|
|
Whilst chatting it up with Microsoft Sam, singer/songwriter, over the information super highway. He said something along the lines of 'Hey, I got this really cool picture, do you care to see it?' Being a person who loves really cool pictures, I of course responded 'totally otally'. The picture that appeared on my screen has since changed my life forever, behold...
Appearing like an angel slowly lowering itself from a psychedelic cloud of heaven. I saw what would be a detrimental part to the next few hours of my life... Released in 1974 or1975, depending on where you are getting your information, by Atari (RIP) what appears to be called JAWS in this ad was actually a game called Shark Jaws. Now many of you were probably not born or playing videos game in this good year of the lord, I'm making this assumption because EVERYONE knows old people are stupid. Right? Anyway, also published by Atari that year were such hits as, Tank II, Highway, Jet Fighter, and Dodgeball. Shark Jaws was more than likely trying to bank off the success of the film Jaws, which from what I understand would be very scary to watch while swimming in a pool of kool-aid or even Giant Eagle brand orange soda. One would probably have to be blind or very unintelligent to not notice that the word shark, probably couldn't get much smaller on the add. Genius, pure genius. Later the game went on to be called just JAWS, and was said to be based off the movie of the same name.
The actual game was quite graphically impressive, as you can see in the above screen shot. The point of the game was you, the diver, try to catch fish while also trying to escape a great white shark. Now, I'm by no means a what you would call a hard worker, but this is just ridiculous. Sure, you're a fisherman, you probably don't make that much money, but is it so bad that you still try to catch fish while being chases by a giant shark? And just how successful do you think you would be at catching fish in scuba gear in the first place, let alone when you are about to be eaten by a huge shark. What's interesting about the release of this game is that Atari released it under the pseudonym of 'Horror Games'. The absence of names like this is what's destroying the arcade as we know it. We need more games where you are a tiny dot trying to touch other smaller dots while a larger dot is chasing you. In fact, I wouldn't even mind them getting a little crazy and making some of the dots crazy whacky colors, like red... or blue. Back to the game though, while researching it for this article I found that there is no way to play this game besides buying the actual board and cabinet as it is unable to be emulated by something such as MAME. This unfortunate fact is what is forcing me to not really be able to get many more pictures or much more in depth about this wonderful game. So, I will leave you with some pictures of sharks about to eat stuff. And in the spirit of X-Entertainment, I implore you to send me some pictures of sharks yourself. But make sure they are going to eat something. I don't like those pussy sharks.
He's Smiling, I love happy endings. ----- Mike
|
| COPYRIGHT © 2005 CODEhulkster, All Rights Reserved. |
