Mezrabad

You're right! I forgot about that. Hmmm, that actually makes it a little disturbing to me when I find 'ol Lex and Lois hanging out in the Subway together. Just what "exactly" happens while they're off screen? I like the cinematic touches, too. For some reason, I also like that the you start the game as Superman, witness the trouble as Kent, save the day as Superman, but then have to change back into Kent and go back to work. There's something almost literary there, too, though I'm probably reading too much into it. Hey, you're right, in fact, she sizzles! I mean, she's probably the first overtly female sprite! Though she isn't the first female in home videogames. Simon Says . . . click here! (EDIT 2021: I have no idea to where that link went back in 2007. I'm guessing it went to Simon Says for the Magnavox Odyssey.) (though if you find the female to be 'hot' you should probably keep it a secret. ) Up, up and away! (Well, that's what I say after the quick change in the phone booth.)

Superman (Atari VCS, 1979) "He turns all of his injuries into strengths, that which does not kill him makes him stronger, he is superman." -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche This isn't really a review, but rather, a highly academic look at the social implications of the Atari VCS game, Superman. Really, if you haven't played it, you'll be completely lost and I recommend you go back to your little emulator or your actual console, if you even have one, and go playexperience this game. What follows, is an extremely erudite discussion of the material and it presumes some familiarity with the selection on the part of the reader. So, go do your homework! C'mon, any writing that starts out with a Nietzsche quote has to be as pretentious as hell, doesn't it? Okay, let me set a more appropriate tone with a different quote: "I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep both Dracula AND Superman away." - Jack Handy [Deep Thoughts] That quote doesn't really represent my feelings about the game, but it sets a better tone. Rather than "review" Superman, I'm going to talk about why it's a special game -- not as special as other games to come, but pretty darn special regardless. To pre-summarize: 1. It has an identifiable character 2. It has a story 3. Multi-screen world 4. Movie Coincidence #1 - It's the first home videogame having a protagonist with an identity that existed outside the videogame in which it appears. Videogames have been offering people the chance to pretend to be something else for about six years (speaking from 1979). One may play games which allow them to be airplane pilots, sky divers, race car drivers, players of professional sports, spaceship pilots, helicopter rescue pilots, generals, submarine commanders, tank commanders . . . the list goes on and on. Since 1972 we've played dozens of different games that either gave us control of a generic vehicle or object with a specific function (flying, shooting, deflecting) or a generic person in a specific occupation (see previous list). Superman was the first time a videogame player could control, and thus, essentially, become a specific identifiable character. Not just any character; a superhero! Not just any superhero; Superman! We get to fly, have super-strength and use x-ray vision the way Superman would use them and certainly not the way we'd all probably like to use them. Particularly the x-ray vision. Forget about any complaints one might have about the gameplay, about the flickering graphics or about the slightly confusing city layout. We're talking about the chance to be Superman in a videogame! The value of this can only be slightly overstated, but not by much. #2 - It's the first home videogame with a story, simple though it may be. (No, Breakout's "story" doesn't count.) The bridge has been destroyed! Lex Luther and his gang are getting away! I must reassemble the bridge and catch the bad guys! Damn helicopter, stop taking my bridge pieces (*grab*shake-shake-shake-shake-shake*)! Beware the Kryptonite Satellites! Beep-beep-beep-BONG! Crap I've lost my powers! Lois!...Lois? Drama, comedy and romance, right there amongst the blocky, blinky sprites. Seriously, well, no, but let me say that Superman is practically literature compared to any home videogame before it. Truth! Justice! Restoration of superpowers (i.e. "potency") through overtly sexual behavior! The American Way! It's all that and a bag of Pop Rocks. #3 - First multi-screen virtual world in a home videogame. This is the first game where you have to know your way around more than one screen and understand how each screen connects to the others. I tried to draw a map of this world recently but in the middle of doing so I remembered my old adage: "There's USUALLY a bigger geek." Indulge me my tangent. It's important to realize, that somewhere out there in the world there's most likely someone who has already done something similar to what you're thinking of doing and posted it on the introntronet. Now, I'm not saying this happens 100% of the time, but when most of us come up with an idea based on popular culture (i.e. something that millions of others have also seen), the probability is close to 1.000 that someone else has done something similar before we even thought of it, and in some cases they've gone an extra mile or so beyond what we'd have been willing to do. For example: Chronogaming. Could I really be the first nutjob to say "hey, I'm going to sit down and play every single home videogame ever released; I'm going to do it in chronological order AND I'm going to write about it in a blog!" ? Okay, maybe I am. Bad example. Anyway, as I started to draw my map of the world of Superman, I realized that surely someone had already done so and had probably done a much better job than I was planning to do. Of course, I was right. Maurice Molyneaux's Supermap of Superman <--Warning! Spoiler! So, as you can see, Superman's world is not limited to one screen. This world is a mosaic, if you will, of multiple screens; a dense tapestry of images woven into the cartridge to become a "real" imagined place that we can navigate in our minds! Um, yeah, that sounded really "gay" (to use an expression from the era EDIT 2021: ouch, I swear I'm not a homophobe, we really said that expression a lot back in the day. Very cringe. Sorry End Edit)) but I'm one of those writers that hates to edit because I'd rather spend a lifetime wincing at what I've written. (and boy I did wince now in 2021) #4 - First home videogame with an apparent connection to a movie. Superman: The Movie was released on my birthday in 1978 (I turned 11, that day). Superman: The Cartridge came out somewhen in 1979. Was it a licensed tie-in to the movie? Well, not this time. Was it pretty good timing on Atari's part? Yah, you betcha. Have I left anything out? Probably, but I've blathered on enough. I'm almost done. Superman for the Atari VCS is the melding of two popular youth pastimes -- comic books and videogames -- for the first time. More importantly, it represents the germ of the start of storytelling using the home videogame medium. Was the game fun? Well, this isn't really a review, this is more of a commentary on what Superman represented as an edifice in the cultural landscape of Videogames (um, yeah), but I will say that it was fun for me. I won't do anything so pedestrian as to actually rate it. Oh, okay, I've given it a cool smiley. Happy now? Personally, I think it's a great game and probably one of my Top 10 favorite Atari VCS games if I were a person to make such a list. I am sad to say that my son didn't really get into it as much as I had hoped he would. However, I was astonished by how quickly he picked up on the whole world map pattern, the subway system shortcuts and how to effectively use the x-ray vision to avoid Krypton Satellites and to find criminals, the bridge pieces and Lois. Smart boy, mine. I'm not sure what we'll play next. We'll try something a little more mundane, Bowling, perhaps? 7752

Y'know, the auction said he wouldn't take PayPal but the invoice they sent listed a PayPal address so that's what I used . . . that combined with mcgrail's assessment continues to make me a little nervous.

Listing has been removed and is no longer available??? I bought one of these, why would ebay have taken it down? Since you guys have heard of this person can you vouch for him? EDIT Okay, I went to 8bitdomain. I'm no longer worried about the seller now, seems pretty legit. Regardless, I hope he sends them out soon. Anyone know why ebay would have ended this auction the way they did? Is it a problem to sell multicarts with old games on them anymore?

LOL, thanks for the link, I got a good chuckle out of it. Looks like that video was made in 1981 which means you could be absolutely right! I had know idea what you meant (other than the cowboy theme) until that tumbleweed ticked him off and he shot it. Is Cydonia a reference to something connected to Mars? Like the location on Mars where the geological features create the illusion of a human face?

Absolutely! The design is unique, as far as I know, and the lack of flicker with all those moving objects is something I've yet to see on the VCS. I've always thought of this system as one that flopped, but the more I see it, the more I realize that there are many enjoyable games on here that aren't immediately made apparent via screenshots and game titles. I was shocked to have enjoyed War of Nerves as much as my son and I did. The same can be said for others; Cosmic Conflict, Computer Golf, Baseball, Blackjack, Bowling, Hockey and Showdown in 2100 A.D. all impressed and suprised me. Perhaps part of this is due to my lowered expectations based on the titles and screenshots as perceived by my eyes spoilt by modern games, as well not having seen the O2 games back in the day. I only knew one friend who had an Odyssey^2, and I never even saw it hooked up!

Ah! Nine in the center and the rest is obvious. I wasn't thinking outside the box. Actually I was thinking at the bottom of the box when I should've been thinking in the middle of it . Thanks for the link to that thread Christophero! I have no doubt I'll enjoy Superman (I used to enjoy it back in the day), I'm hoping I can present it to my kids in a way that they will enjoy it, too. Supercat, as always, thanks for your insights as well. I covet your ability to explain things so clearly!

Casino (Atari VCS, 1979) All right, this is another game which makes it possible to play Blackjack on the Atari VCS. I approached this cart with some pretty low expectations. I have a very hard time getting into Blackjack games on videogame consoles, though I do remember enjoying Odyssey^2's Blackjack game well enough -- must've been the keyboard. So, I check out the directions (thanks Atari Age!) and find out that it supports up to four players! Well, we only had three players after I conscripted my son (9) and daughter (5) into service. The two-player version of BJ supports splitting and doubling on appropriate hands, which is cool, but there's no room on the screen for splitting in the four-player version. The difficulty switches are implemented well. One difficulty switch makes the game more luck-dependent by forcing a shuffle every hand (makes card counting useless). The other switch changes the rules between Casino I rules and Casino II rules (are these real rules or just what Atari calls 'em?) These rules change at what total the dealer will stand and add the ability to win a hand if you take three or eight hits without busting. That's a pretty weird rule change. I've always thought "five hits and no bust" to be a win. On the four-player game you win your hand if you don't bust with only three hits, but on two-player, the card maximum is eight. We never saw anyone get eight cards without busting. Stud Poker is a lot like Blackjack. Each player (and the dealer) is dealt two cards. You evaluate the potential of your hand and place a bet or fold. Everyone gets another card and bets again. When everyone has five cards everyone's hand is compared to the dealer's and if a player's hand beats it, they win their bet. The betting seems odd to me, but I'm not familiar with regular poker to know if it is odd or not. As each card is dealt and the betting starts, a bet must exceed the maximum bet from the previous round of betting. It's fun for Stud Poker, but as in most electronic games of chance, I feel as though winning any points is more up to the luck of the draw than any skill. Speaking of luck, I'm lucky that I had to play this cartridge, because otherwise, I might not have ever played Poker Solitaire. Poker Solitaire, the last game in this Casino, is quite an addictive game. You draw 25 cards one at a time and have to build the best poker hands by laying them out in a 5x5 grid. You're awarded points based on the poker hands you manage to build in the five rows, five columns and two diagonals. According to the directions, the highest possible score would be 3,340 points and would involve 4 Royal Straight Flushes, 5 Four-of-a-Kinds, 2 Straights and 1 Straight Flush. I haven't quite worked out what that would look like, I've got a long time before I get close to a "perfect game"as my high score is currently 820. I haven't worked out any strategy for this game, yet, but certainly some moves are better than others. However, if the cards aren't there, they simply aren't there. More often than not my score is a dismal 400 or less. One piece of advice playing this game: don't judge it if you play the version found in Atari Anthology; the control scheme (no paddle) is infuriating. Trying to tap a d-pad to get the cursor to go one space to the left or right (and not two or more) is annoying. Just thought I'd mention it. Overall, this is a good cart and a big improvement over the 1st generation Atari Blackjack cart. The Blackjack and Stud Poker games are fun if you've got more than one player and Poker Solitaire is really addictive. If you've got a real set of cards and some poker chips, I'm pretty sure that most folks would have a better time playing the card games sitting around a table instead of in front of the TV. However, Casino isn't a bad bet bad way to kill some time, for a few hands anyway. I get to play Superman next! I'm very excited about it and looking forward to seeing how my kids enjoy it.7485

Human Cannonball aka Cannonball Man (Atari VCS, 1979) You're given a cannon, a crazy fool inside the cannon and a water tower, which we affectionately refer to as "the bucket". There are three variables: speed, cannon angle and distance from the cannon to the water tower. In the first game, a speed is randomly generated, representing the speed at which the Cannonball Man will be shot from the cannon. You must try to select the cannon's angle which will allow Projectile Man to land in "the bucket". The bucket is maneuverable, which we actually did not know at first. Let me tell you, the first game isn't too hard without knowledge that the bucket can move, but with that knowledge it becomes much easier. The directions for these old games continue to have useful information and we need to remember to read them. Your game objective is to get Mr. Ballistic into the bucket seven times before you turn him into circus pizza seven times. There are eight game variations, each with a one and two player version. The game variations increase the difficulty. Game 1 is as I described, given the speed of Mortar Man and a fixed position cannon, select the angle of expulsion. Game 2 pretty much the same as game 1, but the cannon is further away from the bucket. Game 3 gives you a random cannon location and you must choose the angle and speed. Game 4 lets you choose the position of the cannon, but the angle and speed are randomly generated. Game's 5 through 8 are pretty much the same as games 1 through 4 except for two very important differences. First difference: the water tower is no longer movable -- there's no fudging your numbers; you either get the variables right or your man is a greasy spot on the midway. Second difference: the other twist adds a "window" through which your little ballistic friend must travel. The window is a gap in a barrier which continuously moves down the screen between your cannon and the bucket. If you don't time your shot just right, Missile Dude hits the barrier and becomes cannon fodder, um, of a sort. This is another game that, like Sky Diver, awards a consolation prize for failure. When your flying fool misses the tower completely or hits it from the side he will subsequently hit the ground with a nice splat sound. The word "Ouch" appears over his formerly ballistic body. The pre-window games are fun enough. The challenge is mostly just recalling what speed and angle combination work best at what distances. A well-considered guess can feel pretty good when you pull it off. If the repetitive gameplay doesn't scare you off, it is possible to get pretty proficient at the first four games. Just try to remember the distance, speed and angle combinations and be ready to move that water tower when needed. The "window" games are harder and a bit frustrating. If you bother to get good at the first four games, so that you know the angles, distance and speeds very well, then you may be able to do well enough at the window games so that they are challenging and not frustrating. The problem I have with the gameplay is that it is fun, but only up to a certain point; that point being when it starts getting too damn hard. There's nothing about the game that keeps us coming back for the real challenge (frustration) of the window levels other than the continuous abuse/death of a humanlike figure, which doesn't have as much draw for us as one might think. What's difficult to tell is whether or not we would've gotten "into" this game back in the day, when games were expensive and purchases were few and far between. If this were the only Atari VCS game we owned, I think we would've enjoyed it to the point where we might have tried to get good at the harder levels. Since we now have access to way too many games, it just isn't a good enough thrill on which to blow a lot of time and effort. We'd much rather play Sky Diver than Human Cannonball. I don't know what game is next; probably Casino. 7352

Ouch! I like this answer because it can also have a "landing in hell" connotation. You may be right about that, as that was the answer my wife also gave. The "correct" answer (meaning the one you would have chosen if you had been reading my mind) is: A: His knees or B: Her knees, depending on one's presumption of gender. In this case it was a "his". This joke was being told locally in Fall of 1983 right after beloved Philadelphia weatherman Jim O'Brien was tragically killed during a skydive. The story says it was while he was trying to help another sky diver with their failing chute. Most of us chuckled at this joke, but none of us had laughed when we'd heard the news. To anyone growing up in Philadelphia in the late 70s early 1980s, Jim O'Brien's death hit southeastern Pennsylvania like Steve Irwin's death recently hit the world. Jim O'Brien Tribute Page Sorry, didn't mean to get grim, but I can't think of "skydiving" without thinking of Jim O'Brien's death. Kinda like what people will associate with "stingray" for the next few years.

Cool! Hey, this game is on the RCA Studio II! It was one of the few on the system that I actually enjoyed. Your port is much better.

PM Sent for GBA Bundle

Sky Diver (Atari VCS, 1979) aka Dare Diver "If at first you don't succeed, forget sky diving." One or two players each control a sky diver. Each sky diver starts in a plane going across the top of the screen from opposite directions. Your objective is to get your diver out of the plane and safely landed on a narrow-ish landing pad at the bottom of the screen. There's a wind sock indicating the direction (right or left) and speed (zero, slow, medium or fast) of the wind. Using that information, you carefully time your diver's jump from the plane. Once in free fall you have about a second to open your chute. The longer you wait to open your chute, the higher your score will be for the jump, provided you land on the target landing pad (with your chute open). Each game consists of a series of nine jumps. You lose four points for any failed jump (ie, when your diver becomes a little smear in the dirt.) and you can earn between 1 and 11 for a successful jump. If you land safely but not on your platform you earn zero points. There are five different two player games, though it's also possible to practice with only one player. Games 1 and 2 use stationary target pads with wind; the pads are smaller in game 2. Games 3 and 4 are moving pads with no wind; pads are smaller in game 4. Game 5 is a race to a single target; first player down safely gets points, the other player gets nothing. Sky Diver is a simple game that can be a fun diversion for about 10 to 15 minutes about once a week. Your play time may vary but this game never gets old to us. I'd compare it to the future games found in Wario Ware but I haven't actually played them so it wouldn't be a fair comparison. Basically, each round only lasts about three or four seconds between the planes beginning their flight across the top of the screen to the safe or otherwise landing of your parachutist. The action in-between requires you to think quickly (where's my platform? is the wind blowing? how hard? what direction?). While your diver is falling you have to carefully time the opening of your chute, not just to aim for the maximum amount of points, but to also consider how hard the wind is blowing because it influences your chute once it's open. You can control the left-right motion of your faller after opening the chute, but you'll be fighting the wind if you didn't plan your jump appropriately. In non-wind games, you've got to worry about the moving platform. It's a little trickier, but not impossible. What we enjoy about this game is that if you fail to open your chute you are rewarded with a nice "splat" sound and your diver makes a little pixel puddle in the dirt. It's funny enough for a chuckle and then you're back in the plane, ready to try again. I don't think either of us have ever scored a "perfect jump" of 11 points, but every other week or so we give it our best shot. So, while this isn't a game we can play for hours and it isn't a game we could play every day, it is a game that we enjoy the hell out of it whenever we do play it. BONUS! reader participation riddle (answer in comments) Q: When their parachute fails to open, what's the last thing to go through a sky diver's mind? Next entry we'll do another thrill seeker sim: Human Cannonball. 7210

Hockey! / Soccer! (Odyssey^2, 1979) / 7160 Okay, I made a mistake. I think I said that I was going to talk about Hockey! / Soccer! after my first Odyssey1979 entry and I didn't and then I forgot about it. Sorry about that. Let's start with Soccer! This title isn't deserving of its exclaimation point. The action is a little slow and a little awkward. The soccer ball doesn't go very far when we kick it, even when using the action button. You can only control the keeper plus one soccer player at the same time. While you're controlling the one player, the other players stumble around like the robots in War of Nerves!. The way to play this game is close to how one might play real soccer in that it's better to pass the ball than to try to run it down the field with a single player. Regardless of the control management scheme, however, Soccer! just plain feels slow. Now, I know I was just complaining about Thunderball! being too fast but there's a happy medium on this system and I'm certain I'll find it. Hockey! is a lot closer to that happy medium. Maybe the players on the ice move faster, or maybe passing seems to be handled a little better, but whatever the reason, both my son and I had a much better time playing Hockey! than Soccer!. Soccer! consists of two five-minute halves, while Hockey! consists of three five-minute periods. Amazingly, Soccer! feels like it takes longer to play than Hockey! does. It is nice to play these games with participants in the shape of human beings instead of paddles. Off the top of my head, I can only come up with previous versions of Hockey on the Magnavox Odyssey and the Fairchild Channel F. I can't come up with any previous iterations of Soccer released in the US. So, what we have here are the best versions Hockey or Soccer to be found on any home system in 1979. Next entry will be Sky Diver for the Atari VCS. I mean it this time.

Thunderball! (Odyssey^2, 1979) Thunderball! is a video pinball game in the tradition of APF Pinball (1978) or Atari Video Pinball (1977). However, what served as flippers in those games was really just a barrier which you could turn on and off to prevent the ball from exiting the bottom (or sides) of the screen. In Thunderball! we are given what actually could pass for flippers and it goes a long way towards giving this attempt at pinball a much more authentic flavor. I will describe the play of this game as fast paced. The ball moves very smoothly and exactly as one might expect, if one expected the playing field to be tilted towards the player at a 45 degree angle. If I were a talented pinball player, or even a talented videogame player, I would say that the fast pace is a lot of fun. However, my talent, being what it is, merely leads me to feel that anything that happens in this game while I'm playing it is due to luck, because my overall feeling is a complete lack of control. This feeling most likely goes away after one develops some proficiency at Thunderball! but neither my son nor I seem able to keep a ball in play long enough to get better at keeping the ball in play. I would need to spend much more time getting better at this game than the actual amount of time I have or care to spend on it. I don't consider this the fault of the game. One of the problems with these whirlwind chronological tours of gaming is that some games may require more time for which to develop a taste than I'm willing to invest. Maybe I could get better at a particular game with some practice, but when gameplay initially seems to depend completely on luck, there's just no incentive for me to explore it further. I'm the same way with Pachinko or slot machines in the real world. I'm not saying that Thunderball! depends on luck, I'm saying that it depends on a type of playing skill or an understanding that I currently do not posess, so, to me, it seems like luck. Anyway, if you like pinball, give this a shot, it is certainly the best pinball game we've seen yet. Here's a movie of it in action. Thunderball! (3.68 MB) (Dead link.) 7136 Okay, that finishes up the Odyssey^2 for 1979. Yes, I still need to write more about Computer Intro, but I'm not done with it yet, so I'll talk about it later. Instead, we'll start working on the Atari VCS and Sky Diver.

Dry socket? If the socket your removed tooth left didn't heal correctly you could have what I think is called "dry socket". Not sure, doing this without going to google, anyway, you may want to call your dental surgeon and ask if the pain you are feeling is pain you're supposed to be feeling.

I think I see what you mean . . . to play the old games you really had to participate in the adventure, where now you pretty much just wander around fighting random battles, defeating a boss and sitting through the next cut scene to watch the story advance. I don't think that's true for all the games coming out, but certainly true most of the time. System Shock and Deus Ex are two of my all time favorites FP-RPGs. In fact, I just got Deus Ex for the PS2. I haven't played it on there yet. I wonder how it stands as a port of a PC game. Oh, and Shadow640, you haven't got any competition from me yet. I still can't beat my recent high.

Showdown in 2100 A.D. (Odyssey^2, 1979) Takes the old idea of a duel between gunfighters and gives it a "futuristic" setting, the 22nd Century!!! The cowboys are animated in a similar manner to the main characters in I've Got Your Number and War of Nerves, but of course, these guys have hats. The "trees" are a way of replenishing one's ammunition. Just touch a tree that's the same color as you are and you get more bullets. Running out of ammo seems to be a standard feature in a cowboy themed gun duel game, but the ability to reload is new and I found it to be a nice touch. The trees also serve as pinball bumpers. If you shoot one you may set up a wild series of ricochets that could kill you or your opponent. This feature gave my children a lot of giggles as each would find it absolutely hilarious when the other shot themselves with a ricochet bullet. Looking at the other gun duel games available at the time there's Gunfight on the Bally Professional Arcade and Outlaw on the Atari VCS. Gunfight's design on the Bally Professional Arcade beats out Showdown in 2100 A.D. due to a few factors, one being the ability to control the angle of the shot and another being the better graphics and sound. Gunfight may be a better design, but we had many more laughs while playing Showdown. Outlaw on the Atari VCS, like so many games on the VCS, has a great deal of variations and that alone gives it more replay value than Showdown. Outlaw also has destructible environments which add a lot of fun. Yet, again, we laughed a lot harder playing Showdown. At first glance, on pure technical merit, I'd rank the Gun duel games on the three systems that had them as: #1 Gunfight, #2 Outlaw and #3 Showdown. (Oh, and I almost forgot about Gunfighter for the RCA Studio II which I'll rank fifth out of four.) On the other hand, Showdown in 2100 A.D. has something that neither of the other games have and that's a single player mode with a computer controlled opponent. In fact, it even has a zero-player mode. If you start a game and leave the controllers alone, both gunslingers will become computer controlled and will shoot it out. It can be fun to watch, especially due to the ricochet gameplay. The single player opponent isn't much of a challenge, but the fact that it exists give major points in my book to the Odyssey^2's version. If I were shoveling out original retail price cash for any of the three*, I'd say that Outlaw for the Atari gives two-players the most for their money. However, considering Showdown's single player mode and the fact that we laughed most and hardest while playing the two-player game, I'm going to say that Showdown is our favorite gun duel game from the era. If it were 1979 and we had to choose a gun duel game that we could only play for 15 minutes, I wouldn't hesitate to slap Showdown in before the others. I've got some movies of the action in Showdown. You may also want to check out the I've Got Your Number entry for gameplay movies I added. (See the link at its earlier mention.) Blue Shoots Red! (1.22 MB) Blue gets the drop on Red. Riccochet Shot! (1.65 MB) Red gets pulled back by some trees and then Blue pulls the 'ol ricochet shot on him. Red's Revenge (1.91 MB) Red, entirely fed up with blue, demonstrates an interesting morphing of Blue's corpse while repeatedly shooting it into a pile of mush. (ALL DEAD LINKS REMOVED. I AM FULLY AWARE OF MY MANY FAULTS.) *Ignore, for the moment, the fact that Gunfight was a built-in game for the Bally Professional Arcade.

Okay, my ideal INTV product: sell me a pair of the original controllers with a box that uses, effectively, the same hardware as the original console. The box will take some form of media and will allow me to play any INTV ROM that I can find on the internet. It should let me load all of the ROMs onto it at once so I can select them from an on-screen menu. Also, it should come with a slot for cartridges because I have enough of those that I wouldn't want them to go to waste. I want it for $10 bucks and in my choice of color. (I like blue) If they come out with anything that isn't as perfect as I require it then all of their futile efforts are just flatulence and a waste of my precious, precious time that I could be using wisely to post in the middle of the night.

Cool, you even drew all the shapes. I agree, having the maps memoriezed (door directions, nooks for items/slots/tests) is the only way to get the higher scores. Anyone else have nicknames for the shapes? I call them one-leg, two-leg, swaztika and mess for levels 3 and 4. Level 5 I call them left-butt, right-butt, worm and stable-stack. Level 1+2 I call them square, circle, zap and clover. It's just how I refer to them as I'm running around and trying to remember where they each are, makes it easier for me to remember. Hey, don't look at me like that, I'm not crazy! I'm not! *twitch* *twitch*

Sorry, I was unclear. I started as talking about "cheating" in Dragonstomper (by mapping the traps) and then jumped to a different topic and used the same term in a different context. I wasn't referring to cheating in MindMaster. I was saying that I was cheating at "chronogaming" (see my blog for the whole ugly truth) by playing MindMaster outside of my intended chronology. Chronogaming is playing a predefined set of games in chronological order (I'm sorry if you know this already). That set can be "all the games from year X to year Y released for system Z" (example: All SNES games released from 1993 to 1995) or it can be "all the games in series N" (example: playing every title in the Ultima series by order of release date). So, anyway, I'm chronogaming every game I can find or, if necessary, emulate, that was ever released in the US for a home videogame system. I started in 1972 with the (original) Odyssey and I'm up to games released for the Odyssey^2 in 1979. So, by playing Mindmaster ahead of time in my chronology, I'm kinda-sorta cheating. (This isn't the first time I've done so. I had to jump ahead a little bit while I was playing RCA Studio II games, just to remind myself that there was still good in the world.) Other than the reset/continue trick (which is only good way to cheat if you want to practice the later levels) there's nothing I would consider cheating in MindMaster as in my mind this is a series of mazes which the in-game character is forced to endure countless times. So, I consider maps "okay", especially of the last level (and I need to make one soon, if I'm going to make it up to 600+ again.)

In 1990, my Commodore 64 and it's 1541 disk drive was stolen along with my microwave. Theft sucks, not just for loosing stuff, but for that "my space was violated" aftertaste that takes a while to fade.

What was the significance of the "nice picture" and "bluetooth connection established?" was it a hacker reference or do you just have a picture on your cellphone that says "bluetooth connection established" but your cell phone doesn't have bluetooth? Thanks for sharing Mitnick's visit. Very cool.

I heard an interview on retrogaming radio with one of the INTV guys and he offered an acceptable (to me, anyway) rationalization for NOACs and Intellivision games. He said something to the effect of: imagine if there had been no crash prior to the NES coming out. They would've been porting games to the NES just like they'd been porting them to the 2600. So, when you're playing a NOAC, think of it as playing the Nintendo ports of Intellivision games! Anyway, that's what he said. IntvOAC would rock.

Back in the day, I only had borrowed my friends Supercharger for one weekend and played a lot of MindMaster and Dragonstomper. I was able to beat MindMaster fairly often, but Dragonstomper . . . once. I did it by killing the dragon. I was a firm believer, and still am, in not mapping the cave, (my character hasn't got a map, so I shouldn't make one) so it took many times and by the time I'd done it once, it was time to return the borrowed merchandise. I haven't played it more than a couple of times since then. I've been trying to play the games from that era in chronological order and I try not to cheat too much (as I have recently with MindMaster) so I'm "saving" Dragonstomper for when I get to it.