gavv

Use part of the quote from Rob Fulop that is used as the closing credits to Once upon Atari. one of the more interesting and intriguing thoughts i've seen on what videogames have done gavv

So they really changed the binaries and optimized the code? Maybe they could use some of my disassemblies for that. That reduces the chances of easily adding more (complex) games. I don't know how the method that was used to optimize the individual games, but I don't think the binaries were actually modified. Could just be that the emulator has special hooks for the various games. Regardless, I doubt it would be very easy to replace or augment the binaries in this collection with new games. ..Al similiar things appear done in other 'score/fuel/energy updating after death' scenarios in games like Megamania, HERO, and others. gavv

H.E.R.O. is probably the biggest disappointment that i've played on the package unfortunately. The slowdown causes it to play differently and a lot easier, one of the things about the original that i love is that it's very precise in how you need to control and time things and it's very quick. It seems the tech challenge in handing HERO was higher than just about any of the other games. haven't played it enough yet to see if even though it plays different because of the speed it still retains its fun-level over the long run. (haven't tried KK yet) Kaboom is better than any other emulated version of the game (sans a pc emu with a constructed spinner control maybe ^_^, but the controls though better than the PS2 are still iffy. One definite good thing about the package is that the sounds on pretty much all the games is very spot on. gavv Of course perhaps for Xmas 2004 could say Aspyr start making the PSP version of AA? i could only imagine that could be the ultimate emulation platform ^^

turn off vector luminosity on the vector games, that's noted as to be one of the major hogs on at least those games gavv

um, he was prominently in attendance at CGE2002 and 2003 also during the september and october shows of retrogaming radio feature a 2 part interview with HSW (over 90 min or so of interview) gavv {edit} my mistake, i was still channeling about HSW at the time ^^: gavv

HERO's pretty 'unplayable' on GBA AA, in that it runs slowly(frame skipping and slow pace) that it's so slow that there's not the challenge of the original. Pitfall runs off 48 seconds off its 'clock' in a real-world 60 seconds (20% slower). a bit disappointing.... any of the homebrews (which i haven't played elsewhere) on the cart running slower than 100%? gavv its also not getting too kind of reviews over in the retrogaming radio (www.retrogamingradio.com) forums.

couple notes from the activision guys that are about the same topic Al Miller(cge2002 activision panel): "We never had much respect for the 5200, it wasn't compelling enough hardware, it was just a repackaged 400/800" David Crane(retrogaming radio interview): With Pitfall II they tried an experiment, when doing the 400/800 port (and by extension the 5200), the programmer wanted to take the original working code, changing stuff like input and graphic routines, etc, while the programmer on the C64 wanted to start from scratch and recreate the gameplay. They got done at the exact same time. only difference was that the C64 version had to go through a whole phase of debugging while the 400/800 didn't, and hence they decided to create bonus levels for it since they had the time. gavv

update on misc aspects of the VGAwards show...: --The Chris Jericho vs. Rey Mysterio match was actually taped last night live at the Video Games Awards in Las Vegas, which air Thursday night at 9 p.m. on Spike TV. The WWE segments will be airing after 10 p.m. so as not to compete with Smackdown. The show was at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas with more than 5,000 people there. Al Snow and Jonathan Coachman did the announcing. Jenna Jameson was the ring announcer for both of the matches. The way it was described to me, Jericho and Mysterio put on an okay segment ending with Rey diving on Jericho outside the ring. Trish Stratus and Victoria ran in and immediately pulled off each others' shirts and wrestled in their bras, ending when Stratus pinned Victoria. The crowd liked it. Show itself was said to be overall pretty raunchy with Spade and Funkmaster Flex. (thanks to Tom Blattler) --WWE Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain was awarded the "Best Fighting Game" at the taping.

i dont' think there'll be anything classic about it (other than the eyecatches they've created), heck, they're even going to feature a raw vs smackdown wrestling match during it, so who knows what all's going on...(they're pimping it as the anti-awards show awards show, no acceptance speeches,etc, 'just the winners' or somesuch)... gavv

the way filter works is that *they* come up with a # of games that they put into their web site software (called 'Filterater') in which visitors can vote on them 1 thru 10 (must be registered with site and only allows one vote per category per register), and it averages all the scores....In this 'classic game' filter, they only put up a total of 50 games, here they are.... ==== Game System screen score AD&D INTV 4.7 Adventure 2600 5.6 Air Sea Battle INTV 5.0 Antarctic Adventure Colecovision 4.4 Astrosmash INTV 5.1 Atlantis I multi INTV 5.2 B-17 Bomber INTV 4.6 Bedlam (vec) Vectrex 4.3 Blockade Runner INTV 4.4 Bogey Blaster 2600 4.5 Combat 2600 6.3 Crackpots 2600 4.9 Demon Attack I multi INTV 5.2 Dolphin 2600 4.5 Dragonfire A multi 2600 5.1 Dreadnaught Factor INTV 4.4 Enduro 2600 5.2 Freeway 2600 5.6 Frog Bog INTV 4.6 H.E.R.O. CV multi Coleco 5.4 Kaboom 2600 5.8 Kool Aid Man A multi 2600 4.6 Megamania 2600 5.2 Minestorm (vec) Vectrex 4.6 Miner 2049er CV multi Coleco 5.3 Night Stalker INTV 5.2 Pitfall multi 2600 8.3 Raiders of the Lost Ark2600 6.8 River Raid multi 2600 6.4 Safecracker INTV 4.7 Sea Battle INTV 4.8 Shark Shark INTV 4.5 Sharp Shot INTV 4.1 Spinball (vec) Vectrex 4.5 Spitfire Attack 2600 4.5 Sub Hunt INTV 4.6 Super Challenge FB 2600 5.1 Superman 2600 4.9 Swords & Serpents INTV 5.2 Tank Plus 2600 5.0 The Challenge of Nexar2600 4.0 Thin Ice INTV 3.9 Thunder Castle INTV 5.0 Tournament Tennis Colecovision 4.8 Triple Action INTV 4.7 Tron Deadly Discs INTV 5.4 Tunnel Runner 2600 4.7 Turmoil 2600 4.1 Utopia INTV 5.0 Yar's Revenge 2600 7.1 ====== Now, how they chose those 50 is anyone's guess. For those that were definitely multiplatform (of the main 3 they seemed to favor, CV, 2600, & Intv), i also put up the system of the screenshot they used... another note, the filterater keeps going after they close and air the show, so the show is just a snapshot of what it was at that time, as you see here, the top ten right at the second is now... ----- Game System screen shown score Pitfall multi 2600 8.3 Yar's Revenge 2600 7.1 Raiders of the Lost Ark2600 6.8 River Raid multi 2600 6.4 Combat 2600 6.3 Kaboom 2600 5.8 Adventure 2600 5.6 Freeway 2600 5.6 H.E.R.O. CV multi Coleco 5.4 Tron Deadly Discs INTV 5.4 ---- gavv

he hangs out and contributes on the forum over at www.retrogamingradio.com gavv

Here's a reply from Bill Kunkel (of Electronic Games & collecting notoreity) when i pointed him to the thread...: I must confess I've never seen this piece and it's kind of tacky-looking for an actual Activision item. For an example of a comparable press/distributors/big shots type item from that era go to: http://www.gooddealgames.com/articles/Clas..._Treasures.html There you'll see a piece from my old collection -- a Pitfall jacket from Activision's big CES bash, with both front and back visible. I can make a couple of guesses regarding this item: 1) It was a cheap, quick giveaway produced at the last second and one or two were distributed to retailers along with the shipment of games. The distributor could then pass them along to their best customers or just keep them. 2) It was a piece the retailer did up himself. It has a kind of DIY look to it. I can say pretty much for certain that it was not distributed through the normal promotional channels because I can't imagine how I wouldn't have at least seen it. In the current market, I would put its value (since even Jim Levy says it wasn't an authentic company item) at maybe $10. But remember this type of collectible is still in a very early stage -- up to now, most "collectors" in our area focused on hardware and software rather than the really neat (and much rarer) stuff that the marketing folks gave away. Rather than introduce myself endlessly, this is Bill Kunkel. The Game Doctor name first appeared in the original EG. _________________

companies make promotional items for a reason, they're *promoting* ^^. If the store made it themselves, obviously the idea was to keep you buying future items at said store instead of anywhere else ^^, not to 'make money from it' ^^ gavv

This year, CGE didn't do any official audio recording of the panels/keynotes , does anyone out there have any homemade audio recordings of them this year? ^^ we've got some ok/listenable audio of the bushnell panel, but definitely want to try and find the rest thanks, ^^ gavv the blue sky rangers made a transcript of their panel, at http://www.intellivisionlives.com/media/st...nscript03.shtml

'Hal' is the 'mascot' in the Blue Sky Rangers logo. it's a cartoon character of one of the Managers at Mattel at the time, Gabriel Baum, who had thought the whole BSR moniker/shtick was pretty stupid at the time (it was made up as part of a TV Guide article on the Mattel programmers in 82, as they wanted a group moniker to call the group, as they technically were just 'Application Software' at Mattel Electronics) gavv

it's relatively recent, and from most reports i've seen, other than the look of the hardware package, everything else about how the games are recreated (ie not 'emulated') is very craptacular. gavv actually, i'd like to see a NextGenActAnth with games from 'above 2600 systems' ^_^, with the 8bit stuff too

I know a few things, but it's all really just a jumbled pile of misc. facts and tidbits at the moment. Once I get some more information (I have a source or two), I can start putting together some concrete information (and possibly an article). Tempest the story i heard from the atari guys who were around them (at their cge2002 panel) was that Kassar threatened to sue GCC for their arcade game hacks if they didn't give him controlling interest in their company, and with kassar's 60% interest in GCC, somehow all the prime assignments seemed to go to them. (Battlezone being a good example where two atari guys were assigned it, were a month in, and all of a sudden saw a full version running on an execs desk, it had gone out to GCC months before unbeknownst to the dev teams) gavv

and of course last year's 2600 Timed Deca ^^ gavv

Or better yet, Midwest Classic 2004. midwest needs to be more than a single day before i can justify traveling to it ^^ gavv

Hey guys, i ran across what i thought was possibly an Atari 8-bit cart (absolutely completely devoid of any kind of label or even remnants of labels) at a salvation army store, it kind of looked liked one, so i picked it up. It's completely red, and came across a site that made it sound like it was a Spinnaker game. true enough, i unscrewed the cart to check out the PCB and it does have a 1983 @Spinnaker on the board, the only possibly identifying numbers have come up empty in my narrow searching ^^( don't own a 400/800 or know anyone near that does ^^), two 'serial #' on the chip are COB61064-0346 MEM-AT-R now that 'AT' sequence does look like a number like what spinnaker games have, but 'MEM-AT' on one site seems to list that num as a fisher price game. just curious gavv

And knowing is half the battle! gavv (sorry, tempted too much to not do it )

actually, if it was the same guy upping his own record, (can't remember if it was that, or someone new) then it would be a private residence, as on TG they had in their video clips section a piece of the previous world record run and you can tell he's playing it in his room/bedroom or someplace like that ^^ gavv

Hi all, I picked up a CV at a garage sale a few weeks ago, and have been having trouble with it, as it's having a 'jumbled sprite' (all i could figure out how to describe the problem ^^) error problem. I believe i saw in a thread before something about it possibly being caused by a dirtied up power switch, but not much description about what you could do to fix the problem....Knowing that the CV isnt' the easiest case to get in to, i thought i'd ask for advice before going in blind, thanks, gavv ^^