NovaXpress

Just wondering, since we now have the talent floating around to create anything imaginable on the 2600, aren't we very likely to see fraudulent prototypes created eventually? Couldn't a slick programmer create their own believable Airword or Satan's Hollow and pass it off as an 80's original? Wouldn't the sale of a single fake Airworld proto be more profitable than creating a new game? I know that Warshaw can identify Airworld, but what about games by CBS or other companies where we can't identify the original programmers? The appearance of Targ surprised everyone. Is there a way to verify the age of the actual prototype board and prove when the data it contains was created? If we cannot trust the software, can we trust the hardware?

In the early 80s I lived outside of Toledo, Ohio. One of the malls had an attatched area called Old Town which was full of crafts vendors, candy, troll dolls and other crap. This was an actual mall, decorated in wood with about 20 or 30 store spaces, attatched by an annex to a more modern mall. At some point, the old-timey businesses failed and the mall replaced them all with video games. I mean ALL the stores became devoted to games. One store would have 15 Defenders, another 15 Tempests, etc. The name of the game was even posted in a large sign above the storefront. Several rooms had a mix of games and I encountered rarities such as Quantum and Space Dungeon. There was also a pizza parlor and ticket games. I''d been to other large arcards in the day, but had never seen an entire mall converted like this. It was still in operation when I left the area in 83. I probably just missed the inevitable shutdown. Does anyone else know of Old Town or similar arcades?

Speaking of promotional posters, wasn't there a second Buck Rogers game planned for the 2600 by Sega? I recall a box picture from Electronic Games. Its very interstesing to look at the old mail-order ads from those days. They were full of games that never came about.

I'm sure that review from above isn't from Electronic Games. They never gave numerical or star ratings in their regular magazine, maybe in a special edition guide. I had the EG issue, there wasn't a picture accompanying the review, it was about 4 paragraphs long spread over two pages. memory can be tricky of course, but I know EG didn't give numerical ratings. All of the magazines of the time (Video games, Electronic Fun, etc) cannibalized their reviews and stories off one another. If one mag reviewed Turbo, the rest would be likely to copy it, even if they never saw a copy themselves. Electronic Fun ran an April Fool's prank in which they reviewed a mythical game by Imagic called Orient Express complete with screenshot. The game was soon reviewed by other magazines. The EG review was the only reason I believed in a Turbo prototype, they were never known to review vaporware.

I can't believe I called it LCD, I knew what that really means. But I did think these games used LEDs. How does one tell the difference? Is it not possible to do multiple colors with LED? Every old LCD game I had ended up with a bad screen at some point. I had one on a watch that Im dying to remember. 4 derivative shoot-em-up games and a tiny joystick. I'll be hunting down a rumored Coleco Frogger later today

These things were actually really good for LCD tabletop games. Donkey Kong played rather miserably actually and the head-to-head options were almost unplayable because of the small size of the unit. The Zaxxon tabletop was far more faithful to the arcade than the 2600 or Intellivision editions. For those too young to remember, all LCD games were rather poor and simplistic. Still, they cost as much or more than an Atari cart. This would be why I have so few handhelds and so many cartriges. The Pac-Man LCD game made by Tomy was cool-looking but even less faithful. The ghosts and cherries were red, as well as the star which served as a power pellet. The maze walls were blue! The play was awful, as I recall Pac-Man could not go in reverse, and the graphics were so sparse that a ghost would kill you from halfway across the screen. Awesome packaging though.

Announcing a real proto find on Apil Fool's Day would be the best prank yet.

I was 12 when the 5200 came out and remember the schoolyard debates well. I also had a relative who sold video games at retail. The Colecovision sales blew away the 5200 for the first year, almost certainly attributable to the poor quality of 5200 launch titles in general, not just Donkey Kong. Atari offered the same old games ported straight from the 400/800 and everyone knew it. Colecovision offered games many had never seen in the arcade, as well as the cool steering wheel for Turbo and a jaw-dropping (for the time) Zaxxon. Don't forget about Smurf Rescue, which my uncle put up on the Coleco display rather than Donkey Kong and moved a LOT of copies with families and women. Look in the old Electronic Games at the reviews. All the launch titles for Coleco were praised endlessly while Atari barely got people excited enough to write a review. Of course we know how things went from there. 5200 games got better and better while Coleco had little to offer after the launch. A PacMan pack-in would not have helped. Gamers had already been burned on the 2600 version, everyone in the arcades had moved on to Ms.PacMan, and Coleco's Lady Bug was superior anyway. In the fall of 1982 nobody cared about PacMan anymore. No matter how good the 5200 version is, the game was almost three years old. 5200 PacMan was no more valuable to the system than Super Breakout was. Donkey Kong was the big mainstream hit of the time, and Zaxxon was considered state-of-the-art. The controllers for both systems were abysmal, so its a wash. Controllers don't sell a system. If the games are good people will adapt to any controller that they're given or get a third-party replacement. I went with Wico for both systems. I feel the 5200 was simply rushed to market, Atari needed a system to compete with Intellivision and as usual marketing was calling the shots: "Why not reuse the 400 and all the old games? The kids are so gullible they'll buy anything, just like they're gonna buy all those copies of E.T. this Christmas as well!"

20th Century Fox's Flash Gordon was a version of the Sirius Software game Spider City, wich was available on all the big computer systems at the time. Flash Gordon is also missing the weird robots with their giant drill phalluses. I think the robots could have only improved the game. Many of the Fox games were taken from Sirius originals. Im trying to remember the original names for Fantastic Voyage and Spacemaster X-7 now. I wish they'd have ported Sneakers as well, an insanely fun shooter by Mark Turmell, creator of Turmoil for which I also thank him. The Sneakers from said game appear in Fast Eddie. It was more fun to shoot at them than to jump over them

I just saw a news piece indicating that Sega might be buying Infogrames, thus acquiring the rights to the Atqari name as well. Here's where i found the story http://www.gamers.com/news/1191965

Let's hope that Hollywood makes a Mr.Bill movie so we might see that game surface as well

It does seem odd that no Coleco prototype has ever surfaced, especially with all their vanishing titles. I think the review in Electronic Games is the best evidence of this cart's existence. EG had much higher standards than the other mags of that era and must have at least played the game at an expo. It did recieve a good review as well, so I wonder why Coleco would cancel it. I'm looking for the issue, but my old magazines are scattered all over several places. All I have on me are the 84-85 years where it switched over to PC topics. Sad.

Springer

In the new Rolling Stone there's a section on video games featuring actor Jack Black. He talks up classics like Asteroids and Scramble and then says that he was the kid in the old Pitfall! commercial and that job is what earned him his Screen Actors Guild card. Wild.

I just had another memory. Originally Coleco thought they had the rights to Centuri games and announced versions of Phoenix and Vanguard for their 3 supported systems. As it turned out they didn't have the rights secured (much like Atari's experience with Star Castle). Any possibility work was begun by Coleco on those titles?

What really makes Turbo a mystery is that Electronic Games printed a review of the 2600 version of the game. EG was not known for reviewing vaporware so maybe they had a preview copy. I really think that this one is out there. Many mags of the time did review games they never played. Once Electronic Fun magazine printed a review of a phony game in their April issue and a competing magazine printed a review of the fake game soon after. The best mag of the time was Video Games, the only one aimed at adults.

Actually the 2600 version is a translation of Jawbreaker 2. The original was a total Pac-Man clone but the sequel used a moving playfield and is far superior

Hello, though I might have some relevant info to share. During the classic Atari days my father worked for Sears and we received a 15% discount, therefore nearly all of my Atari purchases were made at Sears. I can say with 100% certainty that Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first non-Sears label sold there. I was very shocked about it at the time. I also remember Star Raiders as being the last Sears release, it may have just been the last that I cared about. As a whiny Atari freak I picked up most of the carts at the time of release and can say the there was often a week or so difference between release dates of Sears and Atrai label carts. I remember getting Pac Man early but Defender coming out late at Sears. Actually the first Atari 2600-compatible games Sears sold without their label were Activision's. They started showing up in the early fall of 82. This was all around the time that Sears allowed other manufacturer's to have their names on the products. I figure Atari just waited for the silver boxes run to make the switch. I have one of the earlier Video Arcade systems, I need to dig it out and see just how old it is. Hope this helps someone.