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Death Race was a controversial arcade game, released by Exidy (whose name was a contraction of "Excellence in Dynamics") in 1976. While not the first violent video game to appear, it was the first video game to inspire a great deal of protest and controversy, or moral panic, in the United States. Image File history File links Death_race. ...
A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual) that creates computer or video games. ...
Exidy was one of the largest creators of arcade video games during the early period of video games, from 1975-1983. ...
Video game publishers are companies that publish video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer. ...
Exidy was one of the largest creators of arcade video games during the early period of video games, from 1975-1983. ...
This is a listing of computer and video game genres with brief descriptions and examples from each genre. ...
This is a listing of computer and video game genres with brief descriptions and examples from each genre. ...
Nineteen inch (48 cm) CRT computer monitor A computer display, monitor or screen is a computer peripheral device capable of showing characters and/or still or moving images generated by a computer and processed by a graphics card. ...
In computer science, porting is the adaptation of a piece of software so that it will function in a different computing environment to that for which it was originally written. ...
Nes is: A municipality in the county of Akershus in Norway, see Nes, Akershus. ...
Computer and video games have been the subject of frequent controversy and censorship, due to the depiction of graphic violence, sexual themes, racism, advertising, eavesdropping, consumption of illegal drugs, consumption of alcohol or tobacco, propaganda or profanity in some games. ...
Centipede by Atari is a typical example of a 1980s era arcade game. ...
Exidy was one of the largest creators of arcade video games during the early period of video games, from 1975-1983. ...
1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ...
A moral panic is a mass movement based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behavior or group of people, frequently a minority group or a subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses a menace to society. ...
Overview
In the game, designed by Howell Ivey and inspired by the 1975 cult film Death Race 2000 by Paul Bartel (starring David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone and produced by Roger Corman), one or two players control an onscreen car (two cars if two players played) with a steering wheel and an acceleration pedal. The object was to run down "gremlins" who were fleeing the vehicle. As the player hit them, they would scream or squeal and be replaced onscreen by tombstones. This increased the challenge of the game as the screen cluttered up and the player had to avoid the tombstones. 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...
A cult film is a movie that attracts a small but devoted group of fans, usually failing to achieve considerable success outside that group. ...
Death Race 2000 is a cult action film directed by Paul Bartel in 1975; it is rated R. The movie takes place in a dystopian view of American society in the year 2000. ...
Paul Bartel (August 6, 1938-May 13, 2000) was born in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an American actor, writer and director well known for his 1982 hit black comedy Eating Raoul, which he wrote, starred in and directed. ...
Carradine playing Bill in Kill Bill. ...
Sylvester Stallone in the contender Sylvester Enzio Stallone (born July 6, 1946 in New York City) is an American film actor, director, producer, and screenwriter. ...
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American producer and director of low-budget films. ...
The player was rated based on the number of points scored:
- 1-3 points: skeleton chaser
- 4-10 points: bone cracker
- 11-20 points: gremlin hunter
- 21 points or over: expert driver
The object to the game was thus similar to the much later computer game Carmageddon. A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ...
Carmageddon is the first of a series of graphically violent driving-oriented video games produced by Stainless Software, published by Interplay and SCi. ...
The graphics were blocky, black and white, and primitive, but the "gremlins" looked more like stick men and the game's working title had been Pedestrian, so its implication was clear. In spite of Exidy president Pete Kaufman's denial that the intent of the game was to promote violence, Death Race touched off a media onslaught of controversy. The National Safety Council called it sick and morbid. The CBS news program 60 Minutes did a show on the psychological impact of video games. It was also covered on NBC's "Weekend" news show, in the National Enquirer and Midnight magazine. CBS (an abbreviation for Columbia Broadcasting System, the former legal name of the network) is one of the largest television networks, and formerly one of the largest radio networks, in the United States. ...
Sixty Minutes was also the replacement for the BBC current affairs programme Nationwide. ...
NBC, the National Broadcasting Company, is an American television and radio network based in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ...
The National Enquirer is a national American supermarket tabloid. ...
The controversy increased the game's sales, causing another product run, but the game was banned and inspired so many protests—including the first-ever organized protests over a video game, led by Ronnie Lamm—that in the end only about 500 units were made. There were even stories about the stand-up consoles being dragged into parking lots and burned by protesters.
The controversy is also credited with fueling the fledgling arcade industry as a whole. The market had shown signs of stagnation, but in the end 53 new titles from 15 different companies appeared on the market in 1976. There had been 57 titles released in the prior two years combined. 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1976 calendar). ...
Legacy In 1990, an enhanced version of Death Race appeared for the Nintendo Entertainment System, by American Game Cartridges, Inc., a short-lived maker of budget titles. Gameplay was changed somewhat for the NES, moving play into a more visually appealing city and replacing the gravestone obstacles with a shooting helicopter. This article is about the year. ...
NES redirects here. ...
The original arcade game itself technically cannot be emulated by a modern arcade emulator such as MAME, as it utilized TTL logic rather than a microprocessor and ROM. It reused much of the same hardware as Exidy's 1975 game Destruction Derby. MAME is a computer software program for personal computers. ...
A Motorola 68000-based computer with various TTL chips. ...
1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...
Because of its limited production run and the number of units that were destroyed, Death Race is very rare today. Collectors will sometimes pay $2,000 for a working unit in good condition.
In 1978, Exidy released a follow up titled Super Death Chase (the name changed slightly in an effort to escape some controversy). In the sequel, the onscreen targets were already dead. 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ...
Trivia - The Prototype name was Pedestrian.
- There was a release of Death Race II. Although it was in fact the same game with a new title.
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