NovaXpress

Well, okay then.

Put it this way: if, as a kid, you had a choice between playing with GI Joe action figures and a Lily Tomlin doll, would you have chosen the doll? If so, I have no argument for you. But if you're like the majority of boys back then you would have been more interested in a GI Joe game than a 9 to 5 game if given a choice.

And that brings us back on topic . . . the reason there was never a 9 to 5 game is because no kid ever had the slightest interest in picking up the joystick and springing into action as "Ol' Dabney."

I'll bet that someone could come up with mockups of any potential game and the same people would chime in about wanting to buy it. If someone's going to take the time to program a game that's ripped off from a movie, they would probably want to do something more interesting than a 25-year old chick flick which would be illegal to sell after all was said and done. So let's nip this one in the bud right now before we're subjected to low-res renditions of Jane Fonda. Though if anyone feels capable of creating a 3D Dolly Parton effect, please be my guest.

Amy criticism of video game licenses back then were only directed at stupid ones. Example: Journey Escape. Journey was a soft-rock band, not the best one to appeal to the teen boys who owned Ataris. 9 to 5 is a stupid idea because it was aimed at women office workers, why should a 10-year old boy give a shit? Megaforce was dumb because the movie was a titanic flop. Alien was a great license, but why the hell would you turn it into a Pac-Man clone of all things?

If you were a teen in the 80s then you should have known about 2600 Smurf. It was heavily advertised in magazines and available in just about every store. If your store sold 2600 Donkey Kong, you can bet that Smurf was on the shelf as well. Anyway, I hated the Smurfs but didn't care because the game looked so much better than anything else at the time. I must have been more flexible then, because as it stands today a Spongebob Squarepants game might be more exciting than Missile Command but I'd never know because I'd never deign to play the freaking thing. That game sold as many CVs as Donkey Kong did.

Seriously kids, grab any 77-83 catalogs you can find and check for games. If we could nab every Sears/JCP catalog from that era we could answer all the release date questions. If we can find the Sears supplements, we'd even have the exact month of release.

This book came out around September. Notice that the none of the late-92 releases are included. Sears would then send out monthly supplement catalogs until Xmas. Also note that Super Breakout is no longer labeled as a Sears Exclusive, as it was in the 81 catalog.

I never understood why people messed with the file names in the first place. Why not give them the complete name? People could locgically assume Space Invaders then get onto AtariAge and look through screenshots until they figure out what exavtly they've got. Not the quickest process, but people who actually care will do it. But if someone wants to program an emulator to bring up info when it loads a certain file, that would be sweet.

The playing of emulated games doesn't need to be linked to any history. That would be a total mess. People still have the capability to research things themselves, not everything needs to be hyperlinked for lazy people. And why bother when no one has created the definitive history as of yet? I call dibs on the Tribute to Mythicon!

It was also made for the 5200, Intellivision and Colecovision. Even though Scramble was the predecessor, I always found it to be the better game. SC throws so much extra crap in there that it's too messy and not as fun.

Are you thinking one big wiki or multiple ones. I think it would be best to tackle each segment of the history separately then put it together at the end. Like I could volunteer to write the story of Activision for example, then the kids can pick it apart and think of things to add or subtract until we get something everyone likes. Meanwhile someone else writes up some technical info and another person writes about release dates. Quite a job, but we'd probably have fun doing it.

Forgetting about original designs, what about games that aren't otherwise available on a console (i.e. Rip-Off) There's a huge array of arcade classics that never made it home.

A suggestion for us insane historical types to ponder, nothing to necessarily jump on right away. . . Suppose there was one more forum around here, dedicated to creating THE history book. Volunteers could take on the task of writing just a small section to start each post. Then the others could look it over and analyze and find backup/contradicting info. By the end of the discussion, we'd have the most accurate section possible. Then go on to a new topic to analyze. As it all adds up over a couple years, we'd be developing the best video game history ever assembled. The final versions could then be compiled into the big book. There's also be opportunities to re-visit old topics if new info should arise. The result would be available online for everyone, perhaps print a book as well with the profits going to some valuable cause since there would be no one author to claim the money. It would have to totally be like a public works project. Food for thought.

I hope no one thought I was getting down on certain games. Everything is great and worth doing and I admire the people who are capable of making so much as a pong game for the 2600. It's just a thought I had that exclusive games like Rip-Off and Colony 7 will have an extra bit of value and importance for ME personally due to my individual outlook on classic gaming. I also have to admit that I don't get how a classic gamer doesn't have a Colecovision sitting around somewhere but so be it. Thanks for the perspective, kids.

True, the info has to be collected somewhere. Websites are the books of the future so that'll do for now but it's not the end of the line. Sites like atarimania and atariproto are doing the job of archiving the factual results of all these discussions and investigations, but yes, there eventually needs to be a proper book written. I see it as a mass group project: start with a certain subject such as the technical origins of the 2600. Someone lays down information then the community can debate the facts, add or subtract to the info and make sure it's as accurate as possible. Then set it in stone and move to the next subject. In the end, we'd have the best history book that video gamers have ever seen, something that would need to be kept in every library. It's a hell of a project, but it'll have to happen sometime.

If anyone actually managed to read that entire enourmous screed, congratulations and thank you.

What the hell are we doing with our lives? Are we all just a bunch of overgrown teenagers playing games? Are we all going through some kind of mid-life crisis nostalgia trip? Are we incompetent at modern games so we stick with a one-button joystick? Are we just a bunch of weird geeks wasting our lives? I feel that we're all part of something very important. I'm in the camp that believes video games are a form of art. And as such, it's the only totally new form of art that the human race has seen in centuries. I believe that video games will one day be respected as a true art form and studied/admired in the same way that theatre, writing and such are. Those of us in my age group happend to have grown up during the dawn of this new art form. It's like being there when a human first figured out how to sing. We are around for an important time period in human history, one which could have amazing effects on the future and in fact already has. I believe the PC era needed the video game to drive its success and acceptance. Without Atari, I don't think the Internet would be what it is today. Video games are not only art in and of themselves, they're the doorway to getting people comfortable with computers. So fast forward 500 years when universities have Gaming History classes. We're all setting the foundation for that day right now. Us classic gamers are the ones who are making sure that the birth of this art form gets properly recorded. We're the first historians and it's our responsibility to get the facts straight so that future generations won't have to theorize about how it all began. How cool would it be to truly know what the first song was and who sang it, or how dancing first came about or who painted the first picture. We'll never know for sure because no one was recording such things. But when it comes to the art of video games we have a chance to get the story right. It may seem like no big deal to get the story, considering how young the art form is. But look at how much we don't know. No one was recording history at the time so it's up to those of us who were children to now do the work. And it's not as easy as one might think. AtariAge is, in my view, the single most important element to this goal. There are other forums for sure, but something about the AA crowd seems to get results. Old timers on this board should reflect back a few years and realize how little was really known about the hobby. Then many people somehow flocked to the same board and started to compare notes. It's incredible how much knowledge has been gained from discussions here which led to research which led to answers. AA members such as the Rom Hunter and Tempest focused their own websites on certain parts of the history and have provided invaluable work to preserving and expanding the knowledge of classic gaming. When the subject is discussed 500 years from now, you freaks will all get a mention. There's a lot to get out of this "hobby" such as fun times and nostalgia, but I think the ultimate result of our interests is the valuable preservation of human culture. So why is this board centered around the 2600? Because it's essentially the Gutenburg Bible of the art form. There were predecessors, but the 2600 broke gaming to the mass audience and set the stage for what was to come. As primitive as it looks today, that system had magic. If it had failed, who knows when video gaming might have finally taken off? The study of the 2600 is the core of the study of video games in general. And that's why we should feel good about participating in all this craziness and discussing release dates and all the other topics. In the long run, it will matter.

This is just me thinking out loud. I have no expertise on the matter and my opinion is no more valuable than anyone elses. I just had a couple thoughts on the subject and wondered what the rest of you think. . . When choosing classic games to adapt to the 2600, I've been thinking that some of the efforts, though amazing, don't add much to the classic gaming world. Is there any point to adapting a game that is already easily available to classic gaming fans? Does that add real value to the hobby or could the time/effor be better spent on something that doesn't otherwise exist? To make it really hard on myself, I'll use 2600 Ladybug as an example. The game is amazing, the programmer is a freaking genius. Absolutely brilliant work. On the other hand, what does the hobby gain from it in the long run? Ladybug is already available on two classic machines. The CV version is perfect. So the reward is simply the ability to play a somewhat scaled-down version on the 2600. Now compare that game to his upcoming 2600 Rip-Off. Rip-Off isn't available on any console system or PC as far as I know (Vectrex is its own beast). There aren't even any "rip offs" of Rip-Off that I'm aware of. For most people, this will be their first chance to play any version of the game. My question is: does the hobby benefit more when one breaks new ground and delivers an experience otherwise unavailable? Leaving all technical and creative feats aside, are we better off with a new experience than we are with a game that most of us already own for another, higher-end system? I don't have an answer and am just wondering if anyone has any views or if I'm just being an idiot for wondering these things.

You're using the same switchbox? I've seen CVs get b/w and fuzzy when the switchbox was bad. Silly thought, but a just in case: are both units set to the same channel? I don't remember offhand if the CV has a Ch 3/4 switch but I think it did.

If you read the old Electronic Games review, they make this system look like God's gift to gaming. More proof that they were paid off just as much or even more so than modern gaming "journalists."

Why do the system specs look descent? Is it just bad programming or a bad system uner all those numbers?

I found Route 16 and R2D Tank to be the most playable (I ended up MESSing around with all the available roms). Route 16 should have been a 2600 game, kind of a multi-screen Rally X. The systems seems to be a bad idea all around, poor at just about everyhting it's supposed to do. There's no way it ever could have competed with the CV or 5200, the other new systems of fall 82.

Not even beer can brighten up a Froggo release.

I've been playing through the Aradia library on MESS and its shockingly bad, maybe the worst overall lineup for any system outside of the primitive Channel F. The specs on the system look impressive, so why are the results so bad. The sysyem looks like it should be weaker than the 2600. Compare the games created for both systems by Universal and the 2600 versions will look and play far better (Cat Trax is a wash). And why in hell did so many of their games use the Channel F-style white background? Nasty.