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I review games... How original...

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My thoughts on the 5200

My thoughts on the 5200

The other day I referred to Sub Scan from Sega as a bad idea… That got me thinking, or well, recalling something I had been thinking of previously. By 1983 the Atari 2600 was a pretty old console by console standards, and was being faced with fierce competition from Mattel with their superior in almost every way Intellivision, Magnavox need not apply themselves to this squabble. Atari needed a console that would trounce the Intellivision and the rumored super-console from Coleco, so Atari gather
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

2
 

A tiny wafer thin update!

Ah, well this seems familiar. First off, no I’m not taking a break; I’m just writing this to give you a few updates on future reviews and a small update on the book. Also I’m using this as an excuse not to write a review for today. Sorry.   Recently I’ve had the monumental task of repairing several Atari 5200 controllers, and it seems I still have to open them up every so often to coax more functionality out of them. The local game store had four standard joysticks and a Trak-Ball cont
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Congo Bongo (Sega)

We’re back in Sega territory today, and the game of the day? Well, how about Congo Bongo? Sure that sounds good. Congo Bongo is a fairly blatant Donkey Kong ‘rip-off’, I only put rip-off in quotes because is almost every way Congo Bongo surpasses Donkey Kong. The original 1983 arcade had an isometric perspective coupled with beautiful graphics; the arcade still holds up today, it’s absolutely gorgeous. Sega took initiative and decided to port Congo Bongo to the major consoles of the time themsel
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Sub Scan (Sega)

Sub Scan (Sega)

I have a bad idea for you all today, Sub Scan, this game is a bad idea. On a conceptual level this game just shouldn’t exist, it’s so barebones that very few people will spend enough time playing the game to actually experience it in any meaningful way. I could talk about the sounds and the graphics, but why should I when the game itself does not deserve them. Even if the sounds are completely terrible, and the graphics are unfortunately good, I refuse to talk about them because the game is so s
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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M.A.D. (U.S. Games)

M.A.D. (U.S. Games)

What is there to say about M.A.D., well first off it’s really obnoxious to type, and second of all it is a surprisingly unique take on the Missile Command/Atlantis genre. M.A.D. bears a resemblance to all games of its genre, Missile Command, Atlantis, Commando Raid, Sabotage, etc, but if you ask me it trumps them all from a visual standpoint. The graphics are stunningly colorful and imbue the game with a vibrancy rarely seen on the 2600. The gun emplacement is made up of the cooler end of the ra
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Food Fight

Food Fight

Hype, I don’t get it, all it usually does is raise expectations to a ludicrously high degree. Usually the expectations get so high that the final product could never fulfill those wild expectations. What if then, you have a game that flew under the radar for so long that nobody but a small few even noticed it, add onto that the fact that it was only released in any quantity on a console that almost nobody owned. Food Fight falls perfectly into that oddly specific category of game. Originally it
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Choplifter Extravaganza!

Choplifter Extravaganza!

It truly amazes me how many games have been forgotten by the course of time. Actually it seems that almost all games get forgotten eventually, but not this one. Somehow this game managed to soldier on through the 90’s and finally landed a remake on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, I’m talking about Choplifter! (I will omit the ‘!’ from now on because Word doesn’t like it.) Choplifter made a huge splash in 1982, and you could definitely see why, it’s a sidescrolling shooter with a decidedly patrio
DoctorSpuds

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10
Sewer Sam (Interphase)

Sewer Sam (Interphase)

Some games are unfortunate enough to gain a reputation for being absolutely terrible, perhaps deservedly or undeservedly. It seems my game today has garnered quite the reputation and I feel that it is undeserved. Sewer Sam is a game from Interphase Technologies Inc. a small company that had a library of four games published across multiple consoles and computers. They only published two games on the Intellivision, Sewer Sam and Blockade Runner, but are most known for their smash hit B.C.’s Quest
DoctorSpuds

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Threshold (Tigervision)

Threshold (Tigervision)

Originality in games is not a dead concept though it is getting harder and harder to find as more and more games fill the same genres while attempting to stand out from the rest with a unique concept, visual style, gameplay element(s), or some mix of the three. Some games succeed at originality and other don’t, but the game I’m looking at today isn’t even trying to be original, in fact it almost seems to relish how generic it is, but it shouldn’t have been this way. Threshold is a game made by O
DoctorSpuds

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Moonsweeper (Imagic)

If one were to look at the most ambitious titles in the 2600 library Moonsweeper would undoubtedly be near the top, it’s so ambitious that the only game I can really compare it to is Solaris, which as we all know is another one of, if not the, most advanced games on the system. Moonsweeper was released in 1983, Imagic’s final proper year of operation, and as we all know they went belly-up in ’84. The programmer of this game, Bob Smith, has quite an impressive track record if I do say so myself,
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Diner (INTV)

Diner (INTV)

I’m gonna level with you right now, I don’t like Burgertime, I think it’s a slow monotonous game with very little payoff, every version I play whether it be the arcade, Intellivision, Colecovision, Atari (any of them), or even the NES I wind up feeling the same way. I like the overall concept of creating giant burgers while being pursued by evil foodstuffs but it just feels too constricted and slow. I don’t really expect anybody to agree with me but I feel that I should get my opinions out there
DoctorSpuds

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How to play 5200 games without the 5200

Yesterday I finally crossed a big name off of my ‘get’ list, a working Atari 5200, I have long had a busted one that I’ll just keep around for parts now. I don’t intend on buying any games for it or even hooking up to my TV because I still can’t really play it. I suppose that’s the unique thing about the 5200, some consoles are unattainable because of the price of the games, or of the unit itself. The 5200 is unique for a totally different reason, the controllers. Oftentimes a working 5200 contr
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Crackpots (Activision)

I have been after Crackpots for a while now, but long has it eluded me, usually because I kept forgetting to buy it or because the prices made me vomit in my mouth a little. I was immediately suckered in by the amazing graphics and unusual game premise, but now that I have it, how does it hold up? Well before we get to that I have to address the cartridge my copy of Crackpots came in. Mine is not an official Activision cartridge, mine is a Brazilian release from Datasoft, and my goodness what a
DoctorSpuds

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Tower of Doom (INTV)

Tower of Doom (INTV)

Some Atari fans may know of the unreleased AD&D prototypes for the 2600, Treasure of Tarmin and Tower of Mystery. These prototypes exist but have not been released to the public because of copyright issues with T$R and Wizards of the Coast. Thankfully both of these games exist on a contemporary console so we at least know what the games might be like on the 2600.  Of all the consoles from the early 80’s, the Intellivision is the only console that has the classic D&D trilogy with Cloudy M
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Thunder Castle (INTV Corporation)

Thunder Castle (INTV Corporation)

Many recall, and perhaps lament, the transition from Atari Inc. to Atari Corp. The transition was a period when Atari and most all of its assets were sold by Time Warner to the Tramiels, who owned it until the very end. The Intellivision also had a similar transition from being owned by Mattel to being owned by INTV Corporation. INTV owned the Intellivision copyright and all of its games and licenses from 1984 through to 1990 when the Intellivision was officially discontinued because of Nintendo
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Desert Falcon (Atari)

I feel the urge to revisit an old friend. Back when I had nothing but an Atari flashback one of the few games I would regularly play was Desert Falcon, a Zaxxon-like isometric shooter set in ancient Egypt, what’s not to like? What I didn’t know at the time was that there was also a version for the Atari 7800, mainly because I didn’t know that the Atari 7800 was even a thing that existed. If I’d known I probably would have moved to the 7800 sooner than I did, because right now, at this very momen
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Mappy (Champ Games)

It’s Homebrew time! And what game to pick? There are so many of them… How about Mappy! By all rights a game like Mappy should not work on the 2600, there is just no way somebody could fit such a large and complicated arcade game into a tiny 2600 cartridge, anybody who’d try that would be a bona fide madman. Well, there seems to be a madman in our midst because Mappy was ported to the 2600 and wouldn’t you believe it, they somehow made it better. A small team of programmers, designers and artists
DoctorSpuds

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Finally Got A 7800 & Bootleg Enduro!

It has finally happened! I have finally gotten my grubby hands on an Atari 7800! Thank you all for your advice with this beast of a machine, the warning about the fragility of the case especially. I got this thing cheap, cheaper than usual. I got the system, power supply, two Pain-Line’s, a set of Paddles, three games, and a small storage case for about 71 dollars, and whaddaya know it was packed pretty horribly.  The rear left corner of the system cracked into several large pieces and many tiny
DoctorSpuds

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3
Lost Luggage (Apollo)

Lost Luggage (Apollo)

Alright, this is it, the final game from Apollo that I have yet to review. I have stated multiple times that I have absolutely zero interest in reviewing Lost Luggage on several occasions, but it seems now I have no choice. Honestly the only thing that spurred this decision was something that I saw in the manual, so let’s not dawdle and let’s just review it; I’ve done 10 of these already I have nothing to fill the first paragraph with at this point.     There are elements of
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Tomarc the Barbarian (Xonox)

Tomarc the Barbarian (Xonox)

Between the time of the Maganavox Odyssey and the rise of the plumbers of Nintendo, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Cona—I Mean Tomarc, destined to wear the jeweled crown of mediocrity upon a pixilated brow. It is I, his reviewer, who alone can tell thee of his game. Let me tell you of the days of not-so-high adventure. Call me crazy but if they could have I think Xonox would have preferred Conan the Barbarian over Tomarc the Barbarian, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. I don’t r
DoctorSpuds

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Mangia (Spectravision)

Spectravision was mostly known for their Quickshot brand of joysticks, but that didn’t prevent them from entering the home game market in early 1982. Spectravision released a grand total of eleven games for the 2600 before abandoning it in late 1982, eleven games in a year is quite impressive. They are also one of the rarer companies on the 2600, in that a majority of their catalog is an R5 or above. You can actually track the rough time when the games were released by their rarity, with the ear
DoctorSpuds

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Down the 2600 Rabbit Hole

I’ve been trying to rationalize to myself where the rabbit hole that is Atari collecting begins and ends. Of course it begins with Atari themselves, along with the bigger publishers like Activision, Parker Brothers, and Imagic. Here let’s try something… I won’t be able to include all the publishers, but I can try to paint a vague picture of what I mean. Level One: Everybody knows ‘em. These companies were the most likely to be stocked in all the major electronics retailers. Atari
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Carnival (Coleco) vs. Shootin' Gallery (Imagic)

It has been a while since I’ve done a comparison review, and with the acquisition of a certain game it seems that I finally have a good enough pairing to warrant one. Am I the only one who finds the concept of a shooting gallery arcade game to be odd? Or at least one that doesn’t use some sort of a light gun to emulate a real shootin’ gallery, like what you’d see at an actual carnival. It’s convenient then that there were two games on the 2600 that did just that, and that I’ve already mentioned
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Phillip the 2600, What has he defiled today?

Phillip is pain... All it feels is an endless wash of pain. Phillip waits for death patiently and quietly for it knows its death is nigh Data Age Encounter At L-5 – Most sprites are slightly warped but you can see it most on the Data Age logo at the top right. Sounds are mostly the same with an off note here or there, nothing serious. Bugs – Most ‘Bugs’ are intact but some are scrambled to high hell, the transition scene is unaltered. Sounds are intact with nothing seriously
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Halloween (Wizard Video)

Look I know it’s not the season for scary games, but every season is a good season for Atari, so without further ado… Halloween. Halloween suffered the same fate as Mystique and Playaround’s offerings. Due to the adult nature of the games they were hidden behind the counter and only taken out if the customer requested a copy, and that’s if the store carried the game in the first place which many didn’t. Perhaps it was for the best that these games never really got out in significant quantities,
DoctorSpuds

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