Utopia is probably the first ever Real-Time Strategy game ever made. It was designed by Don Daglow and was published exclusively for the Intellivision by Mattel in 1981.
Tag Archives: 1981
Cosmic Avenger, Arcade
Cosmic Avenger is a groundbreaking arcade shooter first released in 1981 by Universal. It was one of the first ever side-scrolling shoot ’em ups, and was released the same year as Konami‘s Scramble.
Stargate, Arcade
Also known as Defender II, Stargate is the 1981 sequel to Williams Electronics‘ Defender, which was released earlier the same year.
Stargate was designed and programmed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz, for Williams, and it features the same superfast blasting action as Defender, but with subtle differences.
Colony 7, Arcade
Taito‘s American division developed this vertical screen base defence game in 1981. Colony 7 owes quite a bit to Missile Command, if the truth be known, and was also probably the very first video game to feature “rip-off” micro-transactions too…
Amidar, Arcade
Konami‘s 1981 arcade classic, Amidar, is a maze game with a difference.
Frogger, Arcade
Konami‘s Frogger was released into video game arcades in 1981 and was an instant hit with gamers.
The basic premise of Frogger is to guide a hopping frog over a road and a river, to reach a safe haven on the other side.
Super Cobra, Intellivision
The Intellivision console has a very good conversion of Konami‘s arcade hit Super Cobra, courtesy of Parker Brothers.
Super Cobra, Arcade
Konami‘s Super Cobra was released into video game arcades in 1981. It not only uses the same hardware as Konami‘s hit game Scramble, but it also borrows many of its gameplay features.
Galaga, Arcade
Namco‘s Galaga – the sequel to Galaxian – came out in 1981 and was an immediate hit with gamers.
Gone were the days of Space Invaders and rigid attack patterns – the baddies in Galaga danced around the screen; made circles, and flew around in distinct and fluid attack patterns. It was new and it was revolutionary!
Gorf, Arcade
Gorf is an early arcade shooter that feels like a poor relative to many of its peers of the time.
It borrows most of its features from other games (one wave is actually called “Galaxians“) and doesn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of gameplay, but it did pioneer ONE THING. And that is: in the use of synthesised speech. Gorf was one of the earliest video games to use it (and although clear, it is quite robotic).
