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I review games... How original...

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Commando (Activision)

Commando (Activision)

Late Atari Activision was one of the most ambitious yet misguided… things that ever happened for the system. After petering out in 1984 Activision decided to release a string of games for the system, and don’t forget, the NES had been out for three years at this point and the Genesis was right around the corner, as was the Game Boy. Games Activision released were ports of popular arcade games that had popular NES ports, games like Rampage, Kung Fu Master, and Double Dragon. There was even a sequ
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Windows is a Bastard! So you must beat it into submission...

Windows 3.1 is an utter bastard! And I love it! More specifically I use Windows 3.11 for Workgroups as a customizable frontend to launch MS-DOS and early Windows games, it works well but it tends to misbehave. I have had my fair share of freezes and crashes (of the virtual machine, not my actual computer) which has lead to some strange behavior that is usually sorted out with a hard reset. My two personal favorite glitches are when the color scheme alters to something wild like magenta and black
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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I know I just got back but...

I ain't feeling it, I haven't been feeling it for a while. I'm going to hold off posting until many of the current issues with the blogs have been resolved, and while that's happening I'm going to try and get some more inspiration which I feel has been sorely lacking recently.   It's a bit disheartening when the stuff I put my all into, and the stuff I'm really interested in get's very few views, mainly the PC game reviews. I know people will read what they're interested in and I know
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Pinball for Windows (Impressions Software Inc.)

Continuing with my trend of reviewing old PC games I present to you what is at first glance the most unimaginative piece of crap you’ve probably ever seen. Pinball for Windows by Impressions Software is just one of hundreds of crappy pieces of software shoveled out for the ‘new hotness’ Windows 3.1. The box boasts ‘GREAT ANIMATIONS’ and ‘4 Pinball Tables’ to select, my goodness! I’m astounded! Seriously these guys are really trying to sell you on this like it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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I have returned!

Alrighty then, I'm back. I did not expect to come back to a forum update. I know there are some elements to the blog that have been 'broken', attached images mostly, I'll get them worked out over time though from what I heard Albert is currently working on it and he doesn't need me screaming in his ear over something he's aware of.   If you were all wondering about my unexpected, unannounced vacation, then I'll tell you. Myself and my parents went off to Portland Oregon to visit my sis
DoctorSpuds

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Harrier 7 (Avantage)

Harrier 7 (Avantage)

Budget titles always have been, and always will be, mixed bags. You might get a hidden gem of a game or you might get stuck with a bunch of trash. I honestly don’t know how it was back in the 80’s with computer and console gaming being a bit more of a fledgling market, or even which publishers were considered budget, well I know of a few. The publisher of today’s game is most certainly a budget company, it’s pretty obvious, their tagline is “The best in low-priced entertainment software™” for cr
DoctorSpuds

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Vacation time!

I'm gonna be going on vacation with family starting this coming Saturday. Due to the fact my laptop took a massive shit and died I won't be able to supply you with my erratically released probably mediocre content you've all enjoyed. I will be back on the 15th, and will probably start posting again the day after.
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Omega Race (CBS Electronics)

Omega Race (CBS Electronics)

There is nothing worse than a common game that is locked behind an obscure peripheral. In the case of most Atari games with these obscure peripherals you can still play the game normally since these things only act as a substitute for the standard controller. Milton Bradley Games and many of the games slated to be released by Amiga are prime examples of this, there are three games however that ARE locked behind this wall of inaccessibility, Sentinel by Atari which required the usage of an XE lig
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Super Space Invaders (Taito/Domark)

Super Space Invaders (Taito/Domark)

Oh look, another Space Invaders game, woo, how fantastic. A cursory search of Space Invaders on MobyGames will net you over 250 results and that’s not counting the rip-offs. Space Invaders might just be one of the most copied formulas in the history of gaming, hell almost a quarter of the Atari 2600 library (not really) is just the basic premise of Space Invaders, move-around-the-bottom-of-the-screen-and-shoot-at-things, but with a few tweaks here and there, and this is when the game concept was
DoctorSpuds

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Nova 9 (Dynamix)

I can’t remain in the world of the 2600 forever, I need to branch out and expand, then promptly fall right back on the 2600 when I tire of the new stuff. So, what’s new today? Well, its big box PC games, if the 2600 game boxes weren’t big enough then these monsters will scratch your itch. Standard console game boxes are absolutely dwarfed by these behemoths, but this can have some positive effects. The artwork on some of these boxes is absolutely fantastic, and there’s something so rewarding abo
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Marine Wars (Konami)

We’re back again with one of the most unlikely of Atari publishers, Konami. Konami released a grand total of three games for the 2600, Pooyan (an arcade conversion), Strategy X (an arcade conversion), and Marine Wars. I’m not calling Marine Wars an arcade conversion even though there was a machine made with the same name by Omori Electronics Corporation, the reason being that there are currently no images of the machine or game screen other that a small picture of the game flyer. KLOV.com has ab
DoctorSpuds

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Mountain King (CBS Electronics)

I’ve debated whether or not I should review this game for some time, due to its complexity, but I’ve decided that now is the time. There are advanced games for the 2600, Solaris, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Dragonstomper being excellent examples, but there is one that I think beats them all out in terms of volume, and complexity. Mountain King is one of those OG games that never seems to get talked about anymore, kinda like Miner 2049’er or the Jumpman series of games, games that were big for a
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Marauder (Tigervision)

I think we can all agree that Tigervision was an all around okay company, they published some pretty excellent games like Polaris and Jawbreaker, but they also had a few stinkers as well. But apart from their incredibly rare and expensive games and their incredibly terrible games there were a few in the middle that just seem to get no attention whatsoever, games like King Kong, Threshold, and Marauder always seem to fly under the radar. Perhaps there is a reason for that, today let’s just focus
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Street Fighter II (DOS) (U.S. Gold, Hi Tech Expressions)

Street Fighter II: The Baddest Brawl Of Them All… Well they were right about one thing..   There was a time a long, long, time ago when the battle for gaming superiority wasn’t quite as one-sided as it is today, the battle between consoles and home computers. Now I’ll admit that I know very little about computers from this era, all of my knowledge stems from the early Commodore and Atari 8-bit machines, not the burly 386, 486, and Pentuim machines of the late 80’s through the 90’s. Around the
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Strawberry Shortcake: Musical Match-ups (Parker Brothers)

Kid’s games are exceptionally difficult to make, which is why so many of them are terrible. Many companies vie for the tried and true method of making a few cookie cutter minigames and plastering a well-known children’s character/icon on it. Some companies like Humungous Entertainment and Disney found ways to make kid’s games that kid’s will actually enjoy playing; they’re complex without being too difficult  and not too easy to the point of being condescending. Unfortunately this is 1983 and we
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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AstroBlast (M Network)

Ladies and gentleman it is time for a true classic, AstroBlast… Originally released on the Intellivision as AstroSmash by Mattel the 2600 port followed soon after. Normally I’d do a comparison review for something like this but in the case of AstroBlast there is no comparison, the 2600 version comes out the victor, here’s why. AstroBlast uses the Paddle controllers which are a huge step up from the INTV’s rather clunky control disks, allowing for smooth and fluid movement and more engaging gamep
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Bachelor Party (Mystique)

Dammit Mystique! I thought I took you behind the utility shed and put a slug through your miserable skull a long time ago. As it turns out I’m a fool, Mystique never dies, it is a zombie of a company, shuffling around and vomiting its wares into any store that would take it. Mystique! What do you have to say for yourself? “It’s a joke?” My boy, this isn’t 2015 YouTube anymore that shit won’t fly, it didn’t fly in 1982, and it sure as shit doesn’t fly now, that being said I don’t care. Bachelor P
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Star Raiders II (Atari Corp.)

It’s sequel time, and boy do we have a doozy today. We all know about the Atari 8-bit line of computers that were launched in 1979 starting with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. Without question the most beloved game on those computers is without a doubt Star Raiders, it is a classic. So what do you do when you have such a popular game? Well, you make a sequel of course! Luckily for Atari a member of their Coin-Op department Aric Wilmunder had almost completed a sequel to Star Raiders; it truly was
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Turmoil (20th Century Fox)

I wasn't very happy with my original Turmoil review so i decided to go back and give it a bit more of an in-depth look.   2600 games aren’t known for being all too complex, and that’s for a very good reason, the controller simply wouldn’t allow for it. There were a few enterprising games that came with alternate controllers or addons to make things a bit easier, the Booster Grip for Omega Race, the dual controller thingy for Spy Hunter, basically the entirety of Amiga’s offerings were going to
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Street Racer (Atari)

Of the nine titles that Atari released in 1977 I have reviewed three of them, them being Combat™, Star Ship™, and Indy 500™, I think it’s about time to add another to that list. Now I think we can all agree that some of these titles have not aged all that well, sure they were well liked back in the day (with the exception of Basic Math™ BLECH) but they were all new and unique ideas that hadn’t really been explored before on a home console, yes the Channel F did it first but Atari did it right. D
DoctorSpuds

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Mines of Minos (Commavid)

We’re back with Commavid today but which game to choose? Mines of Minos… Why? It has the best box art, and it’s unique, and well… It’s fun (Also CaptainBreakout recommended it, so yeah I gotta do it now). Mines of Minos is not a graphically impressive game, Commavid games rarely are they tend to make it up with fun and interesting gameplay. If you want a game to compare the graphics to Entombed by U.S. Games is almost a dead ringer.  Enemy design is quite good, they’re large and fairly detailed,
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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A brief update...

I don’t think I’ve ever actually done one of these but I’d like to give a few updates on the state of my collection. Let me start off with this, I have absolutely no ideas for future reviews, I’m completely out of them, so if anybody has recommendations for games good, bad, or obscure I’d love to hear them. This happened a little while back but I do feel it’s worth mentioning. Back when I got my UNO Cart I decided to sell half of my collection, some of the stuff I sold earlier too. I no longer h
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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World End/ Invasion aus der Galaxis (HomeVision/Quelle)

Today we’re going to look at an obscure European game published from an obscure European publisher. HomeVision is a rare company; in fact I can’t find a single one of their games that’s priced below 200 dollars.  HomeVision was the distributor of a distributor; it was created by a company called VDI to distribute games gotten from Gem International Corporation. Some of these games are original, like the one we’re looking at today, and others are just graphical hacks of preexisting games. The gam
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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I did a thing!

What I have done is totally unnecessary and some people probably would have advised me against it but I did it anyway. For the longest time I've had an X-Man reproduction cartridge, it didn't come in a Spectravision case but at the time I didn't know that the original came in one either, minus branding. So I got to thinking "what if I take the board from my repro cartridge and put it in a Spectravision case?", and I have done just that. It was oddly easy, in fact the most difficult thing I had t
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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Pitfall! (Activision)

This is going to be a difficult game to look at since it feels almost blasphemous to do so; the first of something is always sacred. Pitfall (I’m omitting the ‘!’ because Word freaks out and capitalizes everything), is generally referred to as the first side-scrolling platforming game, or at least the first one to do it right. It is one of the best selling games on the 2600 and is considered one of the best games on the console, if not ever for its contributions to gaming as a whole. But, and th
DoctorSpuds

DoctorSpuds

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