COMTARI

In the past month, I've found a few common 2600, 5200 and Odyssey carts. What I hate... instead of putting the price on the back of the cart, the stores will stick the price onto the label or they will mark a price on the label with a marker. If you find a game in great shape, the stores will ruin the collectability for you by defacing the labels.

Perhaps the crash has begun??? Fewer plug and plays are comming out, the only one I've seen in a while was one based on Superman, I guess to cash in on the new movie. When the Atari flashback 2 hit the market, stores would have several on a shelf and they would be gone by the end of the week. I picked up 1 and had to wait several weeks before I got a second one last year. Walmart and other stores seem to now have the same flashbacks sitting on the shelf week after week. Perhaps devoted fans and others with flashback interests have picked up their consoles and the general public is just not interested? I would love to see the FB3 come to market, but that probably won't happen.

I know that there are 2600 games that have different levels (usually 2 0r 3 per cart)...but would it have been possible to have designed the 2600 to take advantage of more rom space on the cartridge? For example...on the cartridge of combat, there are 27 games...you can choose tank games, bi planes and jets in various configurations. These games are stored on the cart chip. The 2600 can process I guess 4k at a time...could it have been designed to load say the tank game to play...you beat that level...then the 2600 dumps it from memory and loads the bi-plane game automatically...you beat that level...the 2600 dumps that info from memory and loads the jet level automatically from the cart...and so on. If that was possible, could you have 10, 20, 30 levels in one game creating a large multi-level game stored on the cart chip and thus load them as they are beaten?? I know that the real 2600 could not do this, but I didn't know if it could have used such a technique when it was designed through some internal programming?

I was thinking of the home console. Atari Star Wars might have been one of the first arcade though?... Well, any way back to the home console.

What was the first movie based video game? Was it Tron for the intellivision...Krull, E.T., or Raiders of the Lost Ark by Atari...or Empire Strikes Back by Parker Bros..or something else?

Found a site on which to shop easily for nearly all classic game and computer systems. Find it at: www.retrocart.homestead.com

What do you think is the most involved or intricate game produced for the 2600...either graphically or game play wise that shows the full gaming potential of the system?

I picked up one of the Pelican portable game systems. It is a well constructed system. The screen is crystal clear and backlit so you can play it in the dark. It looks as good if not better than the gameboy advance screen. The case is sturdy and the controls are responsive. It has a volume control, headphone input and a tv output so you can play your games on a standard TV. Battery life is 15 hours on 2 AAA batteries. The game menu is broken into categories and easy to navigate. The manual that comes with the system is informative and gives a general gameplay over view of each of the 50 games. The 50 built in games are the Nintendo style clones but they are fun and challenging. If atari had a system like this for the FB3 loaded with 2600 and 7800 games with a USB or media card port for expanded game play, I think it would be a great success.

I've recently seen the pelican portable system with 75 built in games and a 2 1/2 color screen (available at gamestop, etc.). It also connects to a standard TV for big screen game play. The unit sells for only $30. It would be neat if the FB3 was a portable system with Lynx styling. It could have 40 or 50 built in Atari 2600, 7800 games. A usb or media card port could be attached so additional games could be purchased for the system. Perhaps more graphical 8-bit or lynx ports. I think consumers would really go for the chance to take their "Atari" anywhere they go and also have the chance to play it on the TV at home.

I love Gopher...bought it originally when it came out in 1983?, and I have once again collected several copies of it. It has good graphics and a lot of character. It also comes with some challenging game play.

Does anyone know if the major thrift stores have a formula they use for pricing games and systems, or does someone in the back take a glance at the items and say "I guess this looks old so it will be $5, this looks clean...so it's $15?? I've seen atari games at a Local thrift chain for 99 cents, go to another store in the chain and they are $4.00. Sometimes they have SNES console for $5 other times the same condition system will be $15. Some of the high priced items will sit on the shelf week after week until they dissappear. Perhaps they sold...or perhaps the staff tossed them in the dumpster instead of dropping the price? Has anyone worked at a thrift store? Do they make an effort to sale classic games or does alot of the classic game stuff they recieve wind up in the trash?? Just curious.

It wasn't the ring, the whole shaft seperated. It didn't break, so you were able to reattach it, only to have it seperate again a few minutes later.

Still, you shouldn't have to bring out the super glue only after an hour of game playing and $30

Picked up a Flashback 2 from Target a few days ago and tried it out last night...hopefully the one I got was a lemon. Has anyone else experienced a few of these problems with the unit? I connected it and checked Quadrun. Instead of a voice, there was only hissing. This must indicate it was a version A flashback. I liked the style of the unit, but right away I could tell that the joystick feel was not the same quailty as the original one. There was no rubber grip on the joystick handle. I played a few games with my son, who complained that he was having trouble with the movements of his controller. I switched the joysticks and sure enough, the controller was slow to respond to the left and right. One of the asteriods games contained too much screen flicker. When we played 3d tic-tac-toe...after every move one of us made...the screen would flip to the TV picture and then back to the game screen???. To finally top it all off, during the playing of Dodge "em... The joystick handle poped off. It didn't break, but just seperated from the base. Looking at the joystick base, there were two notches where the handle connected so it easily popped back on...but after a few more minutes of play, it would pop back off. I also noticed if you screw the handle counter-clockwise... it would unscrew from the base. I plan to take the unit back and exchange it, hopefully this was just a deffective unit. I was very excited about the release of the Flashback, I hope others are not expericing problems.

What was the first third party game for the Atari 2600? Was it Activision's Dragster?