Tea Leaves

APB

APB (”All Points Bulletin”) was an Atari arcade game designed by Dave Theurer, who also made the classic games Missile Command, Tempest – the best arcade game ever made, for my money — and I, Robot. It was the forebear of the original, overhead view Grand Theft Auto games. It was primarily a driving game; you were a police officer, and had a certain amount of time to arrest a certain number of miscreants (hitchhikers, litterers, speeders, etc.) while avoiding getting demerits. It was fairly challenging. On each round, there was a special “super villain” you could arrest to end the round immediately and get bonus points.

The game was published in 1987, also known as “a few years before the Rodney King incident.” If you caught the super villain — the first one was a hippie — the view switched to an exterior view of the interrogation room, with you and the suspect visible in silhouette. Your fat, stupid, donut-eating sergeant was slowly walking down the stairs. You then slapped the buttons fast and hard to “interrogate” (read: beat up) the suspect. If you beat him up enough before the sergeant came in to the room and witnessed the rights violation, he would confess.

It was popular at the time for Congressmen, Senators, and other idiots to complain about the values that videogames taught “our children,” but I never once heard a Congressman or law enforcement official complain about the values taught by a game that gave you points for beating up a suspect.

HOUR 1: Hey! Guys! I got DOOM 3! Whooooooo!

HOUR 2: Stupid installer erased my datebook.

HOUR 3: OK, it’s running. Why is everything so slow? What the hell?

DAY 2: Got new videocard at CompUSA. Runs OK now, when not crashing.

DAY 3: Couldn’t take crashing. Bought new computer.

DAY 3: Still crashing. Hate everyone.

DAY 4: No friends playing; computers all too slow. Maybe play with strangers?

DAY 5: 13 year old kids humiliating me. Hate everyone and everything.

DAY 6: I will master this. Stayed home from work to practice.

DAY 7: Boss called. Told him I had plague.

DAY 8: Lost to Estonian third-grade girl, 16-0. Hate everyone and everything in the entire universe.

DAY 10: Stopped playing stupid game. Will wait for Halo 2.

Shelf 1 (of 4)

Nostalgia, in general, is an emotion that I am suspicious of. We grow by moving forward, and though sometimes that involves looking back introspectively, nostalgia is the opposite of introspection: it is the fetishism of the past. Some part of the past is thought of as good because it wells up nostalgic feelings, rather than because of anything one can qualify objectively. I try to consciously choose introspection instead of nostalgia whenever I can. However — as the regular reader may be able to guess — when it comes to obsolete videogames, I am completely in thrall to the teenager in my head.

I don’t think this is uncommon. If you ask people (or at least American men) who grew up in certain eras what the best video game consoles were, you will get different answers — I’m in the Atari 2600 camp, those about 5 years younger than me will talk about the original Nintendo Entertainment System, those a few years younger than that will talk about the Sega Genesis or the SNES, and so on. Basically, whatever your first console was (or, whatever the first console that your best friend had but your parents wouldn’t get for you was, so later in life you feel compelled to buy them on eBay. Er, not that I’d know), that’s the one that you feel nostalgic for. This works for old home computers, too, and of course computer games.

The most recent wave of nostalgia to overcome me is the “Ultima Classics” package put together by one very obsessive-compulsive fan. It’s floating around the ether, and if you have a Windows PC and are at all interested in classic games I recommend you track it down. I actually already own all of the Ultima games — some in their Apple ][ incarnations -- but the sheer comprehensiveness of the collection inspires nothing short of awe. Included are every version of every Ultima game (except Ultima 9) for the PC, Apple ][, Commodore 64, Vic-20 (!), and Amiga platforms, along with emulators to run the non-PC native ports. Also included are various fan-authored remakes and ports (such as Exult and XU4), full documentation for every game, and just to add insult to injury a series of videoclips of Richard Garriott (a.k.a. Lord British) talking about his work.

This, therefore, seems like a good time to talk about the Ultima games and their progress through the years.
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