Computer Space, 1971 Dave Nutting & Associates
29The VERY FIRST arcade video game! PONG got all the attention as the first successful arcade video game, but this one I find more interesting. It's your standard "shoot the other guy more than they shoot you" timed game, but it's you vs. the computer (not another player) and if you lead when time elapses you get one more session. You control a "rocket" and the computer controls two "saucers" (though only one can fire at once and they fly in unison). You, the opponent, and your shots wrap through the edges to the other side. The feature I like most about this game is the ability to guide your missiles after they're fired. So you must learn to steer your missiles into the enemy as they fly about, since they're not going to hold still for you to shoot at them. The cabinet for Computer Space sure was weird and came in a variety of colors. You had buttons for fire, thrust, rotate left and rotate right. Kind of a variation of the old computer game SPACEWAR (which got released in arcades decades later by Vectorbeam/Cinematronics). Well, as this was my 1,200th video I decided to continue my tradition of doing a flashback episode for every 100th video! So we take a trip back to 1971, when Computer Space was created, and look at movies, news, tv shows, music, sports and celebrity passings of 1971. It was also the year I was born! So I hope that during this dark epidemic, my flashback video was able to shine a little light in your life. Continue to stay safe and we will all get through this eventually, together. See you soon and we'll continue my Colecovision series. Thank you for your patronage and game suggestions-- I will get back to those as well soon. Couldn't get to 1,200 without ya!