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About this blog

Mostly Atari-related projects, and other ramblings. Home of the Artie the Atari comic strip.

Entries in this blog

 

Shut up!

Finally!   After a few very frantic weeks, I've managed to all-but wrap up a bunch of projects.   The semester at work is ending this Friday, and I taught my last class Monday. Of course, when January rolls around, I get to start it all over again.   The manuals for Space Battle, Phantom II/Pirate and the AtariVox are basically finished, and are just going through final proof-reading now.   And yes, since they're already on sale, that's probably a good thing.   The sprites for Toys
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

8
 

Homebreviews - part 20

Well, my blog got bumped off the main page, so I guess I should start on the next batch of Homebreviews. How long will it take me to reach 122?   So here's an early holiday review (based on the NWCGE release) of:   Gingerbread Man 5/5   Run, run as fast as you can, they can't catch you - you're the Gingerbread Man now, dog! In Gingerbread Man, you control a cookie come-to-life, and must escape from different settings and enemies based on the classic children's tale. You start out trapped
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

12
 

To Do, To Do, Doo Be Doo Be Doo

Why yes, I am running out of "To Do" titles for my blog entries. Thanks for asking.   Well, I'm gradually chipping away at my "To-Do" list. Although there are two more projects added to it now: Label and manual for Lady Bug - In progress. John has approved a couple of design ideas for me to take to the next step. Manual for Four-Play - The label is already done, so the cover for the manual is basically done, too. Incidentally, I'm still working on new illustrations for RPS. Not su
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

1
 

Thor: Ragnarok - Spoiler-free review

It's been a few months since I've reviewed any movies. I did get out to see Dunkirk after Spider-Man: Homecoming, but never wrote up a review for it. In short - I thought it was really well done. Very different from a typical war movie, and well worth seeing on a big screen. But since it's out of theaters now... I don't think you'd get the same sort of visceral impact when watching it at home. So... never mind. Anyway... as if I hadn't seen enough superhero films this year already, last week
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

10
 

More music

Some months back, I wrote an entry about some upcoming albums that were coming up that I was planning to buy. I already reviewed one of the albums in the comments (Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream & Other Delights - Re-Whipped), but hadn't gotten to the other ones yet.   One of them, "Weird Al's" new album, isn't finished yet. It's mostly finished, but apparently he has to go back into the studio for some reason (he mentioned something about silly record company politics on his site). Whenever
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0
 

Summer Full 'o Movies pt. 6 - Wall-E

And the Summer movie-fest rolls on!   So, another research trip to... okay... we skipped work again. But if anything qualifies as research to those who work in an animation program, it's Wall-E.   Prior to the feature, is Pixar's latest short film: Presto. This is a wonderful throwback to the classic animated short films of Warner Brothers and MGM from the 40's and 50's. It's silly, fun animation, for the sake of silly, fun animation. (And you can buy it on iTunes for $1.99 if you want.)  
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

7
 

Summer Full 'o Movies pt. 1 - Speed Racer

It's Summertime! And for the first time in years, there are a good number of movies I'm planning to go see this Summer. Usually I may see only one, perhaps two movies a year.   So, let's run 'em down, shall we?   Iron Man - Review coming soon... I haven't seen this one yet. Speed Racer - Review coming real soon... the rest of this entry, in fact. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Rumor has it Sean Connery will make a cameo as Harrison Ford's son. King Fu Panda - Ick. N
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

8
 

The Last Carfighter

Remember the movie, "The Last Starfighter"?   It's mostly notable for two things: being an early attempt at sort-of realistic CGI special effects, and being about video games. Otherwise, it's completely forgettable b-movie science fiction.   The premise was that there was an arcade game called "The Last Starfighter" which turned out to be a recruiting tool for actual starfighters. The game was a test of skill, and if you were good enough, an alien would come to earth, and haul you off to do
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0
 

A Jedi craves not these things

You know, adventure... excitement...     ...16 more Homebreviews.   I hated to cover up Dave Dries' nifty Dungeon poster like that, but when I put it on top, I could no longer see the games.   I've already reviewed Juno First, but since I had some extra store credit, I figured I'd get the spiffy box Marc Oberhäuser made for it (available in the AtariAge store).   I've also already reviewed Conquest of Mars, but that was before John tweaked the game to make it easier to see where th
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

2
 

Spider-Man: Homecoming - Spoiler-free review

I finally got around to seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming a few days ago. I was debating whether or not to go see it because frankly, I'm a little tired of Spider-Man movies. Even though some of them had their moments, and Spider-Man himself was handled pretty well, it was Peter Parker who just never really clicked. For one thing, he was always way too old, and for another, he just wasn't very likable. Tobey Maguire played him like kind of an endlessly crying jerk, and Andrew Garfield was a tortured
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
 

Homebreviews - part 2

The reviews continue... Crazy Balloon 4/5 Crazy Balloon was an obscure arcade game from the 70's, from a time when videogame genres were still being invented. Game companies hadn't settled into reusing the same formulas over and over again, and unique, quirky games like Crazy Balloon were the result. While essentially a maze game, Crazy Balloon is more than simply finding your way from point A to point B. It's a devious mix of needing to be patient, while beating the clock. The first few lev
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

9
 

Stripping

I was digging through some old files on my computer, and ran across a few comic strips I did while participating in Pitfall Harry's Contest of Doom. This was in May, 2003, about six months after I signed on at AtariAge.   These were done as parodies of Pitfall Harry's strip Crane's World. I named mine Carl Wonders, since it's an anagram of Crane's World, and the contest (a series of puzzles) included anagrams in it (among other things - it was a very tough contest).   Anyway, they're still k
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

6
 

Artie the Atari - The Lost Episodes

Okay... these aren't so much "lost" as "procrastinated".   I had written and nearly completed these strips almost two years ago, as the conclusion to the "100th episode spectacular" storyline.   To recap: consoles began mysteriously disappearing. It turned out that Evil Artie was responsible, having assembled a massive army of zombie E.T. cartridges from the Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill. What was Evil Artie's plan? Where was he taking his army? What happened to all of the kidnapped consol
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

0
 

Still not completely fixed, apparently

Previously, I mentioned at the very end of this post: That's not the only problem anymore. You see, I've been testing the Trak-Ball™ hacks on it. Why have I been testing them? Well I wouldn't have wanted to go to the trouble of designing labels for hacks that didn't work now, would I? The problem is... some of them just won't work on my six-switch 2600. What's weird is - some of them do work. On my four-switch, all of the hacks work fine. Both of my CX-22 Trak-Balls™ work wi
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

30
 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - Spoiler-free review

I really enjoyed the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Probably in part because I had absolutely no preconceived idea of what it would be about, or who the characters were, or anything about it, really. But now, they've actually got something to live up to, since the movie's been on TV a dozen times (and I've watched it besides that on Blu-ray and iTunes), the characters are well-established personalities (having their own animated TV series and ), and there's been a huge build-up to the
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

15
 

So close...

I used to play Nintendo's Vs. Golf back-in-the-day-when-you-could-actually-play-it-in-the-arcades. When I got into MacMAME (now 20 years ago!!!!) I picked it up again, and the best score I shot at the time was 59: That was 13 under par (the course changes, so the overall par changes as well). Recently, since I got MAME running again properly for the first time in years, I've been playing it again. I've gotten to where I can birdie every hole on the course... just not always in the same
Nathan Strum

Nathan Strum

5
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