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GCC - 2600 Arcade Ports


Sabertooth

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Justin's topics on Joust, Dig Dug and Pole Position have me thinking about General Computer Corporation (GCC) and how awesome and prolific they were on the 2600.

 

The story of GCC is legend and I'm not going to go into it here but besides coming up with Ms. Pac-Man and designing the 7800 they did some tremendous work on various arcade conversions for the 2600. In fact, I think I spent more time with GCC arcade ports than I did with Atari or Activision originals. My favorites were Joust, Dig Dug and Moon Patrol. What are your favorite GCC produced 2600 games?

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Justin's topics on Joust, Dig Dug and Pole Position have me thinking about General Computer Corporation (GCC) and how awesome and prolific they were on the 2600.

 

@atarilbc Really poignant post! I think you've read my mind. I've been thinking a lot about GCC this week. I guess it got started with the CES photos we've been posting to our Facebook page, most of the 1984 CES photos came from Steven Anne, a former GCC employee who worked on Joust.

 

I have a tremendous appreciation for GCC and what they were able to do. I've been working on a Blog article about GCC but haven't been able to finish it just yet. In many ways GCC was running rings around what Atari was doing back in Sunnyvale. What GCC was able to accomplish on the 2600 was absolutely incredible, not to mention the great work they did on the 5200 and of course the development of the 7800 itself. It really makes you think about what could've been done through the end of the '80s had Atari retained GCC as a small braintrust to continue games development even after the layoffs back in Sunnyvale in 1984.

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@atarilbc Really poignant post! I think you've read my mind. I've been thinking a lot about GCC this week. I guess it got started with the CES photos we've been posting to our Facebook page, most of the 1984 CES photos came from Steven Anne, a former GCC employee who worked on Joust.

 

I have a tremendous appreciation for GCC and what they were able to do. I've been working on a Blog article about GCC but haven't been able to finish it just yet.

@Justin: I've really enjoyed those 1984 CES photos and look forward to reading the blog post! Many people know about GCC's work on Crazy Otto/Ms. Pac-Man and the 7800, but I'm sure that more than a few will be surprised to learn how many of their favorite 2600 games came from GCC. They were magicians!

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2600 Joust is one of my favorites.  Truly a great port of the arcade game.  I really like how they made the eggs keep moving instead of landing in the arcade game.  Probably a limitation due to hardware or memory, but it makes the game different and fun. 

And Phoenix!  Great game.  Love how you can "wing" an alien. 

Pole Position.  Compare it to Night Driver!  Amazing. 

 

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