My Collection - Part Two

Entry posted by AlwaysOnPlanetPatrol November 9, 2017

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So here are my Activision, Absolute and Epyx games. Probably the only complete sets that I have (perhaps M-Network as well).

I've always had a particular like for Activision comics and if I'm completely honest with myself I'd say they were best company for the 2600 back in the day. Their titles always seemed to me the more original and were effectively home game exclusives, many of them quite original. I liked how they had the consistent packaging, you got to see a picture of the actual designer and their look was always clean and bright. They always had good level of quality overall.

As a kid River Raid, Tennis, Enduro and Megamania made the rounds among my friends and while I never owned them back then, I was fortunate to borrow them on occasion and played them for hours. I did see their catalogues at the department stores and always wished I owned them. The one cartridge especially I wanted was Decathlon just because I was fascinated with Track&Field (or Hyper Olympics) in the arcade. With my allowance it would have taken me months to save up considering the high prices of carts back then. When I moved to a different country I was gifted some cash which I then I sent by mail to my old friends to buy me and ship me the game (the country I lived had no Atari games and straddled in between being a 3rd World Country and something close to being developed). I've had some happy moments in my complicated life and receiving Decathlon in the mail, is one of the top 10 moments for me.

When I moved to Canada I picked up a ton of games in 89-91 for the 2600. Activision titles were always pricey in the stores, so I picked many of the common ones at local second-hand stores. This is how I got to play for some of my all-time favourites like Pressure Cooker, Keystone Kapers, Pitfall, and Frostbite. In the stores I actually bought Space Shuttle, Decathlon, Enduro, and Robot Tank. Towards the end of my 2nd Atari phase I then picked up titles like Double Dragon, Commando, as well as all three Epyx titles, and Title Match Pro Wrestling.

For the last few years as I rebuilt my Atari collection, I started collecting again and picked some titles I never owned previously. HERO and Pitfall II were great finds and have become a couple of my favourites. There were some that I had never seen or played as well like Private Eye, Pete Rose, Beamrider, and Kung Fu Master. I think the last missing cartridge for me was Cosmic Commuter (another mysterious one) which I ended getting from someone on eBay.

I have some of the titles boxed as well, so I will probably snap some additional pictures in the next couple of days.

I also noted that I seem to have a couple all-blue label instead of their colour version; Keystone Kapers and Space Shuttle. Probably easy to find KK, but I'm sure it will be pricey to get a copy of SS. Many of the labels seem to be in poor condition, showing the usual dark spots. Some of them had their price stickers still on; just looking at them now I'd think I'd be hard-pressed to pay that much for them again.

Overall, I'm happy I was able to complete the Activision set.