Atari 2600/7800: A Visual Compendium

by Bitmap Books

Atari's early tenure as the video game industry's leading light oversaw seismic change in what was still a very young and evolving sector. Not only was Atari's VCS/2600 system the first piece of gaming equipment to truly dominate the living
room, it also played host to some of the most iconic titles of all time, including Asteroids, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Defender, Joust, Pitfall!, River Raid and many, many more.

At its height, Atari's name became synonymous with video gaming in the same way that Nintendo's would a few years later, but the company - and the industry - fell just as swiftly thanks to the infamous North American video game crash of 1983. Even when faced with this catastrophic event, Atari soldiered on and, the following year, produced the powerful 7800 console - a machine that could easily have returned the firm to its former glory, had its launch in 1984 gone to plan.

This book aims to cover the highs and lows of what was a truly tumultuous period in video game history; an era which laid down the foundations for what has today become one of the world's most popular forms of entertainment.

Atari 2600/7800: a visual compendium aims to showcase the very best pixel art, cover art and product design on each system. Spread over 528 pages, it features over 200 classic games, with articles on the leading third-party developers, interviews with key figures in the industry and features on subjects, such as cover art, prototypes and homebrew releases.

www.bitmapbooks.co.uk

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

528 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes a nice pair with the Commodore 64 volume. Bitmap Books makes immensely lavish retro video game books for readers like me, who prefer pixels to photorealism. And you get a lot of pixilation in this volume. I could complain about the book's blocky pools of color, how the format of the Atari's graphics does not translate into recognizable shapes when you zoom in sometimes, but all design choices aside, this book is filled with useless but fascinating information related to the video game industry.

I would say only die hard retro video game fans will get anything out of this book. Considering that most ordinary gamers will not find the Atari's stone age graphics impressive or even recognizable as interactive objects, but once you start reading about how the games were coded, how the technology worked, you will see how impressive the system was. Albeit, by the time they released the 7800 two years after their original release date, Nintendo had already taken over with its appealing NES, and Sega was about to change the industry as well. Atari became old hat because they wanted to rely on software rather than hardware. Porting over arcade games was all well and good, but by the eighties I think computer games and even Commodore were investing more in complex RPGs and longer games. Atari is known for Pacman, Donkey Kong, and other arcade-esque experiences. The console was so fantastically limited that it is really a miracle the programmers got anything resembling a video game out of their creative efforts on the console.

Nonetheless, you can't deny that the innovations explicated in this volume will convince you that Atari was probably the most influential company in gaming during its reign. Due to absurd mismanagement, the company couldn't keep up forever. You will learn about programmers' methodologies, and hear their grievances about getting no credit for working on the game. It's true that you won't find any indication of who created the game on most Atari titles. Obviously, the industry has changed a lot. It's incredible to me that Undertale and Minecraft exist and thrive today at the same time as EA Games - that is, creators working largely alone while other games are the product of hundreds of employees' efforts.

For Bitmap, I would suggest printing the box art on one page and the in-game graphics on the other. The two-page spreads would be just as interesting on one page alone, while the box art is often so fantastic that it deserves more attention.

This is a collector's item, but honestly I doubt I'll ever play more than a handful of Atari games in my life.

[Lewis Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

As is becoming tradition with the Visual Compendium series, the writing in this is very dry and functional, but it’s so well researched and stuffed with features, interviews and high quality imagery that it’s basically as perfect a book on its subject matter you could really want. Sure, I’d like a bit more character from the writing but the breadth of content covered and the wonderful presentation more than make up for my issues with the writing. An easy recommendation for any Atari 2600/7800 fan.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great visuals and interviews. Was a bedside book for me, so it took over a year to finish.