Skylark68

Sears 6 switch. My first machine was a 4 switch woody, bought new at Gemco. However, we'd always go to Sears as a child, and most of my original stock of games were Sears. I think Gemco must have had the Ataris on sale, because otherwise my Dad bought just about everything at Sears. The 6 switch Sears just oozes nostalgia for me.

Interesting. I didn't know what the story was behind all of these Venezuelan games. I immediately thought "scam." Glad that is not the case. P.S. (are these NTSC?)

Wow, I didn't realize that Atari was still making Black Jack in 1986. I have a picture label Flag Capture and it is from the same time period (Instruction have a black and white image on the cover). I imagine the box was black and white too, but I don't remember.

Definitely this one!

It's funny, but the games I enjoy playing the most are the ones that I bought when they were first released (and I was a young kid with a huge imagination). I think a large part of that has to do with the fact that I did see the original artwork with the cart. The instruction manuals lent a great deal to the total gameplay experience as well. I doubt that Adventure would be the immersive experience it is without the background story. Likewise, Haunted House would have lost a little something without the story behind it. As far as the box artwork, I always thought that Air Sea Battle was awesome because you were using anti aircraft cannons (or submarines) to blow up some third rate air force that was using B17 Flying Fortresses in addition to first line jet fighters and B52 bombers. Likewise, in Canyon Bomber you're using some old B25 Mitchells to blow away some poor helpless submarine that is angled out.

Just curious. I love both of those games. Out of all the PS1 titles, those are the 2 that I still break out and play through again and again. The storyline, environment, and attention to detail (for a PS1 title) are amazing. Anyone else have some love for those titles?

I remember wondering when that Lord of the Rings game was going to come out. In those pre-internet days I just figured none of the stores in our area was carrying it.

I remember this ad in my old comic books. I had Turbo, but that was a MB game I think. I guess Parker Bros. got Pole Position. I remember the games in the store, but I don't remember ever seeing Joust.

I had most of the Steve Perry Journey albums when I was kid. I always liked Frontiers the best of all their albums. Any Way You Want It from Departure was a good song too. I always thought that the songs from Escape were overplayed. The game was pretty good though. It was a bargain bin title during the crash that I picked up (as were most of my games).

I try to find and read antique books on occasion, and I have to be the only one reading a certain book at that particular instant. I'm sure I'm in the same boat when I break out certain games, although I'm sure one of you guys is probably playing Missile Command at the same exact moment.

Some of them actually look doable for the VCS. Lost looks more like a late '80s PC release though.

Hah that's great. Speaking of old tv's, I remember on ours it had some major brightness control to the point where you could make the background 100% BLACK in games like Space War and thus get rid of the stupid green background. I would then jack up the color and the ships, shot and 'sun' would literally be flourescent againsts the black. Shots would start to have tracers too. It was great Can't seem to do that on today's tv's though. The brightness just seems to lower the the glare of the entire screen.. including the ships. And you can never even really get the background pitch black I remember doing this on our old Zenith back in the early '80s. I'd change the color on Pac Man and make the playing field this awesome purplish color. Pac Man himself would turn a funky orange color. On my old tel star that I had, I'd pump the brightness up and turn the contrast down so much that the puck or ball (whatever you want to call it) and the paddles would be so white that I'm sure it would have burned the screen if I left it on too long.

And then you had the issue where the titles were so simple that someone at Sears had to go gonzo on renaming them for the Telegames line.... Hangman became Spelling Surround became Chase Human Cannonball became Cannon Man Sky Diver became Dare Diver I mean, seriously, who ever calls skydiving, darediving?

I never have any luck with Craigslist (at least video game wise). At $1000, this is a bargain. Here in the Houston area I only see Ataris made in the original creator's garage go for at least $1500.

This kind of stuff is fascinating. The form letter is interesting in itself. I guess they sold all sorts of things (probably pirated). The font looks like something that an American company in the late '50s or early '60s would have utilized (I'm a bit of a font nerd).

Sort of off topic: When did Defender go out of production as far as NTSC was concerned? Was it one of the titles that was sold late in the 2600's life? I just can't remember. I bought my copy during the crash.

So who didn't have (or knew who had) a couch (see last 2600 photo) like that? I know that at least 2 of my uncles had the exact same couch. We had one similar but with a different plaid pattern. I remember it sat real low to the ground (your knees were always up a little from the rest of your body). The guy on the right in the first picture is wearing the ultimate in interior camoflague at least for that house.

I always got a kick out of the Apollo 19's artwork. The subgame "Mars' Pogrom" sounds like some kind of intersteller genocide. I'm not sure if it would be much fun of a game.

It is if you play the Sears version as it is named "Spelling."

When I was a kid I did. I was a map nerd (even back then) and named them all after large cities in Texas: From left: El Paso, San Antonio, Austin, Ft. Worth, Dallas, and Houston.

This may be common knowledge, but why does Maze Craze have the flashing lights/colors before each stage? It totally trips me out.

My roommate in college bought a PS1 around '96 and we played a ton of games when we should have been doing home work. We rented them quite often at 49 and more video store and Blockbuster. We only bought a few games because we were poor college students. The ones that we played constantly were Twisted Metal 1 - 3 (2 was the best by far), Medal of Honor (It's always fun running around killing Nazis as Winston Churchill on multiplayer), and Army Men. We hooked up a poor boys surround system (some '70s era Polk speakers and a cheap Kenwood surround receiver) and blasted out our town house. Neighbors constantly complained which made it even more fun. I remember playing Army Men and if you ran over the opponent in a tank and kept backing up over the body the scream of the dead player would just keep going on and on which sounded hilarious through the surround system. I think we regularly stayed up until 3 or 4 in the morning playing that one.

The O2 is an excellent system. My neighbor had one when I was a kid in the early '80s while I had a VCS. Attack of the Timelord was one of our favorites as well as UFO, Quest for the Rings (my neighbor usually DM'd <he was older> while my brother and I would be the players) and Conquest of the World. I bought one about 10 years ago and it's still a really fun system although percentage wise a lot of the games are pretty lackluster (especially the sports titles). There are some real gems though. I bought the multicart a few years ago. It works great and it's neat to try out the games that were released overseas. The one overseas release that I really get a kick out of that seems to be universally panned is Nightmare. It's a strange game but once you figure it out it's pretty addicting.

I know some folks don't care for M Network games, but they had some top notch programmers. Most of their games are on my favorites list.

I take it for what it is and it's a pretty decent game. Defender was pretty good too, but IMO the best port that Atari made for its system is Missile Command with Asteroids being a close 2nd. Berzerk is an excellent port but it was never one of my favorite games. Centipede is decent as well, but again, not one of my favorites.