The History of Video Games: 1982

This marks the beginning of the end. Who would have thought that a cute and cuddly alien could almost crash an entire entertainment medium? ET is here, and he really fucked things up. In this video, i’ll be going over the events that transpired in 1982 in the history of video games. This is… The History of Video Games: 1982.
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The History of Video Games: 1982 (in text form)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That’s actually true in 1982. What is considered to be one of the worst video games of all time was released this year. But let’s prep ourselves for the shitstorm that’s about to rain down. How about we tunnel down in the earth to get ready. We’ll do just that in Dig Dug, first released in April 1982. Dig Dug was developed and published by Namco in Japan, and published by Atari everywhere else. In Dig Dug, you must tunnel beneath the ground to get rid of the monsters beneath. To get rid of them, you blow them up with your pump. It’s actually quite a violent concept. You can also just crush them with a falling rock. Supposedly, the playable character in Dig Dug is named Taizo Hori, and is the father of the main character of Mr Driller.
Donkey Kong Jr was released in August 1982 by Nintendo. Donkey Kong Jr reverses the roles of the characters from Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong is the victim, having been captured by Mario, and it’s up to DK Jr rescue his father. This is one of the few games where Mario is the villain.
In November 1982, Atari would release their Atari 5200 SuperSystem home console. It was intended to compete with Mattel’s Intellivision, but it ended up competing more with Coleco’s ColecoVision which released the same year. The internals of the 5200 are similar to the 2600, but it was a bit more powerful.
As I mentioned, the ColecoVision was released in August 1982 and included Donkey Kong. The ColecoVision was praised for its power, allowing games to be much closer to their arcade counterparts than other systems could achieve. The system would sell well, selling over 2,000,000 units by the time it was discontinued in 1985.
In Fall 1982, Namco revolutionized the racing genre with Pole Position. In Pole Position, you drive a formula one car from a 3rd person perspective in races against 7 other computer controlled players. Pole Position was actually the first racing game to have a race track based on a real track.
Next up, Q*bert created by Gottlieb and first released in October 1982. In Q*bert, you play as Q*bert with your goal being to change every color on a pyramid by jumping on them. You start at the top of the pyramid and hop from cube to cube, trying to change the color of all 28 cubes while avoiding enemies. Warren Davis and Jeff Lee came up with the foundational idea for Q*bert.
Namco released another Pac-Man game this year, Super Pac-Man, released in August 1982 in Japan and October 1982 in North America. Instead of collecting dots to clear the level, the player must collect keys to open doors in order to eat all of the fruit.
Utopia was released in Europe in 1982. Utopia was a game designed by Don Daglow for the Intellivision. ddition to being called one of the first city simulation games.
In December 1982 Namco released Xevious in Japan. It wouldn’t be released in North America until January 1983. Xevious wasn’t the first vertically scrolling shooter, but it did set the standard for the genre and kickstart it as well.
In April 1982, Activision released Pitfall for the Atari 2600. In Pitfall, you play as Pitfall Harry, with your goal being to get through the jungle while collecting rare treasure and avoiding obstacles like pits, hence the name. Other obstacles include quicksand, fire, and crocodiles.
The moment you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. The game based on E T the Extra-Terrestrial was released on the Atari 2600 in December 1982. You control ET who needs to collect 3 pieces of a phone to let him “phone home”.