FireHawk

Thank you very much Funkmaster V and PacManPlus for this interview !!! I listen to the whole thing in one play through. I purchased several of Bob's games just this past Christmas 2019 from Atariage !!! - Baby Pac-Man, Super Circus, Crystal Quest and Fail Safe. Bob, Thank You Very Much for an Atari 5200 Countermeasure sequel on the Atari 7800 !!! Countermeasure was the first game I purchased when I bought my Atari 5200 back in the day, and really enjoyed it too !!! Bob, I couldn't make out during the interview, your answer to your favorite game that you have made. Could you post the answer here in the forum? "What is your favorite Atari 7800 game/or game that you have made?" Bob while I have your attention...I'm very much looking forward to your Works In Progress (WIP) as you stated in the interview. (I've been really wondering what your next game is going to be after Baby Pac-Man) If your tallying votes - Adventure III would be my top pick, followed very closely by Defender (or perhaps a Defender/Stargate all in one, like Frenzy/Berserk ?). I'll be honest I'm less excited about ReZolve. I do love the title, and I think the concept is solid. I also like that it is an original game, which the Atari 7800 needs more of too. I did check out the WIP photos. I will strongly agree that the Atari 7800 needs more games like this, as you said in the interview, but I'm just more excited about the other 2 projects. (I'm not a really a Robotron 2084 fan, although I love Smash TV). Also, Pitfall III is still a great idea, as you spoke of in the interview. Perhaps you could do a team up with David Crane on it ? Funkmaster V - thank you again for this interview !!! Perhaps you could get an interview with the person(s) involved with the Atari 7800 XM module in the near future ? or some of the other home-brew Atari 7800 makers ? or even some of the programmers from GCC, that worked on the Atari 7800 and early games ?

I saved up my earned money all Summer 1983 Detasseling corn. I purchased my Atari 5200 in Fall 1983. It had Super Breakout as the Pack-In. My first purchased game was Countermeasure ! I loved that game. I think my 2nd purchase for the system was Pole Position ! I loved that game too. I didn't have any issues with the joysticks and LOVED the Pause button feature !

Here is a screenshot of the color cycle after losing the last guy. It takes about 3 min for the blue maze with black background, and colored ghosts to appear. Due to the flickering, only 1-2 ghosts appear and only 2 Power Pills appear. But if you watch this, you will see 4 different colored ghosts. If they had done this, and replaced the vitamin with different fruit/items for each level, this game would have been better accepted.

Ok, this I remember about this title... My Dad had purchased for me the Sears Video Arcade version of the Atari 2600, as he usually shopped at Sears for stuff. It was my Christmas present, that Christmas, the same year the system was released. I had several Atari 2600 Games leading up-to Pac-Man release. The earliest games were the Tele-Games series, as I shopped for new games at Sears. I think the first game I purchased was Black-Jack. I was playing Black-Jack on a Calculator at the time and really liked the game Black-Jack. I remember playing Space Invaders at a food place, just off-site of our school, and I really liked Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 - even though it was "different". I think this was out before Pac-Man. I remember playing Pac-Man in the arcade several times, before the Atari release. I did have Pac-Man fever, it was one of my favorite video games. I also remember singing that song "Pac-Man Fever" and having a tape or record of it. I was 14 and purchased this game as soon as I saw it released in the store, in 1981(?), with my hard earned allowance money. I remember on the way home, from the store, my Mom, had to stop off and visit a friend. I sat on the couch for an hour or more reading and re-reading the manual, so I could be ready to play when, I got home. THIS GAME WAS A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT !!! I remember CLEARLY, why I was so letdown. 2 REASONS. 1. Pac-Man did not turn and eat up and down - only side to side 2. It had a STUPID vitamin, instead of the fruit and items from the arcade game. Now, I know there have been several other things mentioned in this forum, about ghost color, ghost flickering, maze color, maze design, tunnel location, Pac-Man Eye, Start-Up Tone etc. But I don't remember being disappointed with those items. I honestly believe, had the two items I mentioned above been changed, the game would have been much better received. In fact, I'll even say 1 change... Get rid of the STUPID vitamin and have the fruits and items ~~~~ this changes the game ! Here is why. Right now when you play 2600 Pac-Man, it is all about your high score. Yes, several Atari 2600 games are like this, but it gets SO VERY REPETITIVE. Now imagine that 1 change, that Each LEVEL has a Different Fruit or Item. This alone, makes a person want to keep playing to try to get to the NEXT LEVEL and See what the next Fruit/Item is going to be. It provides the DRIVE to try to do better ---- "just one more game". Yes, besting your last score or the score of your friends, is a drive too, but the different Fruit/Item would be way better. This was the ONLY 2600 game that I can recall being DISAPPOINTED in purchasing. For the record, I was NOT disappointed in Space Invaders, Asteroids, Defender, Missile Command, etc. - even though they were different than the arcade. I was reading in games magazines, leading up to Ms. Pac-Man, and how "Atari Designer's were "Sweating Blood" to make it closer to the Arcade Version" I was intrigued and remember that to this day, as I was SO DISAPPOINTED in Pac-Man. I bought Ms. Pac-Man, as soon as it was released in stores and WAS BLOWN AWAY !!! It is in my TOP 5 video games of all time, and I play it about once a week to this day ! I stopped playing Pac-Man, after I got Ms. Pac-Man, during this time. I also ended up purchasing Jr. Pac-Man when it released. The thing is, Pac-Man should have been a crown jewel in Atari 2600 Games, a Pack-In System Seller. I think upper administration knew it was going to sell on the name alone, and to make more profit, kept it at 4K ROM. Also, meddling and saying it needed to be 2 player, etc. I think they also, might have thought that they wanted to have enough difference, so people would buy the sequel - Ms. Pac-Man. I really wished they would have made a better closer to arcade port of Pac-Man on the Atari 2600. I still would have purchased Ms. Pac-Man, as there are enough differences - 4 Mazes and the Fruit moves around the maze. Just like I purchased Centipede and then Millipede. Anyway, this game has always been a sore spot for me - What could have been ? I have played the homebrews over the years and WOW ! Strange, but if you watch the automated play, after your lose your last guy, as the colors cycle, you will see the maze in blue with a black background and the ghosts are in 4 different colors !!! I might provide a screenshot. I was excited the first time I saw this. They had it right there - Just add the Fruit and Items ! Also, as the color cycles, I thought that would have been cool too. Each new level should have had a different fruit/item, and a different colored maze/dots. So it doesn't feel so repetitive. The funny thing is NOW, I'm actually Nostalgic for the original Atari 2600 Pac-Man game. I often play a few levels of it, before playing Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, etc. However - It Should Have Been Better !!!

I was thinking the other day, about the older game systems and I realized that I didn't really purchase the same game again on different systems, as I wanted new gaming experiences. However, there were some exceptions, in which I wanted the better graphics, sound, gameplay for a closer arcade feel. Which games did you purchase on multiple systems ? Here is my list: Asteroids 2600, 7800 Dig Dug 5200, 7800 Pac-man 2600, 5200 Joust 5200, 7800 Pole Position 5200, 7800 I regret not re-buying Centipede and Ms Pac-man on the 7800 and Xenophobe on the Lynx

Thank you zoggynog and mazzy for the replies ! I really appreciate it ! You were both correct. This was a prop piece. This was never an actual arcade game from the 70's / 80's. And it has a connection to a crew member's band Space Knife. The article lead me to a YouTube video of a song video, by the band Space Knife, used in episode 2. On Nov. 2nd, the Space Knife YouTube channel uploaded an animation video for the "Quest for the Space Knife" game: Quote: "This is an animation I did for Stranger Things Season 2. We were going to try to have someone playing the game in the background but there wasn't time to get the arcade cabinet ready. The "Out of Order" cabinet can be seen in Episode 5." Here is the link to the video on YouTube, with the animation of what the game was going to look like: Thank you again for helping clear up this mystery for me !

Here is the artwork...

The new season of the Netflix series Stranger Things was released this weekend. Titled: Stranger Things 2. In Episode 5, titled Dig Dug, about half-way through, there is an Arcade and 2 of the characters - Max and Lucas go into the back room. There is an arcade cabinet with black-light looking artwork on the side. It is titled "Quest for the Space Knife". I don't see any kind of company logo on the artwork or cabinet. I grew up in the late 70's and early 80's. I don't remember this arcade game AT ALL. I'm thinking this is bogus. However, everything else in the background of the arcade and back room is legitimate. So why make this up ? I did a Google Search and a Google Image Search for "Quest for the Space Knife", but didn't find anything. I also looked at the Stranger Things 2 - Complete Easter Egg and Reference Guide on Den of Geek. I also searched for it on the Arcade Flyers website. I'm not finding anything. Does anyone know if this existed, even as a prototype - or have any further information on this ? Thank you.

That is a GREAT shirt ! Where does one buy this ?

Millipede

I finally found and looked over the box of the Atari Flashback 5. I'm somewhat confused on one thing, I'm hoping someone hear can clear up. I know it is the Atari Flashback and not Atari 2600 Flashback. What is confusing though is that they show the home-brew Adventure II, with the correct artwork for it. As far as I know, this is Atari 5200 only, no port was made for Atari 2600. From a quick glance of the back of the box, this appears to be the only Atari 5200 game. Is it the game that was released for the Atari 5200 or a 2600 port of that game ? I found in another thread here that Space Invaders is not the Atari 2600 version, but a version for ARM processors, so I'm thinking this will be the original Atari 5200 version of Adventure II. Is that correct ?

Thank you for all the information !!! This site/forum is AWESOME !!!

Thank you for all the assistance on this topic !!! After years of searching... I think I've finally found the article that I remember from my childhood. It is indeed the Electronic Games Sep. 84 Issue. I'm 99% sure this was it. Only 99%, as I thought when it mentioned the Maria Chip it talked about being able to move 99 sprites around with no flicker or something like that. It does talk about the Maria Chip and its amazing abilities, but nothing about 99 sprites. I remember the article being several pages and this is a 4 page preview article, not just a news bulb in the front. Also, they do say this is "EG's Exclusive Report". The layout looks very familiar, as does the picture for and text for "Nile Flyer", which I guess was later renamed "Desert Falcon". I really remember the "Nile Flyer" title and photo. It is exactly 1 year from when I remember purchasing my Atari 5200, and I was bummed that they were releasing another Atari so soon! Little did I know that it would be much longer thanks to the video game crash. I think I purchased my Atari 7800 in 1986. I wanted it over the NES, because of Xevious, which had never been released on a Atari home console before. Also, Pole Position II the pack-in game looked amazing as did Asteroids and Galaga, plus it could play my Atari 2600 games too ! I still have my original 7800 purchase today and it continues to work great ! I was very happy with all my Atari consoles - 2600, 5200 & 7800. They were a great part of my childhood. I even still occasionally play the games today, when I find some time. Thanks again everyone, for helping me track this down and help me re-live some of my childhood nostalgia !

The AtariAge "Did you know?" trivia box, on the Main Page, sometimes displays the trivia that the Atari 2600 had 2 cartridges with voice. One was Quadrun (Which I believe says Quadrun Quadrun Quadrun quickly on the title screen, when it first appears) The other is: Open Sesame I've never heard of this cartridge. I've looked it up under the AtariAge 2600 Rarity Guide (searched by word: open) and there seem to be 3 listings for it. Unfortunately, the ROM is not available and there are no reviews or information about this title. My question to the forum members is this ... What is the voice synthesis in Open Sesame? What does it say and where ?

Thank you "Wickeycolumbus" and "Rom Hunter" for the information !!! I appreciate it !!! I knew I was going crazy