Episode 653: The Bronze Age of Arcade Games

Kevin: Today’s episode focuses on a topic that has absolutely fascinated me since I was a small child reading decade-old video game books from the library: the coin-op video games of the 1970s. This was a formative and experimental era of video games that has gone largely overlooked and forgotten due largely to how inaccessible these games are. Only a handful of games from this decade are commercially available today, and even through emulation the vast majority are simply unplayable for technical reasons we delve into here… but that doesn’t mean these early works from companies like Atari, Midway, Chicago Coin, Taito, Sega, Allied Leisure, Ramtek, Exidy and more don’t deserve a round of recognition and celebration.

Joining me on this stroll through the annals of gaming history are fellow ’70s gaming enthusiasts Benj Edwards and Nate Lockhart, who each bring some unique technological and historical experiences from myself. Whether you’ve gotten the opportunity to play these games yourself in their original form factor, through emulation or an early home port, or are simply warming up a YouTube search browser to see them in action, hopefully you’ll come away sharing our excitement for titles that informed the following decades of the medium.

Edits by Greg Leahy, art by Nick Wanserski

• 08:01 - The Temptations: "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone"

• 16:59 - Donna Summer: "I Feel Love"

• 30:59 - Ruth Roberts & Bill Katz: "Meet the Mets" (1974-'79 ver.)

• 40:59 - Led Zeppelin: "Going to California"

• 56:01 - Mike Oldfield: "Tubular Bells" (Pt. II)

• 1:08:57 - Paul Chihara: "Fight Scene from Death Race 2000"

• 1:16:50 - Pink Lady: "Monster"

• 1:29:53 - The O'Jays: "Livin' for the Weekend"

• 1:42:31 - Patrice Rushen: "Forget Me Nots"

• Closing - Giorgio Moroder: "From Here to Eternity"