''Pacific Coast Highway'' (stylized as ''Pacific Coast Hwy'') is a video game written by Ron Rosen for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

and published by

Datasoft Datasoft, Inc. (also written as DataSoft and Data Soft) was a software developer and publisher for home computers founded in 1980 by Pat Ketchum and based out of Chatsworth, California. Datasoft primarily published video games, including home port ...

in 1982. It is a clone of ''

Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and manufactured by Sega. In North America, it was released by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct a series of frogs to their homes by crossing a busy road and a hazardous rive ...

,'' with the key gameplay differences being that ''Pacific Coast Highway'' allows two-player simultaneous play, and the road and water segments are split into separate, alternating, screens. Ron Rosen later wrote the 1983 platform game ''

Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory ''Mr. Robot and His Robot Factory'' is a platform game created for the Atari 8-bit family by Ron Rosen and published in 1983 by Datamost. The music was composed by Gary Gilbertson using Philip Price's ''Advanced Music Processor'', while the title ...

Gameplay

Each player starts at the bottom of the screen and the goal is to reach the top. Player one is a

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...

and player two, if present, is a

tortoise Tortoises () are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin: ''tortoise''). Like other turtles, tortoises have a turtle shell, shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, ...

. The difference between the two is entirely visual, and the tortoise and hare theme is not present elsewhere. The first screen is the highway from the title, with eight lanes of traffic to avoid, divided in the center by a

median strip The median strip, central reservation, roadway median, or traffic median is the reserved area that separates opposing lanes of traffic on divided roadways such as divided highways, dual carriageways, freeways, and motorways. The term also a ...

(called a "rolling sidewalk" in the manual). The second screen is water-themed, and players must hop on the boats and rafts to reach the top. The median strip equivalent for the water is a row of connected life preservers. In later levels the median strip and life preservers move, first in one direction only, then randomly switching. Getting hit by a vehicle results in an ambulance taking the character away (or a rescue boat for the water sequence). The manual describes the second screen as crossing a beach of hot sand by jumping on towels and surfboards, but this isn't present in the game itself.

Reception

COMPUTE! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

'' editorial assistant Charles Brannon wrote, "A frustrating aspect of the game is that if one player gets hit (or takes a plunge), both players have to start over." In a C+ review for ''The Book of Atari Software 1983'' the reviewer wrote, "The graphics and sound are fair in this game; but although it offers something of a challenge to the uninitiated, it cannot lay claim to originality."

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web , title=The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers, url=https://dadgum.com/giantlist/ , last1=Hague , first=James {{cite web, title=Pacific Coast Highway, url=http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-pacific-coast-highway_3853.html, website=Atari Mania {{cite book, title=Pacific Coast Highway Manual , date=1982 , publisher=Datasoft , url=https://archive.org/details/agm_Pacific_Coast_Highway , website=archive.org {{cite journal, last1=Brannon, first1=Charles, title=Review: Four Atari Games, journal=Compute!, date=October 1982, issue=29, page=127, url=http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue29/381_1_Review_Four_Atari_Games.php {{cite journal, last1=Cohen, first1=Frank, title=The Making of AtariWriter Plus, journal=ANALOG Computing, url=http://analog.katorlegaz.com/analog_1987-06_120dpi_jpeg_cropped/analog_1987-06_010.html#tophalf, date=June 1987, page=10

External links

''Pacific Coast Highway''
at Atari Mania 1982 video games Atari 8-bit family games Atari 8-bit family-only games Datasoft games Multiplayer and single-player video games Top-down video games Video game clones Video games developed in the United States

Gameplay

Reception

See also

References

External links