Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (Platform Studies)

Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System (Platform Studies)

<P><B>A study of the relationship between platform and creative expression in the Atari VCS.</B></P><P>The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that €œAtari€ became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. </P><P>Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms€•the systems underlying computing. This book (the first in a series of Platform Studies) does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: <I>Combat</I>, <I>Adventure</I>, <I>Pac-Man</I>, <I>Yars' Revenge</I>, <I>Pitfall!</I>, and<I> Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back</I>. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. <I>Adventure</I>, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as <I>World of Warcraft</I> and <I>Grand Theft Auto</I>), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and <I>Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back</I> was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the Atari VCS€•often considered merely a retro fetish object€•is an essential part of the history of video games.</P>