Soviet Video Games from the 70s 66
vigmeister writes "A group of Russian kids have uncovered and rebuilt some arcade games from the Soviet era. These games apparently offered free play when someone played well, but no list of hi-scores. Roughly 32 of them have been found and although they are based on other arcade games, I hope these games were unique enough to offer playability for the present day arcade game lovers. 'Based largely (and crudely) on early Japanese designs, the games were distributed -- in the words of one military manual -- for the purposes of "entertainment and active leisure, as well as the development of visual-estimation abilities." Production of the games ceased with the collapse of communism, and as Nintendo consoles and PCs flooded the former Soviet states, the old arcade games were either destroyed or disappeared into warehouses and basements. It was mostly out of nostalgia that four friends at Moscow State Technical University began scouring the country to rescue these old games. '"
wow... (Score:3, Informative)
They had "sniper-2" (with the moving circular targets) and the yellow one with the atari 2600 style Pole Position clone at the hotel...
Though, they charged us 2 ruble for a game, not the 15 kopeck one of the pictures shows. I guess that's what happens when capitalism runs in or something.
They were pretty fun for a computer-geek traveling in Russia at the time...
Re:MAME (Score:1, Informative)
They were fun BTW. Lots of lights and good art on the ships and explosions, sure beat pong's graphics.
Wired is late again... (Score:3, Informative)
For those hardcores with a taste for Cyrillic, the Museum's website is www.15kop.ru [15kop.ru]
Those in the UK could see some of these games at Swindon's Museum of Computing, as this BBC article [bbc.co.uk] from 2004 states. Not sure if they're still there.
Re:Good thinking on their part (Score:5, Informative)
Not surprising in a country where in the 50s physics textbooks had to justify presenting the theory of relativity by its correct alignment with Marxist philosophy! By the 70s and 80s, fewer people actually believed in those standard justifications, but one still had to formally have some connection to the "goals set by the Communist Party". People had to play by the rules (no pun intended), whether they actually believed the propaganda or not.
As for the military connection, some of the youth-oriented recreational facilities had been run by an organization [wikipedia.org] that specifically was charged with getting young people ready for military service. Usually, they ran sports-related activities, like parachute jumping or shooting ranges (both funfair-style and for sports like biathlon), but I wouldn't be surprised if the same outfit sponsored some of the arcades, especially in smaller towns.