PC & Video Game History: On This Day in Video Game History: August 30

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This Day in Video Game History

1981

According to Twin Galaxies, John Bismuti scores a record-setting 4,111,000 points on Atari’s BattleZone after playing the game for four hours and fifty minutes at 4 Quarters arcade in Tumwater, Washington.

1995

Nintendo releases a port of the arcade fighting game Killer Instinct for the Super NES in the U.S.

1997

Version 1.0 of the online football management massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) Hattrick is released. Designed by Swedish programmer Björn Holmér, the players can work their way through the league pyramid of any of 124 different countries, each with its own league pyramid. The game is freely available through the game’s website and there’s no fee to play. By the end of a decade, the game will still be going strong with nearly a million users, each of which manages a team of their own.

2000

Acclaim Entertainment releases the first-person shooter (FPS) Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion for the Nintendo 64 in North America. (ESRB: E)

Capcom releases the single-player survival horror game Resident Evil: Survivor for the PlayStation in the U.S. It’s the fourth game in the popular Resident Evil franchise and the first of what will become the franchise’s “Survivor” trilogy. It stands out from the other games in the series in that it abandons the series’ usual third-person perspective in favor of a more intimate first-person perspective. It was originally designed for use with a light gun, but that feature was quietly canceled following the Columbine High School massacre. Other global releases of the game, include the Japanese and PAL versions, released earlier, were compatible with the Namco GunCon, lending them an arcade-style gameplay. (ESRB: M)

2002

Acclaim releases the puzzle game ZooCube for the Nintendo GameCube in Europe. (ESRB: E)

2004

Nintendo releases the real-time strategy (RTS) game Pikmin 2 for the Nintendo GameCube in the U.S. It’s the sequel to the 2001 game Pikmin, but it will widely be considered an improvement on the original. (ESRB: E)

Roxor Games releases the dancing game In the Groove to arcades. (ESRB: E)

Video game giant Acclaim Entertainment files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, with debt in excess of over one hundred million dollars.

2005

EA Sports releases the ninth installment in its NASCAR video game series, NASCAR 06: Total Team Control for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in the U.S. NASCAR 06 introduces a new, highly-praised teamplay feature to the series. It is otherwise similar in most respects to its predecessor, NASCAR 2005. (ESRB: E)

2006

Konami’s 1982 arcade classic Time Pilot is released on Xbox Live Arcade. In it, players are cast as the pilot of a futuristic fighter jet who must rescue fellow pilots through different time periods while fighting off hordes of opponents.

Microsoft releases the first beta version of its XNA Game Studio Express development tools, including a managed runtime environment as a free download. The “express” edition of the software is intended for students, hobbyist, and other independent game developers. It’s a basic “starter kit” for the rapid development of specific genres, such as platform, real-time strategy, and first-person shooters, but its initial release doesn’t include a way of pre-compiling binaries for release to other Xbox 360 players. For that, an annual fee of US$99 or a four-month fee of US$49 is required.

2007

Monte Cristo and Focus announce a November 10th release date for a second expansion pack to City Life, City Life 2008.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) releases the third-person vehicular shooter Warhawk for the PlayStation 3 in Europe. The game was initially designed with a single-player mode, but it wasn’t included in the final release, as its gameplay was judged inferior to multiplayer mode. (PEGI: 16+)

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) releases the single-player action game Lair for the PlayStation 3 in North America. The game casts players in the role of a knight with a dragon for a mount. (ESRB: T)