Sarge © 1985 Bally Midway.
Bally Midway MCR 3 hardware
[No. 0B88]
Main CPU : Zilog Z80 (@ 5 Mhz)
Sound CPU : Motorola M6809 (@ 2 Mhz)
Sound Chips : DAC
Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 512 x 480 pixels
Screen refresh : 30.00 Hz
Palette colors : 64
Players : 2
Control : Double 2-way joystick (Vertical)
Buttons : 2
Released in October 1985.
Considered by some to be the grandfather of all real-time video battle-games, Sarge was the first coin-op game to give players the ability to deploy multiple vehicles against common adversaries and, of course, each other.
Sarge is also probably the first real 'start-to-finish' design collaboration between artist/animator Brian Colin and programmer Jeff Nauman.
From Brian Colin, Lead Artist on Sarge : "The realistically depicted female soldier featured in the game generated so much interest when it was first introduced that, part-way through it's production run, we slipped a hidden player incentive. With the machine's internal DIP switches set a certain way, players who achieved a rank of Colonel were greeted with a winking, sexy GI Jane wearing little more than a smile.
The DIP switches should be set as follows : 0011000100.
To see if the switches are set correctly, look at the girl at the start of the game. If she is wearing a low-cut T-shirt, then the 'hidden player incentive' is on.".
Software : Jeff Nauman
Artists : Brian Colin, Sharon Perry
Sounds : Bob Libbe, Neil Falconer
Hardware : Cary Mednick, Steve Ackerman
Mechanical : John Kubik
Added support : Jim Belt
CONSOLES:
Atari 7800: Unreleased prototype.
COMPUTERS:
PC [DOS] (1989)
Game's ROM.
Machine's picture.