1 post tagged “shakey's”

I have a dim memory of a videogame that must have existed in the late 60s...absolutely no later than 1972.  It seems likely to have either been or have been a predecessor of Taito's 'Gunfight', which came out in 1975.

I played it at Straw Hat Pizza (or maybe at Shakey's), and I was very young.  There was a display suspended above the dining area, and to play you had to go up to the counter and get the remotes/controllers.  I don't remember the controllers being wired, but I suppose that's a possible forgotten detail.  Maybe you just had to go up to the counter to have the machine turned on?

All I remember is that each of the two players controlled a cowboy gunfighter and tried to shoot the other player's gunfighter first.

See, the thing is that I moved from California to Missouri when I was 10, which would be 1973, but I was playing this game in California.  Pong came out in 1972, just before we moved.  I played this gunfight game before Pong, I'm positive.  As I say, though, Gunfight came out in 1975.

But what I read says that Taito's 'Gunfight' was actually an update to a Japanese game, expanded for more play variation.  I wonder if the proprieter of the pizza joint had a Japanese import machine?