that I don?t understand is to the right of the windmill. It looks like a street lamp at the parking lot, but there are no cars to be seen. I can count at the very least 2 cars that should be there, since there are 2 sets of players on the greens. Or, if that is not a street lamp at all, then what is it supposed to be? It just really looks very out of place here.
What we get for the Sears Telegames version is a little more realistic on some aspects, but still a little silly in others. For starters, we see a family playing the game with their child. Already, the artist for this artwork was a lot more accurate, since the windmill blades are actually level with the tunnel for the ball to go through. The shot is also a lot more realistic looking, since it is a straight shot. Another neat piece of accuracy is that the windmill shot is almost always one of the last holes in the game, and since the cartridge has 9 holes and this is the eight hole, kudos! We also see a boy that is lining up his shot, which again for the title, when compared to the actual game, is exactly proper. But then we have the boy in the white shirt, that is lining up his shot by holding the putter upright. The one with the castle. I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone line up a shot in mini golf in that fashion. I?ve seen it happen on actual golf games on television, but for mini golf, I have never seen anything like it before. What, is he trying to test for the wind? He might as well have his other hand upright with his finger in the air. And where are the girl players? At least Atari was more diverse in that aspect! The only female is the mother! No kid girls playing this version? (I guess they were smart when it comes to this cartridge!)
This is another situation, where the catalog pictures and descriptions are just as unique as the box art. For the Atari catalog, an entire page was dedicated to the cartridge. It says flat out that the game is ?Miniature Golf? right on the top of the page. So, why is it that under every screenshot, they felt the need to repeat it? Anyway, let?s read what the catalog has to say for itself: ?Get your golf grip down pat. Line up the ball to the cup. (Ask your caddy for assistance if you must.) Now putt away, and sink it! You?ll be putting through a nine-hole course with Miniature Golf. It includes two exciting games, with moving obstacles and all. And stroke by stroke, your score is automatically kept, so as you shoot for the cup, you?ll be shooting for par.? First off, didn?t the box art have an 18th hole? How dare they only offer nine! And secondly, who has EVER asked for a caddy in mini golf? It?s not like you have a full set of clubs here!
The artwork on the catalog is actually quite humorous. First off, I absolutely adore the ?windmill? that is actually a bunch of boots. I can honestly say I never saw THAT at a mini golf course, and now I wish I had! I would love to know exactly how hard you would have to aim your shot, in order to get the ball all the way up that pipe and in that twisty area. I could totally see a lot of balls getting stuck in there! (No bad taste, please.) The riot of it all, is the poor duck, which looks like an early version of the NES game ?Duck Hunt?, getting hit with the golf ball, giving a big ?QUACK? in shock and amazement. Could you imagine if you had made a mini golf ball go THAT high that it hit a poor duck in mid flight? That would be amazing. And of course naturally, the ball is getting sunk right into the hole, because mom is just that good at miniature golf. Even WITH the unexpected duck hazard. The mother looks like she is in shock that she made the shot at all, while the son is looking at the duck, thinking to himself, ?Mmmm? Dinner!? The Sears Telegames catalog is, well, nothing to write home about. It?s on a page full of most of the major sports, and miniature golf is just kind of thrown in there. Their description? ?Obstacles test your skill with 9-hole miniature golf.? That?s it. That, and a screenshot. Just, wow. It looks like even Sears didn?t think that the sports games for the system were any good.
So, how is the actual game? Well, let?s just say that while it might have been a good effort at the time, you really, REALLY, have to use your imagination on this one. The game contains moving obstacles, in the form of a pink square. You then use your larger blue square (the club), to move the smaller yellow square (the ball), to the smaller blue square (the hole). Yes, the game is literally a bunch of squares, which makes it look like you are playing the original Odyssey ?Brown Box?, which was the very first home video game. The only difference is that this is in color and you don?t need the plastic overlays for the television set. Of course, there are a few paths of challenge throughout the holes that you play. The main problem with the game itself is that you simply cannot control the speed of the ball in a good manner. Every time you hit the ball with the club, no matter how much force you give it, you cannot align it right, and the ball ends up going all over the place, and usually, not where you want it to go. Not to mention, did Atari HAVE to make the cup for the ball only one sprite thickness wider and taller? It?s absolutely impossible to get the ball in when you are close enough, because either you go too far and it bounces off the cup and flies all the way back, or you?ll tap it too lightly and use up more strokes than you would have normally done. The balls physics were simply not realistic, which in a game like golf (or any other sports game for that matter), it?s quite important. In a nutshell, the game was a mess. As I said at the start, there is not enough drinking that can be done to make this game any easier or more relaxing.
I can understand that Atari wanted to make a lot of games that people would be able to recognize when the system was brand new. But I think that they bit off just a little more than the system could chew, at least at the time. Of course, later on in the consoles history, programmers would learn all kinds of tricks to get more of what they wanted on the screen. But having just literally a series of dots for the game, was not at all acceptable, even for the time period. It?s just a game that shouldn?t have been attempted that early in the system. Atari realized that they screwed up with this title as well. Many of the Atari 2600 classics would get several re-releases during the consoles life span. Meanwhile, in 1978 alone, Miniature Golf was created, sold, and discontinued, making it one of the shorter production runs of the system. The only time that the game would get released again would be in the ?32-in-1? cartridge that was used when the Atari 2600 Junior was released. They crammed 32 games that were only 2k ROMs in it, which meant a lot of early games. They needed filler, and that is when Miniature Golf delivered. So does that count? Does it matter? Final answer? This is a title that you could skip. Seriously. Play the real thing this time.
Source: http://www.retrogamenetwork.com/2012/07/18/pure-imagination-miniature-golfarcade-golf/
stanford oklahoma state university badgers badgers nbc sports network mendenhall demarcus cousins
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.