Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man

Masters of the Universe: The Power of He-Man was released in 1983 by Mattel Electronics for the Atari 2600. Both the year and the publisher give this entry unusual weight: Mattel was the toy manufacturer behind the Masters of the Universe line itself and also ran its own games division, so here it was licensing a property to itself.

1983 is remembered in American gaming history as the year the home console market collapsed under a flood of hastily produced software. Licensed titles based on toys and films were among the chief suspects, because they were often built in a rush with one aim: to reach the Christmas season while the brand was still at its peak.

By then the Atari 2600 had been on sale for six years and its technical means were extremely modest. Characters consisted of a handful of dots, colours were few, and cartridge memory was counted in kilobytes. Games for the machine therefore rested on a single comprehensible task and on repetition rather than on story, whatever the box art of a famous brand promised.

The record lists a side view and a single player. On the 2600 the side view was the easiest route to a legible scene: the player sees ground, sky and their own figure between them, which is enough to understand what is being asked.

You can see for yourself what a 1983 licensed game looked like, because the title boots in a browser window straight from OldGame.cz.