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After with Mr. Do, Joust is one of my all time favorite games. What other game allows you to ride around on a giant ostrich? Its every kids dream right? Whenever I cruise the boardwalk arcade I always plop a few tokens in the old cigarette scarred machine near the bathroom. If you have not played it in a while you will be surprised at how well it has held up. It was way ahead of its time with its flexible gameplay system that allows for both “deathmatch” and co-op play.
Joust in the Arcade – Awesome!
Sadly, the Atari 2600 version? Not so good. Its a given that the graphics and gameplay would be slightly different, but the game control doesn’t translate well to the console. Just think about pounding on that nearly flush-to-its-housing button to get some momentum. Its a total nightmare.
Joust on the 2600 – A little Painful
And now for the requisite Retroist Commercial. I couldn’t find a 2600 commercial, but this one for the 5200 is epic and I believe features Arye Gross.
commercial was created by doyle dane bernbach in 1983. the art director was charlie rice and the writer was d. j. webster. i was working on the atari account back then.
Wow! Great information. That must have been an exciting time to be working with Atari. Did you work with Atari on any other games?
Sure. From 1983 to the time that Jack Tramiel bought the company from Warner. So we made dozens of commercials. Spent lots of time at Atari.
Very cool. If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of work were you doing? What other titles did you work on?
A lot of these early Atari commercials are a step above other advertising at the time. What kind of creative structure did Atari have when it came to commercials?
None of those are Atari 2600 screenshots. Looks like you showed the 5200′s Joust.