The Sky's the Limit!

Five years ago, no one dreamed that people of all ages would spend more than one billion dollars a year on gadgets that simply beep, buzz, flash and keep score. The electronic-games industry suddenly blossomed in 1978 with the instant success of the few products then available. Sold out signs adorned empty store shelves from coast to coast. Ever since, the increasing demand for more sophisticated games has been driving companies to create products employing the very limits of affordable state-of-the-art electronics. (text continued on page 164) The Sky's The Limit (continued from page 120) And if the futurists are correct in their predictions that we will be spending more time at home--alone or with friends--with the car in the garage, then our appetite for these electronic diversions is, as yet, far from sated.

With few exceptions, the guts of the newest games are very similar to the 1979-era machines. What is different is that innovative designers have found ways of making the same hardware act "smarter." The single-chip microcomputers inside not only keep score, count down time and perform other simple calculator/watchlike functions but some also react to the human player's reflex speed and adjust the play accordingly. At the same time, we, as players, expect some "intelligence" from new-generation games, as we take for granted the supratechnology flaunted in the movies of George (Star Wars) Lucas and others.

Virtually no truly new games appear this year that have old-fashioned (two years old, that is) red LED blips. Instead, new types of displays with considerable detail are providing more realistic visual feedback to the players. And there is more frequent use of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), making the games playable on the sunny beach or at poolside.

Sound quality is more sophisticated, with more natural sounds and a greater number of tone or musical sequences to alert the players. Synthesized speech--no records or tapes--is just beginning to appear in some games. By next year, we will have dozens of games yakking away in remarkably understandable electronic voices.

All this sophistication in intelligence, displays and sound, however, has not come cheaply. Many of the component chips (especially microcomputer chips that store the programs) have been in tight supply, keeping costs from their traditional nose dive as production quantities increase. And inflation has caught up with the plastic cases, other components and labor. We find, therefore, a large percentage of new games in the $30-$50 price range, with some higher. Several games in the $75-and-up range were put on hold by their manufacturers last year for fear that the economy would not support them.

Even so, there are still nearly 450 electronic games and more than 150 video-game/computer cartridges from which to choose. Unfortunately, a lot of hand-held and tabletop games are merely fast-buck, off-brand imitators of previously successful games: Their makers may not be around to solve a service problem if your unit goes out on you.

To help you through this seemingly endless maze of electronic games, Playboy has assembled a guide to what we consider the top games in each category. We strongly urge you, nevertheless, to go out to the stores and play the games yourself. In examining any oneplayer game, test to see that it really is a challenge: If you can consistently beat the computer, you will soon tire of feeding your ego. For multiple-player games, the best ones involve as many players as possible. The unit must first be a good game, or you will be the owner of a very expensive dust collector. Now, on to the games. Let's see what they are doing and, in some cases, listen to what they are saying.

Hand-Held Action

For years, TV game shows have kept you on the edge of your seat as you watched contestants race the clock. Now it's your turn with Split Second, by Parker Brothers (about $47). You push its control buttons to guide an LED ball through mazes, to zero in on alien spaceships, to steer a car around pylons or as a test of hand-eye coordination that will keep you trying and trying for a faster time. With so much action packed into this unit, Split Second is probably the most captivating hand-held game in its price range this season.

On a quieter note: For the game player who travels by air or wishes to while away his daily commute with something other than the newspaper, there is the silent-running Computer Gin, by Mattel ($70). It's you vs. the computer in two levels of Gin--Go Draw (Go Fish we called it as kids) and 33 (a real challenge). A unique 1-1/4" x 3" LCD display literally shows each card in your hand (number and suit symbol) in the proper color (black or red). You and the computer alternately draw and discard. It's just like playing with Gramps.

If you enjoyed having your brain's memory bank tested with Milton Bradley's Simon, you can now take him along in a miniversion: Pocket Simon (about $15). It has all the game variations and the familiar lights and tones of the original but in a hand-held size, making it much easier to tuck away in a travel bag.

For the ultimate in portability, though, Mego has a group of credit-card-sized LCD one-player games called the Time-Out series (about $49 each). Your goal on Fireman, Fireman, for example, is to relay people jumping from a burning building into an awaiting ambulance with a trampolinlike stretcher. You have to position the stretcher under the jumpers for three bounces before they land in the ambulance. And when up to nine people are in mid-air, you've got to shift the stretcher back and forth with great precision at lightning speed. But don't worry: If a jumper should hit the pavement, he instantly becomes an LCD angel on your screen. Three angels and the game ends, scoring how many people you saved.

Tabletop Action

There's an armada of tabletop electronic games that lend themselves much better than the hand-helds to multiple-player involvement. Almost all of them have a game mode in which one player competes against the computer chip inside; but the most entertaining tabletops have two or more people controlling the action, instead of taking turns.

The big playing areas on these games provide a larger space for more realistic electronic displays. For example, Bandai America inspires the bleacher bum in us all with the detailed baseball-game display on its Miracle Baseball (about $50). A big 3"x3-1/2" LCD ball park shows batters running for bases and outfielders shifting to catch flies, with much more realism than red blips ever can. There is plenty of action for both offense (batting, bunting and stealing) and defense (straight pitches, curves, change-ups and outfielder shifts). The pitcher's controls detach from the main unit so players can keep their private strategies at a distance from one another. Different tone sequences signal each pitch and hit. And when a fly ball leaves the park, the home-run batter is amply rewarded with sound and display.

If your home lacks space for the regulation billiard table you've been yearning for, you can at least cue up in tabletop size with Parker Brothers' Bank Shot electronic pool (about $50). One or two sharks can play Straight Pool, Poison Pool (a version of eight ball) and set up trick shots, all without losing one cue tip or getting chalk dust on the rug.

Did you say you needed a table game for four or more? Milton Bradley's Super Simon (about $33), a grand-master version of its popular Simon, is a good place to start. Super throws monkey wrenches--such as a burst of distracting light flashes--into whatever system you think you've developed to memorize light/tone sequences. With five games, many of them require nonstop attention, since the sequences change, and you never know who will be summoned next to test his memory. The play is fast, frenzied and fun.

Another kind of group electronic action comes with Strobe (one to four players), by Lakeside Games (about $50). Each player position has a big light (visible to all) and three push buttons (shielded from opponents) standing for each of the other players. If you are It, your light glows and you have to pass It to someone else, who must pass It on, etc., etc. Strobe reminds us of an old campfire activity called Indian. But leave it to the microcomputer to help you along by making you pass It ever faster and faster. The game, which has two other modifications, is most fun with four players, sober or otherwise.

And then there is Milton (for one or two players), from Milton Bradley (about $80). It's the only game we know of that introduces itself, tells you its instructions and prompts you through the game. Oh, yes, and the voice--though completely electronic--sounds natural. That is, if you call a Wolfman Jack voice natural. For each round, Milton gives you seven phrases (at random from 18 possible ones), such as "Kiss my lips." The object of the game is to hunt for matching parts of the phrases by pressing one of seven red buttons ("Kiss my ...") and the correct yellow button ("lips"). When you get it right, Milton may say "Whoopdedoo, number two." If you get it wrong, Milton will not only mismatch the phrase ("Kiss my ... toilet") but is likely to scold you with an electronic raspberry.

Arcade Games

While an electronic game can be said to have a personality (stubborn, elusive, deceitful, etc.), none we've played thus far exudes as much synthesized emotion as the new Xenon pinball machine, by Bally ($2500). Here is what we mean by emotion: a convincing feminine (through totally electronic) sigh of ecstasy at the insertion of the coin. This alluring creature and other natural-sounding voices accompany you and your silver ball on an exploration of the advanced Xenon civilization. The longer your ball stays in play, the quicker the lights and background beat pulse, heightening the suspense. But even more striking is its two-level playing field incorporating a unique clear transport tube that carries your ball across the playfield on an upper level, if you get it up the ramp just right. At the loss of the last ball, the mysterious Xenon lady from the infinity backboard beckons you to try again. You will not resist her call.

On the other hand, you may prefer the latest twist in a Space Invaders type of arcade video game. Midway's Galaxian (about $2995) has the requisite number of aliens, noisily creeping closer while firing at you sporadically, and eventually, the aliens peel off as star fighters, flying and shooting at you at angles. Then they come at you in speeding squadrons of three. Keep your fingers glued to your Fire and Direction Control buttons if you hope to survive.

Strategy Games

A strategy game pits one player against a microchip that has been programmed to play as a humanlike opponent. It differs from an action game in that the computer gives you time to think and to plan and to figure out what the computer is thinking and planning.

Owners of early generations of computerized strategy board games may have been dismayed when, six months later, a more powerful version of the game came out at the same price or lower. Obsolescence is a problem in just about everything electronic today, with the speed at which technology is racing to the market place. Applied Concepts, though, is doing something to soften the impact of technology changes in electronic board games with its Modular Game System (about $350, with chess program included). You can change game modules and key pads on its handsome main-frame unit, Since much of the basic electronics is shared from game to game, preprogrammed modules can turn the unit from checkers to blackjack to Lunar Lander in minutes. So, if someone develops a chess program better than today's top-rated "2.5," you can add it for about $80.

Speaking of computer chess, there are three new games of interest, depending on your budget. First is Fidelity Electronics' Voice Sensory Chess Challenger (about $360). Not only does it sense the movements of the pieces on the board when you lightly press them onto the designated squares, but it also confirms your movements and its own with an electronically synthesized voice ("from G8 to F6, knight move").

The next step up doesn't speak. And it doesn't have any chess pieces, either. The three-module Tryom Chess Champion Super System III ($750) has a unique back-lighted LCD display of a chessboard (like a tiny, flat TV screen) with detailed depictions of the chessmen. Plays are entered via push buttons on the main unit, which has its own fourdigit LCD readout of the move (you can use the central unit alone with a chessboard and pieces). The third module of the system is a small printer that records each play and can print a picture of the board position any time during the game.

At the top end, we find something right out of s-f. It's eerie to watch the computer player in Applied Concepts' Handroid ($1500) literally pick up its piece with a mechanical arm and move it to the proper square. And when Handroid moves to take your man, it takes your man and deposits the piece in the bin. It's unnerving. Magnetic switches beneath the board sense all moves, obviating keyboard entry. A red LED display extends Handroid's personality with prompting sentences (it can also be adapted for checkers). And when the game is over, it even offers to shake hands.

Video Games

Ping-pong-style video games now seem like ancient relics. That's how spoiled we have become by programmable video games: Each time we change $20-$30 plug-in cartridges, the main unit instantly converts our color TV to a completely new game.

Atari's Video Computer System (about $200) was an early entrant into the programmable race, and the only one that stuck with it through thick and thin by supporting the main unit with more and more cartridges. There are now 40 to choose from. One of the best this year is an auto-race game called Dodge 'Em ($29.95). You must go through all four lanes of the rectangular course, picking up points along the way. The trick is to keep changing lanes to avoid a killer car going in the opposite direction (computer controlled for one player; opponent controlled for two players). Crashing into the other car three times ends the game. And just when you think you are getting good at the game, a third phantom car (computer controlled) multiplies your challenge.

To expand the challenges of the Atari unit, a new company, Activision, is offering several compatible cartridges. Boxing ($21.95) gives you an aerial view of two big-nosed, roundheaded fighters. Your joy stick maneuvers your boxer around the ring to fling as many punches in the nose as you can in two minutes. The sounds are real, the action for two players is quick. And you feel great when a long armed punch mashes your opponent's face.

A relatively new programmable game on the market (and one that is likely to stay) is Mattel's Intellivision (about $300), with about a dozen cartridges out already. Most of the games are for two players only and offer good graphics and sound. One of the new cartridges, Sea Battle (about $30), starts off showing a wide-angle aerial map, with a harbor on each side of the screen and many islands between them. After selecting the make-up of your fleet with your controller, you set out to invade your opponent's harbor, while he comes after yours. If, after maneuvering through the narrow channels, a member of your fleet comes within shooting range of an enemy vessel, the map suddenly zooms in for a close-up of the battle. With your controllers, you aim and shoot to sink. Sea Battle is both a strategy exercise and an action game.

Two other programmable video-game systems have found popularity of late. The first is Odyssey2 ($180), by Magnavox. The console has a touch sensitive, typewriterlike keyboard for use with some basic math and spelling cartridges. And of the recent game-cartridge additions, Pachinko ($19.95) is the most unusual. The second unit, APF's The Imagination Machine (about $600), is part video game, part personal computer. Twelve plug-in cartridges are currently available, from Hangman ($19.95) to Space Destroyer ($34.95).

Computer-Games Software

As most personal-computer makers seem to be temporarily abandoning the home users in favor of the more immediately lucrative hobbyist and small-business markets, the entertainment value of the home computer is being sidelined, too, with one notable exception: Atari's Personal Computer System ($1080 for the 800 model). In addition to Atari's rapidly growing library of educational and home-management software, there are several popular action games with graphics, sound and play variations that rival their arcade videogame cousins costing much more.

The Atari Space Invaders program ($19.95), for one or two players, is the most hair-raising one we've played. It is loaded into either the Model 400 or the 800 computer via the optional ($89.95) cassette data player/recorder and viewed on any TV. You don't need to know anything about computers or programming, though, to get the aliens tromping across your screen. Game variations include speed change-ups on the aliens' laser bombs and random angle shots designed to test the nerves of the most avid Space Invaders player. The aliens in this program produce the most menacing and tension-building sounds we've heard.

Atari's Super Breakout ($39.95) comes in plug-in cartridge form for either computer model. More importantly, up to eight players can test their hand-eye coordination with this game. In the basic game of Breakout, you must paddle your ball up to the colored rows of "bricks" across the top of the screen. Every time you hit a brick, it disappears and you collect points. The idea is to break through the wall and let your ball knock out all kinds of bricks from above, where the points are high and the speed is furious. What makes this cartridge "super" are the four game variations. The most addictive one is Progressive Breakout, which has the walls come ever lower (à la Space Invaders) while the bricks change colors and point values; high-value rows of bricks keep appearing at the top of the screen. Getting the ball between walls sends it on a capricious point spree. And the longer you keep a ball going, the faster the bricks descend. The computer scorekeeper rates each player's performance at the end of the game (Oops through Best). Super Breakout is a rare game that is equally fun for one or a whole crowd.

And, finally, the sight of your gasoline and utility bills arriving on the same day may set you off into a tirade on America's energy crisis and your solutions for it. The Atari computer gives you a chance to prove your economic and political acumen with a simulation program called Energy Czar ($14.95). Your goal is to win high ratings in the public-opinion polls while legislating prices, supplies, usage, taxes and environmental controls for each of eight energy sources. You soon learn about the intricacies of energy policies and the fickleness of a public that demands high growth, low inflation and a safe environment. Watch out: It's a simple matter to bungle your job so that the nation runs out of a valuable resource, and runs you out of office. Or, after years of careful legislation, you could be hailed as a national hero to the tune of Happy Days Are Here Again.

In the meantime, there are enough games to keep you entertained at hearthside, with lots of electronic fun ahead.

"There are nearly 450 electronic games and more than 150 video-game cartridges from which to choose."