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I review games... How original...

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The Challenge of Nexar (Spectravision)

Spectravision! What is this?!? A Joke? Because I’m not laughing. Why? Well I’ll tell you… The Challenge of Nexar… is actually a pretty decent game; I don’t know why you’d expect me to be angry about it. Nexar is a fairly standard fake first person shooter in the same vein as Survival Run by Milton Bradley, where you move a cursor around the screen and shoot oncoming enemies as they scale towards you. Unlike Survival Run though, Nexar is fast and it’s a challenge (HAH!), the enemies will approach
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That's a lotta words!

Ever since the inception of DSRT I've been keeping a Word document with every single review I've written in it, alongside .txt files of every review as well (in case I need them for quick reference), after depositing my most recent review into the Master Document I noticed just how much I've wrote. With double spacing and 11pt font the document comes in at just shy of 440 pages with a word count of 154,098. This realization got me thinking... What if I selected the best of my reviews and condens
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Thank you AMD

Thank you AMD for automatically updating the registry of my video drivers to the version before. Completely screwing up my screen and forcing me to manually update the registry with the proper driver versions whilst my screen is strobing, which meant I had to first find the drivers, find the version of those drivers, find the registry for those drivers and manually updating them there. Even after fixing the drivers the screen is still screwed up which means I have to daisy chain adaptors so I ca
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Tape Worm (Spectravideo)

And the award for the worst name for a game ever goes to… Tape Worm by Spectravision. Did they actually know what a tapeworm was? Awful name aside the concept for this game also doesn’t really make sense, especially when you compare it with the title. In this game you play as Slinky, a ‘Spectraworm’, who loves fruit but is unable to acquire it so he eats a bunch beans and then acquires the fruit with excessive flatulence, wha-? We all know this is a ‘snake game’ but this whole package so far is
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Tank Brigade (Panda)

Tank Brigade otherwise known as Tanks But No Tanks falls under the same category as Strategy X as being so challenging that it's addictive. This game was put out by Panda inc.. Panda was definitely one of the lesser known publishers on the 2600, mostly because most of their games were either stolen or licensed from Sancho. Several of their games were later re-sold by Froggo, yeah this is the level we're at here. I don't know if this game was stolen from Zimag, or if Zimag stole/licensed this gam
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Sword of Saros (Starpath)

At LAST! This is the final game from Starpath, Sword of Saros. I’m gonna try to keep this review a bit shorter since they seem to be getting longer and longer these days. From what I have gathered from talking to several folks at my local game store and reading some reviews, this is one of the least liked Supercharger games ever made, now that’s quite an accomplishment. Unfortunately I somewhat agree with much of the criticism leveled at Sword of Saros, it is DEEPLY flawed, and unfortunately the
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Survival Island (Starpath)

It’s time we turn our attention away from the Supercharger games that had the nice boxes and manuals, and look at the final two games released for the system. These games were not sold in stores, and were only available through mail-order, which as we know from other mail-order games increases the rarity and value immensely. Unfortunately these final two games are sometimes regarded as the worst games for the Supercharger, which is rather unfair since they are both as original and perhaps even m
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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
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Super Cycle (Epyx)

I have seriously underestimated Epyx, I honestly didn’t realize how many games they produced back in the 80’s, but I’m not gonna get ahead of myself listing every one the games they published since we would be here all year, instead I’m going to focus on one of my favorite games on the C64 (apart from Monty On The Run) and that is Epyx’ Super Cycle. I love arcade style racing games, games like Rad Racer, Top Gear, Enduro, Outrun, even games like Extreme G and Lego Racers on N64 are some of my fa
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Suicide Mission (Starpath)

Alright… A show of hands, who here has played Asteroids? Hmmm, okay, that’s a good number of you, who here has played the 2600 port? Oh, even more of you, that’s interesting, who here thinks the 2600 port of asteroids is a good port? Well there go a few hands, alright a few more. Who here has heard of Suicide Mission? Well that’s not many hands at all… how disappointing. Last one, who here thinks that Suicide Mission, a game that many of you haven’t heard of is as good, if not better than the 26
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Strategy X (Konami)

Well now.. here's an odd one, Strategy X... What to say about it? Well... it was one of the three games made for the 2600 by Konami. It was only after browsing on Amazon for a very long time did I find this game, and I admit that I was very intrigued. I know of Konami's arcade history and I know that they have made some of the greatest retro games of all time... But how does Strategy X stand up to this history? Well... It kinda falls flat on it's face and it falls hard. But first a little info,
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Strange Atari Catalog

I have never seen anything like this before. The inside is similar as the regular 45 game catalog it just has a different front cover. the # is CO16725-Rev. D just like a regular catalog
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Story Machine (Spinnaker Software)

Ladies and gentleman… I have returned, and today I’m going to be doing something a little different. A little while back I played ‘Story Machine’ by Spinnaker Software for the C64, and it was probably the greatest thing I ever experienced as a player and peruser of retro videogames. Today I will not be reviewing the gameplay, sounds and graphics; I will be doing something else. The game has a story generator and I’ll be transcribing five stories for all of you today. I’ll include screenshots if
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Starpath Supercharger

When one looks at the 2600, they predominantly see cartridges, everywhere, more cartridges than one could shake the proverbial stick at, but far away… Across a sea of cartridges there is a dark corner. Nestled deep into that corner are twelve games, twelve pristine examples of innovation, of quality over quantity, this is the realm of Starpath. This realm is a maelstrom of quality, almost untouched by the hands of the casual consumer of retro gaming goods, because these games didn’t come on cart
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Stargunner (Telesys)

Telesys was an earnest company with humble beginnings; they just wanted to make good, fun games. Unfortunately Telesys also died a very humble death as they did not find their desired success in the games market. Telesys arrived on the scene in 1982; they released six games and were gone by the end of 1983. Sometimes I’m glad when I learn of the unfortunate demise of a game company, Mythicon and Mystique immediately come to mind, and I’m still waiting for EA to just go away already, but with Tel
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Star Wars: The Arcade Game 5200 (Parker Brothers)

Star Wars: The Arcade Game 5200 (Parker Brothers)

Long has this game eluded me, but now I have it in my possession, sort of. I’ve really wanted to get my hands on Star Wars: The Arcade Game for a long while but the price has always been a prohibitive factor, mainly due to it being a late release Parker Brothers game coupled with a big IP driving the prices up dramatically. It seems though that I’ve been after the wrong version the whole time, because as I was focusing on the 2600 version, as I tend to do, I has completely neglected the other ve
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Star Strike (Mattel)

I have neglected my other systems for too long and it seems to be about time to remedy that. With my recent acquisition of an Intellivision II system I felt the urge to go back and play through all the games I have for it. I don’t have many Intellivision games and honestly most of them wouldn’t make a very interesting review, but I do have one game that is just so meh that I can’t help but be slightly angered by it. The game in question is Star Strike, and I have incredibly mixed feelings about
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Star Ship (Atari)

Oh boy here we go! Star Ship, a game that was so bad when it came out in 1977 that It was removed from sale by Atari in 1980, and Atari almost never pulled games from sale so you know it's gotta be bad. I will be cutting this game a lot of slack in this review though, due to the fact it was released in 1977 as a launch title, and we all know that many of these games have not aged well at all, with perhaps the exception of Indy 500. This game is a first person space shooter, now that sounds aweso
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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
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Star Raiders (Atari)

It is no secret that I’ve recently acquired an Atari 800 computer, and when I asked on the forum which games were the best to play on it, one game was recommended above all else… Star Raiders. I found this a little confusing since I had played Star Raiders on the 2600 and was thoroughly disappointed, but the game store I bought the 800 from did have a copy of it, so I bought it and played it, and now I know why people like it so very much. The 2600 Star Raiders absolutely pales in comparison to
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Star Fox (Mythicon)

It’s time to finish off the unholy trinity. I’ve really been dreading reviewing this one, mainly because I view this as amongst the worst games ever created. Star Fox by Mythicon is an absolute train wreck, and yes it is one you can look away from. Star Fox was the third and final game from infamous publisher Mythicon before they went belly up in 1983. While the games that preceded it, Sorcerer and Fire Fly, are virtually identical to each other, Star Fox is actually an original game, much to my
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