Williams Game Company
For a short while I had titled this guide 'Zen and the art of troubleshooting early Williams SS games'. I was a bit too cute for my taste (like the logo isn't!), but I still like my original reason for the title: 'Why the title? Years ago I read the following definition of Zen: 'Zen stresses the importance of the enlightenment experience and the futility of rational thought...'. Well, if you have ever spent time troubleshooting a System 3 game, then you know that rational thought has nothing to do with the process and the only way that game is going to get working is through some divine enlightenment!'
I started work on this guide because there were no other resources available on the Internet devoted to early Williams Solid State games. These games range from 'Hot Tip', released late in 1977, to Laser Cue, released in early 1984. Over 150,000 games were produced in this series, rivaling both the System 11 and WPC eras.
Unlike early Bally and Gottlieb games, there are no 'replacement' boards available for the early Williams games, so knowing how to repair the electronics on these games is a must if one is going to collect this era of game.
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- Williams Arcade Classics
Williams Arcade Classics
DOS - 1995
Also available on: Genesis
Description of Williams Arcade Classics
Read Full Review'Warning: This oldies collection is intended for those with nostalgic memories of early 1980 arcades/game consoles. If you don't remember these games from your local pizza shop or were not born when they came out, you may be in for a big disappointment.'
Nostalgic Fever Grips Gaming Community
First came Microsoft Arcade followed by the Activision Collections. Now Williams Electronics the pinball and arcade giant is getting in on the act of porting classic video games from the early 80's to the PC platform. William's Arcade Classics ports the arcade classics (and some not so classics) Defender, Defender II, Joust, Bubbles, Robotron, and Sini Star from the cabinet to the PC in a new CD-ROM collection for Windows (the games run in MS-DOS mode).
Now, mind you, these are not updated versions of classic games like the recently released Pitfall Harry or Lode Runner, these are the original games -- 16 colors or less, blocky graphics, limited sound. After spending God knows how much on CPUs, RAM, sound cards, speakers, video cards, joysticks etc so that your machine will run the latest games, why would you want to play outdated video games? Good question.
Why Ask Why?
The recent trend to bring 80's arcade games to the PC scares me. These games were great when that's all we had but after experiencing games like NASCAR and Mechwarrior II are we going to be satisfied moving little blocks of color around the screen? Not likely, but yet...
Its mind boggling to think that the original programmers sometimes had only had up to 64K in which to cram their games. Even in this PC version all six games only take about 4MBs when installed to the hard drive. So why the CD-ROM? Ah, that is the brilliance of this CD-ROM and the reason it has great value to game historians/collectors. The rest of the CD-ROM stores about 232 MBs of video interviews with original designers of the games, original sketches, sales sheets, information and photos of the cabinets.
Video Game Trivia
For its time, Defender's 16 colors were considered cutting edge?Sini Star's original name was Dark Star?Hours before Defender was unveiled to thousands of arcade owners and operators at a major coin-op trade show, the programers were still burning ROMs back at the company? The buzz at the show was that Defender and Pac Man would bomb? The average game time during the first week of Sini Star's release was 33 seconds? The bulk of programming for Robotron took four days? An Atari 2600 version of Defender II was released in 1988? There is a bug in Sini Star which makes it possible to receive over 250 lives?
Is This CD-ROM For Me?
Williams Arcade Classics is a hard CD-ROM to review. On one hand it has a great nostalgic value but on the other hand, compared to today's polygon, texture mapped graphics, 32 bit programming and stereo sound effects, 10 plus year old games can't hope to compete. Is it for you? Take the following little test:
Get it if...
- you consider yourself a game collector
- you hang around the 'rec.games.video.arcade.collecting' newsgroup
- you fondly remember wasting sunny days in a dark arcade pumping quarters into Robotron.
- you are a game programmer who has forgotten how to put game play above glitz.
- you feel today's games don't give that true non-stop arcade action.
- your wife nixed the idea of buying an old arcade game for the basement.
Don't get it if:
- you were born after 1975.
- your eye to hand co-ordination is shot.
- you are expecting games which will hold you attention over a long period of time.
- and parents, think twice about buying this disk to impress your kids with the great games you played instead of studying for your biology final. Unless, you want your kids laughing at you. 'Dad, are you telling me you spent all of your lunch money and spare time playing this? Ha, Ha, Ha'.
Review By GamesDomain
Captures and Snapshots
Screenshots from MobyGames.com
Comments and reviews
steve2020-05-051 point
im trying to download this game for my windows 7 64xbit pc.. I can't get it to work...
Friendly Floyd2015-11-29-4 points
I have the full CD ROM version! (I tried installing it recently, but I couldn't get it to run in Windows 7) Any chance I could upload it? If so, how?
Bobbo2015-05-240 point DOS version
This was my single favorite group of games back in the mid-90's. All are completely authentic ports of the 80's arcade games, not clones. You can play the exact games on MAME, but this is just put together a little bit better.
Thanks so much for hosting this here. Maybe you can find the full CD Rom version that has video interviews of the early video game developers.
Rob2015-05-210 point DOS version
Totally cool. All those Defender clones and I finally have the actual one. The Joust game as well had many copycats written. These are the games we fed quarters to play. Awesome!!!!
GnomenKlayture2013-08-110 point DOS version
I just found my CD and it's got a crack from edge to spindle!!! Some of my Favorite Arcade Games that I've sunk quarter after quarter into the machine and then bought for my consoles... I thought for sure I'd made an image of it, for just such possibilites, but since I can't find it (yet) I started looking and let me tell you, I have HIGH hopes for this download to work, of the few other's I've tried, who also tried to SELL it to me (.
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DOS Version
Genesis ROM
- Year:1996
- Publisher:Midway Home Entertainment, Inc.
- Developer:Digital Eclipse Software, Inc.
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