Outlaw (1978 video game)

Outlaw is a 1978 video game developed at Atari by David Crane. The game has a Western-setting, where one or two players either aim at targets or fellow gunsfighters to reach 10 points in a set time. Several modes are available allowing for different obstacles an rules varying how the players move, how their bullets act and how the obstacles block the bullets.

The game was Crane's first video game he made for Atari after being hired in 1977. He described the making of it as a "trial by fire" to learn what he could and could not do within the limitations of the Atari Video Computer System. Like many early games for the system, it is a variation of an existing arcade game, with Outlaw being based on Gun Fight (1975). Upon release, it received positive reviews from Creative Computing, The Space Gamer and the Xenia Daily Gazette. It has since been re-released in various Atari-themed compilation packages.

Gameplay
Outlaw can be played in a one or two-player mode. Each player can move up down left and right on the screen. When holding down the button to aim, the player can control the angle the player will shoot at. Releasing the button fires the bullet.

Ine one-player mode called "Target Shoot", the player controls the movement of a gunfighter with the joystick and practices shooting the various moving targets that appear. The player has 99 seconds to reach a maximum score of 10 points with one point awarded every time the player hits the moving target. In the two-player modes called "Gunslinger Games", each player controls a gunslinger and scores points for shooting the opposing gunslinger. When they are hit, they will sit down. Like in one-player mode, the first player to reach 10 points wins.

There are several variations to the gameplay. In "Blowaway" mode, bullets are more powerful and can destroy the centre obstacles in the game, such as a stage coach, wall or a cactus. In getaway mode, players can move immediately after shooting their gun instead of having to wait until their bullet vanishes for the screen or hits a target. In six shooter mode, each player's gun only has six bullets and they both receive a new load of ammunition when both players have used all six bullets.

Development
Outlaw was developed by David Crane for Atari, Inc. for the Atari 2600. Crane had previously worked at National Semiconductor. While playing tennis with his friend Alan Miller, he was told by Miller that Atari was looking for game programmers. After proofreading a newspaper ad his friend had made for the work, he wrote a resume, was interviewed the next day at 10 am and had the job by 2 pm. Crane had officially started for Atari in the third quarter of 1977.

Outlaw would be his first commercial game he made for the Atari 2600. The game began as a home console conversion of Midway's arcade game Gun Fight (1975), which itself was an officially licensed variation on the game Western Gun (1975) by Taito. Crane said the game was influenced by Gun Fight, and liked the idea of making a game with two opposing gunfighters. Other companies had released similar games for their consoles during this period, such as Gunfighter for the RCA Studio II, and official adaptation of Gun Fight as a built-in game on the Bally Professional Arcade. Crane's version reduces the controls to one control stick and button.

Crane described developing Outlaw as a "trial by fire" and said he was too ambitious on the project. He later reflected that the best thing about the game was learning how to develop the gameplay elements so he could work on more complicated projects in the future.

Release
Outlaw was released for the Atari Video Computer System in October 1978. In 2023, Atari SA announced it would re-release Outlaw for the system on a physical cartridge.

Outlaw was re-released in various compilation formats for consoles and personal computers, such as the Atari 80 in One for Windows in 2003 and the Atari Anthology for PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2004, and Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration (2022) compilation for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One. It was also released on portable devices as part of the Atari Greatest Hits release for the Nintendo DS and iOS.

Reception
From contemporary reviews, David H. Ahl of Creative Computing appeared to have enjoyed the game, stating that "after a couple of glasses of wine, Chris Cef and I went into fits of convulsive laughter playing this game and lost or ability to fire straight. This could happen to you!" Eric Thompson of The Space Gamer complimented the graphics and sound. They continued that they had few complaints about the game, outside that the gun was hard to see on the character. Dick Cowan of the Xenia Daily Gazette found it to be one of the better Atari games, noting that the different variations of the game will sustain interesting for extended periods.

From retrospective reviews, Brett Alan Weiss, writing for Allgame said that Outlaw as a single-player game was overly simplistic and dull and was best played as a multiplayer game where competing against an opponent was much more fun but not as strong as the similar Combat (1977). He noted that the graphics were simplistic but typical for an Atari 2600 title then.