Skylark68

I’ve never played the home brew game but I like your list. I did have fun playing space jockey when I was a kid. I always thought it was fairly unique that you could lay waste to some aggressive defenders like the jet and prop plane but could also destroy a couple celebrating their wedding in a romantic hot air balloon, blow up the environment by gunning down trees and laying waste to some poor soul and his family in his little red bricked home. Just a joke of course but that is a unique aspect of the game for the era.

Really interesting reading. Funny that Starship is called by two names in the first ad. “Space Mission” and then Starship in the description of the game.

Cool stuff shown here. I was an Atari kid, I wish I had a picture of it handy, but my mom ordered me a silver Atari jacket back around 1982 or so. I wore that thing all the time but then it was stolen from me in 1st grade or so from the jacket rack in my classroom. I had a Missile Command and Centipede shirt too back around the same time period.

I felt pretty good about my $.99 buy of Space Cavern right after the crash. Those bins were great at Circus World and Kay Bee Toys!

I always enjoyed both on the 2600, never had a 5200 so can't comment. I always liked the "Breakthru" variation on Breakout. I think that is the one where your ball continues through the wall instead of bouncing back to your paddle.

It's not that hard of a game to find, but out of my original collection that I've had since childhood the only that completely quit working was Pitfall II. Still haven't replaced it.

I have to second Dark Cavern (one of my all time favorites), Turmoil, Coconuts, and Solar Storm. All very nice games. I know it's dismissed quite a bit, but Word Zapper is a lot of fun. The advanced level variation (letter combinations but not words) with difficulty levels set to A can be pretty challenging. Of course I also liked Sneak N Peak so your mileage may vary.

Combat was a favorite. I was so good at the biplanes that I would beat my brother regularly even using the 3 against 1 (big biplane, aka the Gotha bomber - I was an aviation nut even as a kid). I also enjoyed the twin jet fighters variation. Both players had twins. That was pretty fun. I really can't remember any others right off hand. Adventure game number 3 was always cool though. Both difficulty switches set to A. Made it pretty challenging even for an experienced player.

Yeah there were still plenty of new Atari 2600 games floating around in the early 1990's at local toy stores. I remember seeing Xenophobe but not the others. Never bought it though, I didn't think the translation to a home console would be any good. I remember the plethora of black and white boxed Atari games though (re-releases of Breakout, etc.) that had the huge instruction booklets (thick) with multiple languages. I remember buying a few Imagic titles that were the blue label Activision style cartridges also, as well as the relabled old Coleco branded games like Venture. I mainly still bought the games because I always loved Atari 2600 games even though I had an Apple IIGS (and slightly later a PC) as well as an Atari Lynx. It was a cool time to buy those games because they were dirt cheap and come to find out had interesting label variations.

I had Planet Patrol and Gangster Alley. Both were pretty fun games. Planet Patrol was kind of unique for having a "boss" and a rescue/refueling mission, plus night waves. The collision detection wasn't the greatest, and I lost some ships due to my wings apparently hitting a torpedo or drone (on difficult "A" the player's ship's wings extend further). I think they produced some good games.

I'm torn, I gravitate towards both Atari and Sears sixers. I like the woodgrain on the Sears but like the font on the Atari sixers.

Should have it tonight by the time I get home from evening classes. Something to look forward to after a long day...

I think the only release I have with the black and white instruction manual is a blue label Demon Attack. I think this was after Activision took control of Imagic's games.

Ewwwww....

I've had a II GS since it first came out. Neat computer, but interestingly most of the games I enjoy(ed) playing were the older Apple II games like Wings of Fury, GI Joe, Lode Runner, most of the Infocom games... I had Silpheed and Thexder which were fun but I could never even beat the 2nd stage of the Last Ninja. Really tough!

I have that yellow Breakout with the joystick controller information. Pretty funny stuff. It came with the multi-language instructions in black and white. I remember asking the French teacher in school what the directions said in French and she said "the same thing that it says in English" right here. She wasn't the nicest teacher...

We picked up Pac-Man sometime right after its release at Gemco. I really wanted Warlords but Dad and Mom wanted Pac-Man. They won out. It worked out okay as not too long later I managed to talk my Dad into getting me Adventure at K-Mart. I actually never got Warlords until post crash when I found it at a garage sale. I don't think I have any photos of me getting Atari games or playing them, but my Dad recorded my brother and I playing Air-Sea Battle with his Hi8 videocamera at some point in time (i'm guessing late '80s well after all my friends had NES).

Sorry, a little belated, but pre-ordered! I've been waiting for something like this since I was a kid.

My parents picked this one up for me pre-crash. I don't know why they did, as I had seen the film with my grandmother but wasn't particularly enthusiastic about it. Guess all parents just think whatever the current children's fad is, their kid will enjoy it. I actually enjoyed the game though, I thought it was challenging and fun. I didn't mind the random falling into the wells when you changed screens. I thought it was part of the challenge but it wasn't any worse than some of those challenges in Swordquest Earthworld (I won't talk about the ones in Fireworld). Even as a really young kid the game wasn't impossible to beat which was neat and rare for an Atari game (since most were just points based). I do have to admit though that I really enjoyed Raiders of the Lost Ark much more which I received around the same time period.

I dig these Sears threads. Sears was THE store back in the day. Most of my original games came from Sears although funny enough our first VCS was an Atari branded one. Dad saw that Gemco had an awesome sale one weekend and so off we went and he had it hooked up to our Zenith portable (portable in that it sat on a table instead of being a huge console TV) that same day... We usually shopped at Sears. There was one on Southmore in Pasadena, TX that we shopped at all the time. It was a 2 story standalone building built in the late '50s I believe when that part of the Houston area was booming. By the late 1970's/early 1980's it was still a pretty nice part of town economically speaking. The Sears was really nice, the middle of the building had a huge snack bar with popcorn, submarine sandwiches, candy, and soft drinks/ICEE's. There was a small arcade area near one of the entrances that had a few games. The toy section was near the automotive/tool section of the store. My Dad would drop my brother and I off in the toy section while he looked at tools. Mom would usually be upstairs looking at housewares or clothes. At the time they had one of those Sears Telegame cabinets set up so you could play a lot of the games. It was pretty easy to tell which games were clones even though they had different names than their Atari counterparts, so we never double bought any games. I do remember that there was also a Sears Surplus store off of I-45 South. That was a Sears store that sold scratch/dent applicances, last season clothes, and other stock that was just being closed out. When the crash hit, we got a bunch of games there. I think a lot of them were only $.99 sometimes. Remember that during those days, Sears had enough clout to even have their own GI Joe exclusives (like a Cobra version of the Mobat tank). Even camping gear made by Coleman had a Sears logo on it back then. Up until fairly recently, my Dad would only buy Craftsman tools. They were made in USA and had a lifetime warranty. Now they are made in China and there isn't much reason to spend the extra cash when you can buy the same thing just about at Harbor Freight.

The boxes I have are all pristine, no issues. The previous and original owner was meticulous in caring for his stuff though. I even still have all the receipts from the local Magnavox store (a few were bought at Sears) that he bought them from.

The KC games are fun. Killer Bees and Turtles are excellent. Very hard to find and one of the few expensive games for the system is Atlantis. It's a good port. Same with Demon Attack. My favorite games for the system though are Conquest of the World and Quest for the Rings. Only if you have friends to play with though. Conquest is fun if you like Risk (the boardgame). It actually takes out the chance factor of that boardgame and replaces it with skill. The one weakness is the subs are a little too powerful compared to the tanks and the jets. I do suggest buying the multicart. It's a cheap and efficient way to get almost the entire collection of games. Reliability wise the Odyssey 2 I have has been bulletproof. Far more reliable than even my VCS (the actual VCS has been fine, but the games are more prone to not work, and the peripherals aren't as good in my opinion). Magnavox built a tough system. While overall I prefer the games for the Atari, the Odyssey is fun. As mentioned above though, the sports games are very dated and not very enjoyable. I wouldn't worry about buying those unless you are striving to collect the full line. I would get the voice module if you can find one too. Games like Smithereens are hilarious with the voice. Out of the pretty large collection of video game stuff that I once had, the only two systems I kept were the VCS and the Odyssey 2.

1. Pitall II 2. River Raid 3. Pitfall 4. Megamania 5. Ice Hockey 6. HERO 7. Keystone Kapers 8. Barnstorming 9. Grand Prix 10. Sky Jinx Does anyone know anyone that bought Bridge originally? As a young kid I had no interest in that whatsoever, but did anyone have some parents that were avid Bridge players that picked this up? Also, how did Activision's Checkers compare with Atari's? I never picked that one up either. I'd have to imagine that unless you were an avid Bridge or Checkers players these would be among the bottom tier of Activision's games.

It's interesting that this was one of the few games that was deleted from the Atari catalog. Most everything else soldiered on throughout the years. I always thought it was decent for the era, but it was eclipsed by the later games.

kb9snl: That just made my day. Awesome commercial. I have that same little set of tools from Sears. Used to have the Sears light sixer.