Neat looking games never found...

[Pleiades10]

"Oops!" by Cinematronics / Larry Rosenthal.

There's a mention of it on this Cinematronics website. Search for "oops".

http://www.cinematronics.org/sunday2.html


Kyle

 

[mrbill08]

I remember back in 1982 or 1982 that there was a prototype vector cockpit game that was being tested in the arcade I hung out in. The arcade was in the Chicago area.

I believe a company in Chicago was developing it, as their marketing person (a female) was at the arcade for a few days watching people play it and taking notes. If memory serves, you flew through some kind of planetary surface and there were enemies that you shot at in a 3D perspective similar to Star Wars. It's been a long time, but I remember playing the game quite a bit, and it was actually very entertaining. It was there for a few weeks and was then gone. It never made it to production.

I've never seen it mentioned anywhere in all the years since. Would be a hugely rare game if ever found.

Did it display the scores onscreen or separately on 7 segment displays?

Bill

 

[RedWolfJC]

This one was never made. That cabinet is just a mock up for the flyer.

I heard an interview with Ted Dabney of Syzygy/Atari, and he seems to say that For-Play did go into production with this, and it was an exact copy of Nutting's Computer Space.
Of course that was 40 years ago, and he could be mis-remembering things.

 

[YellowDog]

I remember back in 1982 or 1982 that there was a prototype vector cockpit game that was being tested in the arcade I hung out in. The arcade was in the Chicago area.

I believe a company in Chicago was developing it, as their marketing person (a female) was at the arcade for a few days watching people play it and taking notes. If memory serves, you flew through some kind of planetary surface and there were enemies that you shot at in a 3D perspective similar to Star Wars. It's been a long time, but I remember playing the game quite a bit, and it was actually very entertaining. It was there for a few weeks and was then gone. It never made it to production.

I've never seen it mentioned anywhere in all the years since. Would be a hugely rare game if ever found.

That sounds like Rocket Racer. Rocket Racer was a game developed by Rock-Ola just before they gave up on making video games. It has been a while, but I believe the author of Nibbler was one of the principal programmers on Rocket Racer along with John Jaugilas. I remember talking with John about it and he said that it was killed just after reaching the prototype phase. I believe they actually advertised it before it was killed.

ken

 

[z3k3]

Vectorbeam Scramble - Didn't someone find some parts of one? Not a whole cab from what I recall.
Atari Cops N Robbers - besides a converted cab was an original complete cab ever found?

 

[Robotron Jon]

Did it display the scores onscreen or separately on 7 segment displays?

Bill

I don't remember if there was a separate display for the score.

 

[Robotron Jon]

That sounds like Rocket Racer. Rocket Racer was a game developed by Rock-Ola just before they gave up on making video games. It has been a while, but I believe the author of Nibbler was one of the principal programmers on Rocket Racer along with John Jaugilas. I remember talking with John about it and he said that it was killed just after reaching the prototype phase. I believe they actually advertised it before it was killed.

ken

Anything's possible, so you may be right. As I recall the enemies were spidery type things that sort of bounced up and down. I believe it was possible to shoot them. It was a very well made game...I played it a lot when it was in the arcade for those few weeks.

I am not sure it even had a name on the marquee. It was definitely a cockpit vector game.

Wasn't Rock Ola in Chicago?

I wonder where the game is now. Probably in a landfill in Mt. Prospect.

 

[joemagiera]

My list:
Missile Command II - Atari
Black Widow - early raster version, supposedly only 50 were made before the rights were sold to Atari and it was remade
Vertigo - Exidy, full motion cockpit game

Missile Command II - I have a boardset for this with Missile Command II etched on the board, not just some hand written thing. Got it off ebay from a guy that got it from an ex-Atari employee. I know I had a pic of this on my server, but it's not there right now. Hmmm...will look for it on my home PC tonight. I wrote a long story about searching for this, but can't find it searching the RGVAC archives. Another hmmmm....

Black Widow (Taito) - I'm continuning trying to pry this from the author of the game (he lives about 15 minutes from me. But here's a couple pics of info:

Vertigo - I know an ex-Exidy employee that has a fully working one in his garage. This has been confirmed by someone that used to work for him. The guy has no interest in selling or even letting pictures be taken of it.

 

[Schusler]

Missile Command II - I have a boardset for this with Missile Command II etched on the board, not just some hand written thing. Got it off ebay from a guy that got it from an ex-Atari employee. I know I had a pic of this on my server, but it's not there right now. Hmmm...will look for it on my home PC tonight. I wrote a long story about searching for this, but can't find it searching the RGVAC archives. Another hmmmm....

Black Widow (Taito) - I'm continuning trying to pry this from the author of the game (he lives about 15 minutes from me. But here's a couple pics of info:

Vertigo - I know an ex-Exidy employee that has a fully working one in his garage. This has been confirmed by someone that used to work for him. The guy has no interest in selling or even letting pictures be taken of it.

Wow! That Black Widow is way too cool! It seems to be in that latter style of the Taito cabs.... Any more info, Joe? Now you peaked my curiousity!

Haven't a couple of Cops n Robbers boardsets been found? It's just no one to seems to have the *complete* game...

My vote would still be Pirate Pete! Maybe it's sitting right next to that cockpit game in Mt. Prospect!

 

[joemagiera]

Wow! That Black Widow is way too cool! It seems to be in that latter style of the Taito cabs.... Any more info, Joe? Now you peaked my curiousity!

The guy told me that Taito released the game about a month before Atari was to release Black Widow. The Taito game is raster and is nothing like Atari's. The Taito game didn't do well and Atari already had spent a bunch of money on art and cabinets and marketing and such. Atari bought out the game from Taito for the only reason of the game name and to protect themselves from copyright infringement. He's got the ROMs and said it's a drop in replacement for classic Qix style Taito boardsets. Actually Taito Black Widow was released before Qix, so I guess Qix is a drop in replacement for Taito Black Widow!

 

[smalltownguy2]

I've got a Pirate Pete cab about 5 miles from me.

 

[Schusler]

I've got a Pirate Pete cab about 5 miles from me.

The Pirate Pete is just in a standard Taito cab... The really *big* thing is does it have all the guts - marquee, bezel and control panel....

 

[smalltownguy2]

The Pirate Pete is just in a standard Taito cab... The really *big* thing is does it have all the guts - marquee, bezel and control panel....

Nope, nope, and nope. It's been converted to a Final Fight. *puke*

 

[Schusler]

I always wanted one of these...

I have been told the machine pictured is the only one.


..

Good one Perf!

I remember I asked a question about this particular pin on RGP awhile back. It seems that noone heard of it! Seeing that there is production run of only 1 unit, I wonder why!

Wonder where it currently resides? And hopefully it's still around in some collector's home, and not in some dump somewhere!

 

[kstillin]

I would second that question for the masses how in the hell do yall know this stuff????

This is what I refer to as lore.

You pick it up gradually through conversations with enthusiasts/owners/employees and through reading posts on sites like this or RGVAC.

How else would you know to grab a Joust pinball when you got a chance?

K

 

[ataritoobin]

Great Gordon Morison (R.I.P.) artwork on that - he did most of the 70s Gottlieb pins, Cliff Hanger and Great Guns among others.

 

[ELutz]

Haven't a couple of Cops n Robbers boardsets been found?

I know where one resides.

Edward

 

[joemagiera]

Great Gordon Morison (R.I.P.) artwork on that - he did most of the 70s Gottlieb pins, Cliff Hanger and Great Guns among others.

How do you know it was him? I didn't look closely, is his signature on the marquee or CP somewhere? If he did the marquee, probably did the CP too? Was he known to do CP artwork?

 

[ataritoobin]

How do you know it was him? I didn't look closely, is his signature on the marquee or CP somewhere? If he did the marquee, probably did the CP too? Was he known to do CP artwork?

The style of artwork, and features (shadows, eyelashes, lips, nose shapes, etc.) are identical to his style. He might have done the CP too.

If I recall correctly, he worked for a third party company called Ad Posters in Chicago that did artwork for various things, I believe Williams had used their artists for previous games, as did Gottlieb. So I imagine they weren't necessarily under contract to do work for only one company.

 

[Tornadoboy]

He's got the ROMs and said it's a drop in replacement for classic Qix style Taito boardsets.

Dude steal me a copy! I'll chase down a Qix boardset just to convert it, I LOVE rare stuff!

Vertigo - I know an ex-Exidy employee that has a fully working one in his garage. This has been confirmed by someone that used to work for him. The guy has no interest in selling or even letting pictures be taken of it.

I hope he's at least backed up the ROMs? He could very well have the last one in existance, and I'd hate to see it go the way of Bouncer!