Breakout

Released in 1978 (older than me!)
Atari 2600

Isaac skipped this one, so I'm popping it in here. There really isn't much to say about this game. It's Breakout. It's single player PONG. But I will elaborate.

You have 6 rows of colored bricks at the top, and a little bar at the bottom. You move the bar and bounce a ball up at the bricks. The bricks break when the ball hits them. The ball bounces back to the bar. Move the bar to bounce the ball back to the bricks. Don't miss the ball or you FAIL!

There are 12 variants in the game, and each supports up to four players (2 teams of 2). Variants include invisible bricks, a sticky bar, ball control, a time-attack, and the trademarked "Breakthru" mode which allows the ball to pass through the brick walls to the top of the screen before coming back down.

It's worth noting that you were required to use the interesting spinning dial "Paddle" controllers in order to play Breakout on the 2600. They offered a surprisingly high amount of control for the player, that could only ever be reproduced using a PC mouse. Even with a mouse, I feel it still falls short of offering the precision the dial had. I imagine it could be done with a track ball, but that's about it. So as simple as the game is, it's somewhat of a breakthrough (no pun intended) in precision control.

The game itself is mildly addicting, thanks to it's simplicity. However, it's understandably shallow, and mostly unrewarding. It's also a prime example of what video games meant to the uninformed. "Bleep, bloop, bleep" for hours upon hours. Super Breakout (which will be reviewed later) had a livelier sound effect selection, but the original is a relic of ancient technology. It was what we, of the future, would consider a "tech demo" for the home game console in 1978.