A Christmas Story

[Chris++]

Atari Brothers,

 

Keeping firmly in the spirit of my typical posts, which occasionally get attacked for being different thoughts from the ones everyone else has, I thought I'd pick July in which to share a funny story about Christmas. I hope others have tales of sneaky Atari-playing to add.

 

This particular Christmas occurred two decades ago (jeeeeeezus....). I was 9 or 10, and MANIC to get Adventure. I'd experienced that most painful of teasers -- five minutes' worth of playing on a cousin's friend's VCS in Buffalo, where we were visiting family. I was able to navigate a few rooms, got lost in the blue labyrinth, and thought to myself, "This is the coolest idea I've ever heard of! DIFFERENT ROOMS in an Atari game! Dragons to kill! Keys to find! WOW!" The only games I had at that time were Combat, Space Invaders and Asteroids.

 

But then my mother's voice came in from the other room: "Time to go, Chris." AARRRGHH!!! The day after, we left Buffalo and returned home. No more Adventure.

 

When I say I was thereafter MANIC to get that game, I mean it quite literally. I would draw pictures of the dragons, copied from the catalogue screen shot, on the wooden beam going over my head (I slept on the bottom bunk). Things like that occupied my time. I was utterly fascinated by this game.

 

A couple of months later, it was time to make a Christmas list. You KNOW what I asked for.

 

Three or four nights before Christmas, I waited until my folks were asleep, snuck into the living room, and found the two cartridge-shaped presents. Carefully peeling the scotch tape away from a corner of one of them, I was able to peek at the red box and the white Coleco logo. I knew this was the Donkey Kong that my little brother had asked for.

 

The other box beckoned.

 

I stuck the tape firmly back on the Kong present, set it back where it had been placed, and grabbed the other giftwrapped game. I lifted a corner of the tape, but then stopped. What if it wasn't Adventure? What if it was something gay (the big catch-all negative term back in the '80s was "gay"), like Golf? I would be shattered.

 

But I decided that it would be easier to deal with the letdown now, when everyone was asleep, than on Christmas morning, when I would have to try my damndest to pretend that Golf was the single greatest and most remarkable item in the entire world that I could have even dared to hope for.

 

Didn't wanna hurt dad's feelings, after all. Oops. I mean Santa's.

 

I held my breath and peeled the tape back. Then I moved the little corner flap of giftwrap away a bit. It was yellow! THIN, ATARI-YELLOW CARDBOARD! Careful, careful. Don't get too excited. It had to be Adventure. It HAD to. I pulled away as much of the wrapping as I could without tearing it, and peeked at the spine. I saw:

 

ADV

 

Straining like hell to avoid jumping into the air and whooping loudly, I re-taped the box, put it back, and went to bed, sleeping about a total of seventeen minutes all night.

 

The night after, my folks took me and my brother next door to visit the couple who were our neighbors. They sat around watching some god-awful thing like "The Thorn Birds." An idea struck me. A brilliant, evil idea.

 

I told my mother I was starving, and asked her if I could have the key to the house, so I could make a sandwich. She gave me her key-ring and told me to make it quick. I ran next door, let myself in, locked both locks on the front door behind me, and ran straight to the Christmas tree.

 

Needless to say, I played Adventure. I got my fix. It didn't last nearly long enough, but I figured out how to beat game 1, and, for the first time, I saw the flashing victory of a chalice safely returned home, and I heard the surreal theme music. It was mind-blowing.

 

I had to get a fresh piece of scotch tape out of the drawer this time, but the cardboard flap on the cart box was quickly made to look untampered with, the giftwrap was sealed back up in no time, and the present was replaced in the exact spot where I had found it. I ran back to the neighbors', and my mom commented that it had taken me quite a while to eat my snack.

 

"Well, I was REALLY hungry," was my answer. It wasn't even a lie.

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

CF

[tiggerthehun]

AWESOME STORY!!! I have many of the same warm, happy feelings about Adventure. I actually was thinking about sending Warren an email (Someone posted his email on the boards a while ago) to ask him if he'd sign my Adventure Cartridge! Not that it'd be that big of a deal - but when I think of childhood memories, after Family and Friends - Adventure is right up there. BTW, if I was a detective, trying to find holes in your story, I'd ask how a 9 year old was able to rewrap a present well enough for mom NOT to notice !

[Chris++]

I believe I only unwrapped enough of the present to get the cartridge out through the top edge. If either of my folks noticed, they didn't say anything!

[Room 34]

This is a great story! It reminds me of two things:

 

1. My own Adventure story.

 

I was lucky that my intense urge to get the game was condensed into a period of a few minutes instead of the untold weeks you endured. I was at Kmart with my dad, and they had Adventure in the demo system. I immediately had the same reaction you described... OHMYGODTHISISTHECOOLESTTHINGEVERIHAVETOHAVEITFORMYSELFRIGHTNOW!!!

 

I convinced my dad to buy it for me right then and there and I spent the majority of the summer of 1982 playing either Adventure or Defender. (Come to think of it, it was probably 20 years ago right about now that I got it.)

 

2. Christmas 1982.

 

1982 was the only really BIG Atari Christmas for me. I got my 2600 in May 1982, and by Christmas of 1983, although I still played all the time, the crash was looming. I'm sure I got a few games in 1983, but I don't remember it the way I remember 1982.

 

I got THREE 2600 games for Christmas in 1982, and I didn't know what to do with myself. My parents got me Berzerk and Star Raiders, and my grandparents got me Pitfall! I was in heaven. (Actually, I never liked Star Raiders... it was too much for my 8-year-old brain at the time. But I couldn't get enough of the other two. I think I spent the entire Christmas break doing nothing but switching between Berzerk and Pitfall! and playing them until my eyes burned.)

[inextremis staple]

thats a great story

reminds me of myself except mine usually involved gi joes or star wars figs

when i got my atari for christmas (last year infact) my mom wouldnt let me open it until i had only it and a few games to open i knew right away it was a gaming system but figured it was the dreamy PS2 but alas i knew right away what it was once i saw it was from my gandma and i tore it open

i popped open the box and there was the heavy 6 switch woody of hers that she had actually given up so i could be happy the smell that wafted out of that box will be forever memorable

needless to say i rushed upstairs with my new/old treasure and immediately began to play pitfall and asteroids again

god bless ya g'ma

[NE146]

tsk tsk.. Santa should've swapped that illegally played Adventure for a copy of BASIC MATH!

 

 

[tiggerthehun]

LOL - nice one NE146!

[Chris++]

Oh god...no amount of acting would've convinced my folks that I was happy with Basic Math!

 

"WOW! I sure am glad that you brought back Adventure and got me this instead! It will greatly improve my adding and subtracting skills! Thanks, mom! Thanks, dad!"

 

Wire News Service (AP) Albuquerque. A young boy was found standing in the middle of a living room full of badly battered relatives. The child allegedly beat his parents and brother repeatedly with a Stratego board game, one of the toys under the family's Christmas tree. Men at Work's "Down Under" was heard playing incessantly in the background.

The only comment we could get from the young man was, "Now I'm REALLY GOOD at math!! He heeee heee heeeee!" The kid was brought to the psychiatric ward at the city hospital, pending a thorough examination.

[Adrian M]

Indeed your story is uplifting

and may even bring back memories to some of these old gamers

of when they too received their first 2600

So sit back, relax and reminisce with me.

 

I myself received my 2600

on a cold Christmas morning

in 1982 when I was but a small boy in first grade

the loving parents bought several titles

but the only one that mattered was PAC-MAN.

Sadly, in their rush to wrap the gifts

the parents mistakingly put my sister's name

on the PAC-MAN game's gift tag

 

Selfishly, my sister refused to part

with this most precious game

that I had been in anticipation of for several months

Finally, after much persuading from myself and the parents

my sister relented

and took possession of 2 games:

ET and Star Voyager

At last! I had my very own Pac-Man!

It was mine!

I could play it whenever i wished in the comfort of my home!

No more visits to the dark, scary local arcade

Complete with its 80's-era mean older kids

to play Pac-Man with my child friends

 

I played and played this classic game for an eternity

somehow I was content

with the game I was given

despite the sad fact

that it was only a shadow of the original arcade version.

But still, I was happy

because I had my very own Pac-Man

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I thought I was the only one who undid the tape on the end of the boxes to see what games my folks got me? The first time I really did this was in the mid 80s. I basically had to know what games they were...I usually only asked for 1 game...and they usually got me 3..so I had to know what they all were.

 

They always got me the one game I asked for..and then usually the others were cool as well..

 

I remember X-mas 88 when I had my 7800...I asked for Rampage for X-mas that year...

 

So like a week before X-mas day I noticed the package under the tree. I carefully used my handy dandy Exacto blade to slide the scotch tape open and peek at the box ends. There it was Rampage!!! YEAH!!!

I opened it up a bit more...and took out the cartridge to hold in my hands and to awe at it's sleek white label...

 

I couldn't resist...I plugged it in..and played like 2 hours of it that night before finally going to bed. It was easy for me...as my folks stopped putting a curfew on me for bed time when I got to about 10 years of age. They figured as long as I wasn't a pain in the ass the next morning...they really didn't care whether I slept or not. So I was able to sneak..many..many more games of Rampage in before the final day of Opening presents...

 

heheh...we are not just sneaky...we are dirty rotten...

 

[tiggerthehun]

To quote the Flanders kids:

"Jesus cries when you open presents"

[Big Player]

Great story Chris.

 

If you subsitute Vanguard for Adventure, the same thing happened to me at Christmas in 1983.

[Trey]

chris,

 

i like the story. btw, i enjoy your diversity (pc for posting psycho). i am a fan.

 

my cousin got adventure and i got dark tower (board game, not atari cart). so many of hours of my life precious wasted on e-adventures. and how many more can i waste posting about it.

 

i hope the police didn't take your "men at work" lp. oh well, i guess you still got you hall and oates collection. i'm hungry like the wolf.

[Chris++]

Thanks Trey.

 

Big Player -- I loved Vanguard as well! I ordered it from Atari Age (the first one!). It was a choice between that and Crazy Climber. I picked Vanguard.

 

THUMP THUMP THUMP <---(Banging head repeatedly on desk)

 

I'm okay now.

 

Vanguard. Great game. The Gond was too easy to kill, though.

 

 

 

CF

[NE146]

The idea of the Gond was you were supposed to wait as long as possible to shoot him to get more points. I remember even the manual said it's not hard to shoot him if you fire right away, before he shoots his missile. But it's all up to how much a risk for points you want to take.

 

I think it made the difference between getting 1000 - 8000 pts (?)

[Chris++]

Yeah, you just have to remember to hold down the fire button so you don't start shooting right away...and then, as I recall, move up and down to avoid the missiles until you're right up near the Gond's nose, which you have to avoid running into.

 

I'd love to see Vanguard II: Return of the Nose.

 

(Tim? )

 

 

 

 

CF