Ebook 8Bit Apocalypse The Untold Story of Atari Missile Command Audible Audio Edition Alex Rubens Jeff Gerstmann foreword Ryan Burke Brilliance Audio Books
Download As PDF : 8Bit Apocalypse The Untold Story of Atari Missile Command Audible Audio Edition Alex Rubens Jeff Gerstmann foreword Ryan Burke Brilliance Audio Books
The first history of Atari's Missile Command, and its unforeseen effects on its creators and the culture
Before Call of Duty, before World of Warcraft, before even Super Mario Bros., the video game industry exploded in the late 1970s with the advent of the video arcade. Leading the charge was Atari Inc., the creator of, among others, the iconic game Missile Command. The first game to double as a commentary on culture, Missile Command put the players' fingers on "the button," making them responsible for the fate of civilization in a no-win scenario, all for the price of a quarter. The game was marvel of modern culture, helping usher in both the age of the video game and the video game lifestyle. Its groundbreaking implications inspired a fanatical culture that persists to this day.
As fascinating as the cultural reaction to Missile Command were the programmers behind it. Before the era of massive development teams and worship of figures like Steve Jobs, Atari was manufacturing arcade machines designed, written, and coded by individual designers. As earnings from their games entered the millions, these creators were celebrated as geniuses in their time; once dismissed as nerds and fanatics, they were now being interviewed for major publications, and partied like Wall Street traders. However, the toll on these programmers was high developers worked 120-hour weeks, often opting to stay in the office for days on end while under a deadline. Missile Command creator David Theurer threw himself particularly fervently into his work, prompting not only declining health and a suffering relationship with his family, but frequent nightmares about nuclear annihilation.
To truly tell the story from the inside, tech insider and writer Alex Rubens has interviewed numerous major figures from this time Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari; David Theurer, the creator of Missile Command; and Phil Klemmer, writer for the NBC series Chuck, who wrote an entire episode for the show about Missile Command and its mythical "kill screen." Taking listeners back to the days of TaB cola, dot matrix printers, and digging through the couch for just one more quarter, Alex Rubens combines his knowledge of the tech industry and experience as a gaming journalist to conjure the wild silicon frontier of the 8-bit '80s. 8-Bit Apocalypse The Untold Story of Atari's Missile Command offers the first in-depth, personal history of an era for which fans have a lot of nostalgia.
Ebook 8Bit Apocalypse The Untold Story of Atari Missile Command Audible Audio Edition Alex Rubens Jeff Gerstmann foreword Ryan Burke Brilliance Audio Books
"I first heard of "8-Bit Apocalypse" months before its release. As a huge fan of the classic era of arcades and video games, I was immediately excited for its eventual release. I did find myself wondering, however, "Is there really enough to write about Missile Command to fill a 250 page book?"
Turns out the answer is no, at least in the hands of Alex Rubens.
There are so many areas to criticize in this book that it's difficult to know where to start. Let's start with the beginning of the book :) The first third of the book is a shallow history of Atari and its culture. Other authors have covered this territory with far more depth and skill and its inclusion here is simply filler. Anyone reading a book on Missile Command is already familiar with the story of Atari and does not need a rehash.
Once we get into the actual development of Missile Command, the author shifts into page after page after page after page of overwrought Cold War imagery to try and link Missile Command to a greater narrative about the world in general. He does this through exaggerations and blatant falsehoods. Rubens describes the late 70s as a period when Americans were terrified of impending nuclear war to a point of almost being paralyzed and unable to function in our daily lives. This is simply not true. In the late 70s, Americans were more concerned with the perception of us being weak (Iran Hostage crisis) and an economy that was in the tank. Rubens then claims that Missile Command was inspired by the military rhetoric and actions of President Reagan and, further, his SDI/Star Wars system. That would be quite the feat, since Missile Command was released before Ronald Reagan was even elected. Much of this is described in a first-person fashion despite the author being clearly not old enough to have lived through this era.
The author's description of the game's actual development is a confused mess. He alternately describes Dave Theurer, the lead developer/engineer, as a veteran of the game industry and someone working on his first game. He describes events and timelines that lead to the conclusion that the development of Missile Command took 18 months or thereabouts while simultaneously implying a timeline of only a few months.
Precious little time is spent on the technical aspects of the game itself other than the fact it had a trackball and was in color. The author raves about the game's graphics as if they were a major step forward for the time (they weren't). He describes Missile Command's defensive nature as a first and somehow unique (it wasn't - Space Invaders, anyone?)
Instead we are treated to many, many repetitive pages attaching a narrative to Missile Command in a futile attempt to make it appear to be of greater depth than it is in reality. Yes, there's a bare bones story of unnamed cities being attacked with your job being to defend them. And...that's it. Dave Theurer, through his many hours developing the game, may have convinced himself there was something there but...there isn't. Even Rich Adam, the other developer on the game, doesn't buy into that concept.
Underlying the story of the game is the theme that its development essentially drove Dave Theurer crazy with nightmares of exploding cities and impending nuclear holocaust. That's undoubtedly terrible to have experienced. The author tries to lay that at the feet of the game itself but the connection is tenuous at best. Instead, the reality lies in the fact that Theurer was an insomniac who would work 96 hours straight and who once had an over-the-top reaction to a monster movie as a 10-year old.
The author also makes the claim that Missile Command's development was so rough and nightmarish that Theurer was driven out of the game development business. That's false. Theurer remained at Atari for a full decade after Missile Command, continuing to develop games the entire time, including all-time classic Tempest.
After the too-short middle section of the book covering the game's development, we are treated to a too-long section on the cultural impact of Missile Command and, again, a shallow history of Atari and the gaming industry. There's a highly detailed recap of an episode of the TV show "Chuck" that goes on for several pages. Then there's a detailed recap of the game Spec Ops: The Line (!?!?!?) with a very slight (at best) link to Missile Command. This, too, goes on for several pages. Multiple other cultural items are mentioned, such as the opening to the show, "The Americans". We also get a detailed, and fairly interesting, section on Tony Temple and Roy Schildt, high score champions of Missile Command, Yet, somehow with all those pages on all of that content, not a single mention of the movie documentary made about Missile Command ("High Score").
Finally, the author apparently spent many hours interviewing Dave Theurer but only two or three actual quotes from Theurer are included from those interviews. No stories, no personal reflections in Theurer's own words, nothing.
What we're left with is an incredibly shallow, overwrought, often factually incorrect, depiction of the development of a classic arcade game. The entire exercise is perhaps summed up by this passage at the end of the book. Rubens references Spec Ops' line "Do you feel like a hero now?" and then says about Dave Theurer, "I would say that such a word isn't strong enough to characterize Dave Theurer". Oof.
Do yourself a favor and do a Google search instead if you want to learn about Missile Command."
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8Bit Apocalypse The Untold Story of Atari Missile Command Audible Audio Edition Alex Rubens Jeff Gerstmann foreword Ryan Burke Brilliance Audio Books Reviews :
8Bit Apocalypse The Untold Story of Atari Missile Command Audible Audio Edition Alex Rubens Jeff Gerstmann foreword Ryan Burke Brilliance Audio Books Reviews
- This is the only negative review I've ever written, on or anywhere, and I was hesitant to do so, because I'm sure the author poured his heart and soul into this work.
However, I cannot recommend this book. For some background, I'm a gen-X'er, grew up in the 70's/80's, right in the prime of the arcade scene and burgeoning home computer industry. I am a technology executive and have been in IT my entire life, and I still play video games daily on PC/Xbox, I'm an avid retro-computing and retro-gaming enthusiast, I go to retro gaming expos, still play arcade games on occasion when I run across them.
Some of my favorite arcade games from the 80's include Tempest, Pac-Man, Missile Command, Centipede, Galaga, Defender, Donkey Kong and many others. I was anticipating this book, and in fact pre-ordered it. I have read many dozens of similar (great) books on other retro gaming topics.
Here's my issue with this book. The author spent WAY too much time and too many chapters on setting the "tone" of the 1980's relative to the nuclear war threat/concern of the time, and some underlying "message" that the creator of Missile Command was attempting to get across with their game. Namely, that nobody wins in a nuclear war, and despite efforts, if you are in a nuclear war, everyone loses.
Ok. I get that. Spend a chapter on it, maybe two. But not 90% of the book. The repetition on this topic was nauseating. It was all I could do to force myself to finish the book, mostly to see if it ever "got on with it" and told some more stories or details. Ultimately, towards the end, it had a tiny bit about the chase for various high-scores and some drama around that.
What I was hoping to see was maybe some historical context (provided), but also some information on the arcade industry, competitors, other games, and specifically, what was going on inside Atari at the time, technical specs and what made this game so unique etc. The author "touched" on the latter, describing the unique trackball controller, but I wanted vastly more. Tell me about the types and numbers of CPU chips, memory design, graphics, monitor, how the code was stored or modified over different versions, how many styles of cabinets and games were released, compare and contrast it to other games of the time, all of that. Photos of circuit boards, wiring, power supplies, signals and decoding of the trackball movement into X/Y coordinates on the raster screen, lots of stuff like that is an opportunity missed.
If you're looking for a political treatise on how terrible nuclear weapons are and how the creator of Missile Command was trying to send a backhanded message with his game design, this book is for you.
If you're looking for a more casual and technical review of the game, historical "arcade" context, or a deep technical dive, this is not your book. - I first heard of "8-Bit Apocalypse" months before its release. As a huge fan of the classic era of arcades and video games, I was immediately excited for its eventual release. I did find myself wondering, however, "Is there really enough to write about Missile Command to fill a 250 page book?"
Turns out the answer is no, at least in the hands of Alex Rubens.
There are so many areas to criticize in this book that it's difficult to know where to start. Let's start with the beginning of the book ) The first third of the book is a shallow history of Atari and its culture. Other authors have covered this territory with far more depth and skill and its inclusion here is simply filler. Anyone reading a book on Missile Command is already familiar with the story of Atari and does not need a rehash.
Once we get into the actual development of Missile Command, the author shifts into page after page after page after page of overwrought Cold War imagery to try and link Missile Command to a greater narrative about the world in general. He does this through exaggerations and blatant falsehoods. Rubens describes the late 70s as a period when Americans were terrified of impending nuclear war to a point of almost being paralyzed and unable to function in our daily lives. This is simply not true. In the late 70s, Americans were more concerned with the perception of us being weak (Iran Hostage crisis) and an economy that was in the tank. Rubens then claims that Missile Command was inspired by the military rhetoric and actions of President Reagan and, further, his SDI/Star Wars system. That would be quite the feat, since Missile Command was released before Ronald Reagan was even elected. Much of this is described in a first-person fashion despite the author being clearly not old enough to have lived through this era.
The author's description of the game's actual development is a confused mess. He alternately describes Dave Theurer, the lead developer/engineer, as a veteran of the game industry and someone working on his first game. He describes events and timelines that lead to the conclusion that the development of Missile Command took 18 months or thereabouts while simultaneously implying a timeline of only a few months.
Precious little time is spent on the technical aspects of the game itself other than the fact it had a trackball and was in color. The author raves about the game's graphics as if they were a major step forward for the time (they weren't). He describes Missile Command's defensive nature as a first and somehow unique (it wasn't - Space Invaders, anyone?)
Instead we are treated to many, many repetitive pages attaching a narrative to Missile Command in a futile attempt to make it appear to be of greater depth than it is in reality. Yes, there's a bare bones story of unnamed cities being attacked with your job being to defend them. And...that's it. Dave Theurer, through his many hours developing the game, may have convinced himself there was something there but...there isn't. Even Rich Adam, the other developer on the game, doesn't buy into that concept.
Underlying the story of the game is the theme that its development essentially drove Dave Theurer crazy with nightmares of exploding cities and impending nuclear holocaust. That's undoubtedly terrible to have experienced. The author tries to lay that at the feet of the game itself but the connection is tenuous at best. Instead, the reality lies in the fact that Theurer was an insomniac who would work 96 hours straight and who once had an over-the-top reaction to a monster movie as a 10-year old.
The author also makes the claim that Missile Command's development was so rough and nightmarish that Theurer was driven out of the game development business. That's false. Theurer remained at Atari for a full decade after Missile Command, continuing to develop games the entire time, including all-time classic Tempest.
After the too-short middle section of the book covering the game's development, we are treated to a too-long section on the cultural impact of Missile Command and, again, a shallow history of Atari and the gaming industry. There's a highly detailed recap of an episode of the TV show "Chuck" that goes on for several pages. Then there's a detailed recap of the game Spec Ops The Line (!?!?!?) with a very slight (at best) link to Missile Command. This, too, goes on for several pages. Multiple other cultural items are mentioned, such as the opening to the show, "The Americans". We also get a detailed, and fairly interesting, section on Tony Temple and Roy Schildt, high score champions of Missile Command, Yet, somehow with all those pages on all of that content, not a single mention of the movie documentary made about Missile Command ("High Score").
Finally, the author apparently spent many hours interviewing Dave Theurer but only two or three actual quotes from Theurer are included from those interviews. No stories, no personal reflections in Theurer's own words, nothing.
What we're left with is an incredibly shallow, overwrought, often factually incorrect, depiction of the development of a classic arcade game. The entire exercise is perhaps summed up by this passage at the end of the book. Rubens references Spec Ops' line "Do you feel like a hero now?" and then says about Dave Theurer, "I would say that such a word isn't strong enough to characterize Dave Theurer". Oof.
Do yourself a favor and do a Google search instead if you want to learn about Missile Command. - The book can be broken down into about three sections. The first eighty pages or so include background information on the state of economy in the early 1980s, the Cold War (the author’s view of it anyway), the political environment, and a brief history of Atari including the Nolan Bushnell years and the Ray Kassar years. Other books cover the history of Atari better, and in more detail. It is not really the main point of this book. The included background information gives you context leading up to the stewing cauldron in 1980 in which Missile Command was born.
The next eighty pages or so cover the development of the Missile Command arcade video game, from where the initial idea came from, to David Theurer, Rich Adams and team designing and developing it. This is really the meat of this book. It covers the direction the development took, why certain decisions were made, and how the development affected Theurer, his health and his personal life. Rob Fulop’s Atari 2600 version of Missile Command and some of Theurer’s other work, such as Tempest, are also covered.
The last third of the book covers other tangential Missile Command related subjects, such as its effect on popular culture (opening credits of FX’s The Americans anyone), conspiracy theories, competitive gaming and a “Where Are They Now†Epilogue.
Overall, not a bad effort by first time author Alex Rubens. If you are a Missile Command fan, a David Theurer fan or an Atari fan in general, I think you will enjoy the book as well.
