Initial release date 1977 Genre Sports game Platform Atari 2600 | Designer Joe Decuir Developers Atari, Atari, Inc. Publishers Atari, Atari, Inc., Sears | |
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Mode(s) Single-player
Multiplayer (1 to 4 players) Similar Atari - Inc games, Sports games | ||
Video Olympics is a video game programmed by Atari, Inc.'s Joe Decuir for the Atari 2600. It is one of the nine original launch titles for that system when it was released in September 1977. The cartridge is a collection of games from Atari's popular arcade Pong series. It was rebranded by Sears as Pong Sports.
Contents
Gameplay
The games are a collection of "bat and ball" style games, including several previously released by Atari as coin-ops in the early 1970s. The games are played using the 2600s paddle controllers, and are for one to four players (three or four players requires a second set of paddle controllers).
Reception
The cartridge and its individual games were reviewed twice in Video magazine. In the Winter 1979 issue of Video, the cartridge was reviewed as part of a general review of the Atari VCS where it received a review score of 8.5 out of 10, and its constituent games were characterized as "old standbys" but "still lots of fun". A more thorough review appeared in Video's "Arcade Alley" column in the Summer 1979 issue where the release was generally praised for "tak[ing] Atari's Pong concept and explor[ing] it to the limit." Individual games were singled out as well, with praise for Volleyball and Robot Pong (described as "astonishingly good"), and criticism for Handball (for its use of a visually disturbing blinking paddle rather than an absent paddle to indicate inactive players), and Basketball (described as primitive compared to Atari's own 1978 version of Basketball).
Games
Video Olympics includes 50 games and variations. Some of the more notable games include: