• Tag Archives Halloween

  • Halloween (Atari 2600)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Publisher: Wizard Video
    Platform: Atari 2600
    Designers: Tim Martin, Robert Barber
    Box Art: Bob Gleason

    Trivia: Based on the 1978 horror film of the same name, Halloween caused such an outcry on its release that it was banned by many stores.

    http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/182598148541/atariforce-retro-game-spotlight-037-halloween

    Halloween was released by Wizard Video Games for the Atari 2600 in 1983 and is based on the famous 1978 movie of the same name. As a licensed game, you would probably guess that Halloween is not a great game and you would be correct. While not as bad as some, its mediocrity is certainly uninspiring.

    While Halloween is famous for a few reasons, being a great game is not one of them. Because of the violent nature of the game, many stores would not carry it or would keep it behind the counter. This combined with the fact that it came out around the time of the video game crash and the fact that it wasn’t that great of a game made this a pretty poor seller. Wizard Video Games only other release was the similarly themed Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It also sold poorly for many of the same reasons. These would be the only two releases by this company because their poor performance drove them out of business.

    One interesting aspect of this game is the fact that it was programmed by Tim Martin. Tim Martin also programmed Spelunker, one of my favorite games for the Commodore 64, which was released the same year. This leads me to believe that the relatively poor quality of Halloween had less to do with the talents of the programmer and more to do with limited time and budget. I think this was the case for a great many games on the Atari 2600.

    Fortunately, this game is easily emulated because if you want an original you are going to have to pay a fairly significant amount for it. Because if its poor sales, it is now a collector’s item. There also are no re-releases. Because it’s a movie license I suspect that it will never show up in any commercial compilation.





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  • Should Christians Celebrate Halloween?

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Recently, a friend of mine posted something on Facebook about Halloween and about how Christians should not celebrate it because of its Pagan origins. I would argue that these origins aren’t that important and are often debatable anyway.

    I started off by posting a link explaining the origins and purpose of the Christian observation of All Saints Day/All Souls Day and Halloween and how the observations themselves aren’t really related to what Pagans observed. His question was something along the lines of “so there’s no relation to Wicca or Samhain?”

    My response:

    Well, there is certainly no relation to Wicca as that is a religion that was created in the last century.

    As far as Samhain and ancient Paganism, it’s a little more complicated. Most Christian holidays (particularly Christmas and Easter) were arguably created to coincide with former Pagan holidays in order to ease transition when Pagan populations were converted. For this reason, some Christian groups don’t observe them at all (Jehovah’s Witnesses for example) and also because of this some symbology and practices have carried on.

    Having said that, individual traditions can be hard to pin down. Dressing up in costumes is possibly Pagan in origin but for Pagan’s it was to disguise oneself from and/or mock evil spirits, not cavort with them. Even this relationship is debatable as the most direct ancestor of dressing up in costume for Halloween probably comes from the tradition of “mumming” in the middle ages which has no direct Pagan influences. On the other hand, the “scary” nature of Halloween and many costumes probably is influenced by Pagan traditions. Trick or Treating could be Pagan in origin or it could be Christian depending on whether or not it descended from Pagan traditions or the more Christian tradition involving “soul cakes”.

    In a way it’s largely irrelevant. While All Saints Day/All Souls Day and the associated Vigil (All Hallowes Eve/Halloween) still have religious meaning for some Christians, the act of trick or treating is a purely secular creation of 20th century America. As secular as fireworks on the 4th of July. I would argue there is nothing evil about my 3 year old daughter dressing up as a Snow Man (Olaf) or going door to door or knocking or saying “Trick or Treat” or getting candy. For her (and for me) it is just something fun to do, like going to a park or to see a movie. I don’t see how it matters that 1000 years ago some other group of people had some possibly vaguely similar traditions for completely different reasons.

    As far as the religious aspects of All Saints/All Souls/Halloween, they aren’t related to the Pagan traditions except possibly in timing.


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