DamonicFury

Atariprotos.com has everything you'd like to know about 2600 prototypes, including this entry about Sky Patrol.

One small caveat about the Colecovision... while it was a great system in the day, it can feel a little redundant now in the post-MAME era, as almost all of it's games are arcade ports. There are a very few exception, like Smurf and WarGames, but the CV library has far fewer original games than other classic consoles. So while it was a great machine for 'bringing the arcade home' in the 80's, you may not feel a need for it now if you play a lot of MAME. Having said that, it's worth noting that very few of the arcade games that were ported to the CV have been included in the legal arcade compilations. If you want to play a legal version of Mousetrap, Cosmic Avenger, Looping, Frenzy, Pepper II, etc. without having an actual arcade machine, the ColecoVision is still an excellent choice.

On a dull summer in the early 90's, I decided to finally beat my childhood favorite game, Pitfall. (The game's manual actually makes it clear the game is beatable, letting you know there are 32 treasures, and you'll need to use the passages to get them all. It even states that a perfect score would be 114,00 points.) I was really rather disappointed that after all the exploration I needed to do to find the right tunnels to take, that the game just simply ended when you picked up the last treasure. The schoolyard rumor I had heard was that treasures would pour down from the treetops if you beat the game... sadly, that just isn't true.

Missile Command would be nice, as every other Atari console has a port (2600, 5200, XE, Lynx, Jaguar) Which makes me wonder... is there currently a game that has ports for all Atari systems?

Berzerk is often included with the all-in-one cabinets that are being sold (including this one from Sears), but I'm pretty sure it has never appeared on any compilation. Which is a shame... I'd also like to see compilations of Exidy, Universal, and Cinematronics arcade games as well.

There's really nothing very cheesy about the original miniseries. Sure, the second one (The Final Battle) had some cheese. And the weekly series was simply drenched in cheese. :-) But the original mini... just purely awesome. Anyway to get back to the original post, I always thought having a 'space invader' play Space Invaders (and not be very good at it!) was pretty funny.

Either I'm getting rusty (I've been playing more with the drums in Rock Band lately) or the Wii version of GH:A is actually a bit harder than GH3. I'm actually (temporarily) stuck on Sweet Emotion (Expert) ... it took me a lot longer to get stuck playing GH3 or Rock Band. The chart doesn't seem all that hard , so either they tightened the note window (at least for the Wii version), or I'm just more out of practice than I thought I was. :-) Besides the difficulty and the Aerosmith theme , it's pretty much GH3 all over again. UPDATE: Ok, it's not the difficulty... After browsing some GH forums, I found that there's an issue with the Wii version that requires you to set the video lag to +1ms. Once this is done, my skills are back to normal, and the game no longer seems harder than any of the other GH games. Whew!

Forgive me if this is too obvious, but have you tried adjusting the potentiometer on the ARII board? That's often critical to getting the 5V you need.

I'll raise my hand to that. I won't say that I'll never get a PS3/360 but I don't have any plans to do so soon. Why? Lots of reasons. The price of the games and the systems: $350 for a x360 or $400 for a PS3 is still way, way too much for a game system. And $60 games? Not for me, especially when great games from the last generation are so easily and cheaply available. The style of games I like: While I enjoyed games like Doom and Dark Forces back in the day, FPS's just never became my favorite type of game. So Gears of War, Halo 3, and Resistance just aren't system sellers for me. I love classic games (of course, why else would I be here?) and Guitar Hero and Rock Band are currently my favorite kind of modern game and my PS2 has me covered there (yeah, I know all about the extra bells and whistles the PS3/X360 versions have on them... but they're no where near enough to entice me into buying those systems.) The amount of games I already have: Even if I had all the time in the world, I wouldn't be able to enjoy all the PS2, Wii, Xbox, Gamecube, PS1, PC, Atari 2600/7800/800/Lynx games I own. The only reason I got the Wii was for the innovative controls that made it a must-buy. (Surfing the web on the TV is nice too, as are the VC games that let me play N64 and T16 games, two consoles I never picked up.) So in short, buying an overpriced system that excels in games I don't especially care for nor have time to play makes buying a 360/PS3 unlikely any time soon. Perhaps when I can get one for around $200 and good $20 games are plentiful for it, I'll reconsider.

Also: Arkanoid, Arkanoid 2, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Liberator, Millipede, Pong, Super Breakout, Tempest, Tournament Arkanoid, Warlords are all going to play pretty lousy without a trackball or spinner. It's also worth noting that most of the games are from Atari and Taito who have published great compilations for PS2/Xbox/PC. Still, this might be worth a look if you're looking for a home arcade that doesn't require the construction/configuration skills that building your own MAME cabinet does.

Just to play devil's advocate here... Not everyone who bought a Wii wants a hard drive. As you've probably heard, a lot of folks bought a Wii only to play Wii Sports, and a whole lot of other people haven't bothered to connect their Wii's to the Internet, giving them little need for additonal storage. Would it have been a good idea to charge these people for a hard drive they didn't want or need? Having said that, I don't understand why Nintendo can't simply open up the damn SD card. :-)

Very sorry to hear you had problems, Cassidy. I guess that's the tricky thing with this hobby... While I had no problems whatsoever with the maker of my kit, another rgvac member who is highly respected on that group was unable to fix my SW PCB after months of sending the board back and forth and taking a fair amount of cash. I ended up having to pay someone else to exchange the board set (which had the benefit of fixing a small sound issue that the first person never noticed.) And yet, I know that the first board tech has been very helpful to other people. I guess the moral is to take Cassidy's advice and try to be smart and careful when dealing with these talented but temperamental folks who offer their services to help us repair and upgrade our beloved arcade machines. :-) Also, don't lose too much sleep over not being able to play ESB for the time being. While it's a fun game, it's nowhere near the super-addictive classic that the original SW game is. In my opinion, of course. :-)

Congrats... as a fellow SW arcade owner, I welcome you to the club! With the ability to practice, you should be able to get much better at it... I've been able able to crack 2 million now (not a record breaking score, I know, but certainly far above what I was able to get when this was in the arcades!) Good luck with finding a ESB kit. It seems like Clay Cowgill isn't making any kits anymore. A guy named Mark Spaeth made a similar kit that I was lucky enough to get when he was selling them, but I'm not sure he's planning to make any more. You can check on the rec.games.video.arcade.collecting Usenet board (use Google Groups if you're not familar with Usenet) to see if he announces another run of them.

I really like the game. As I believe the intent was, it shows off very well what a cool game this could have been had it been brought to completion. Like with real programming, you can program the robot to do the task in the most elegant, concise way possible... or you can give it a program that's sloppy as heck, but still gets the job done after lots of trial and error. The way the game switches between the programming screen and the map is quite nice, and the 'win' sequence is a nice touch as well. The new levels that supercat added give the game some challenge... I've solved 8 of the 12 screens so far, and the later ones certainly are not easy! As Rob and supercat have indicated, the game isn't quite done... the programming screen can get garbled once in a while, and the game would benefit enormously from having more levels with a gradual increase in challenge. The design notes Rob thoughtfully included give you some idea of how varied and exciting the levels in the final game might have been. As has been noted already, the quality and level of personalization of this release is amazing. It's a real treat to have something released and signed from one of the top Atari programmers of the golden age. Thanks so much to Rob and supercat for this release!

As someone who owns both a PS2 and a Wii, and bought the PS2 Rock Band months ago, I'm glad I didn't bother waiting for the Wii version. The fact that you can use your old Guitar Hero guitars with PS2 Rock Band is a HUGE reason to choose the PS2 version, as you can have two people playing guitar and bass without the need to buy a second expenisve Rock Band guitar, as you will absolutely have to do on the Wii (since the GHII guitar won't work with it.) Wii Rock Band seems to be clearly aimed at those who own a Wii and only a Wii. Anyone who owns another Rock Band compatible console should avoid this.

Mr. Fulop, if I insulted you at all with the suggestion of the Cubicolor re-release, I truly, deeply apologize.

I'm sure he doesn't. But is there any chance of an unlimited release of Cubicolor? Rob wouldn't need to do anything but give his blessing, and Al could sell it in the store for whatever price Rob feels is correct, after the two of them work out the details. Just a thought. It would be nice to be able to add a Rob Fulop-blessed release of Cubicolor (with a nice AtariAge style label and manual) to complete our collection of his games. And Rob could collect a some well-earned cash based off this cool little puzzle game. By the way, I'm also loving this discussion of the early days! Great stuff!

There's also a place called Megatronix in the York area that has some NES, SNES and Sega games, along with some overpriced newer games. The selection is pretty well picked over though (I've done a lot of picking myself over the years!) But if you need any old SNES sports games, they've got LOTS of 'em.

I've gone there serveral times, and was able to score some nice 400/800 games once. Recently, they seem to have dropped the Atari stuff, but there are still NES and newer games there.

My dream retro-arcade product would have an item similar to this at it's core... a plug-and-play joystick that can be expandable with flash memory to accept new game packs. There would also be options to expand on this product with extra controllers (a second joystick, trackball, spinner, etc.). And for those who want a fuller experience, an arcade cabinet could be sold to house the device (sold in two pieces, perhaps, a bartop cabinet, and a pedestal to put it on.) Basically, everyone interested in classic arcade games could buy the core unit, and depending on your level of interest, expand on it to whatever level you wish. This would be more desirable to many people than the Costco cabinets, as the initial investment wouldn't be so high, and you wouldn't need to have a large cabinet if you didn't want one. The thing is, thanks to MAME, many of us who really love classic games have already built devices that meet our needs in this area. And for those with game consoles, there are numerous arcade collections that will allow you to play classic games, including Jungle Hunt (Taito Legends) and Sinistar (Midway Treasures). I'm afraid there probably just isn't enough of a market left for someone to succesfully manufacture the kind of product line that I imagine. I'd sure love to be proven wrong, though.

I'd like to thank Mr. Fulop for both taking the time to release Actionauts, and of course, for the classic games that I've enjoyed both as a child and an adult. Night Driver, Missile Command, Demon Attack, Cosmic Ark, Fathom, and Cubicolor are all fantastic games, and I'm eagerly looking forward to the release of his last 2600 game. Let's remember that Mr. Fulop wasn't even close to adequately compensated by Atari for his early hits. And he's understandably a bit upset that his last release to the community now fetches 20x what he offered it for that he doesn't see a penny of. 80$ seems a reasonable price for an previously unreleased, boxed, and completely playable game, released by one of the superstars of 1980's Atari 2600 programming... especially considering that it was polished up before release. It's around the price of one of the rarer 2600 games loose, or a somewhat less rare one boxed... a price many of us have paid for games in our collection. Yes, it's a bit of a premium for what we're used to paying for new Atari 2600 releases, but it should be looked at as the one-of-a-kind release that it is. It's understandable that for those that money is tight that the high price is a disappointment. It's also understandable that some of those who have recently created wonderful 2600 games and sold them for considerably less are a bit puzzled. But let's please not make Mr. Fulop feel that his efforts to bring us a top quality release of his last 2600 game are in vain. Again, many, many thanks to Rob Fulop for this release!

Do you have color on 2600 games that don't use the Black/White switch? If so, the Pause button is probably the culprit, as it functions as the B/W switch on the 7800.

I'm really glad to see Defender, Reactor, and Q*bert shown some love in this thread... these were great ports for their time. Defender and Reactor were actually big favorites of mine back in the day. The rest of the list... yeah, those are some real dogs.

X-Wing - An amazing space simulator that completely excited and challenged the hell out of me back in 1992. Doom - An huge step forward from Wolfenstein 3D, the graphics, gameplay, and mood of this game were unlike anything before it. The sound deserves special mention... the music, the sounds of the weapons, the screams of the monsters really added to the experience. Master of Orion - Great space strategy game that invited you to conquer the galaxy Tank Wars (predecessor to Scorched Earth) - enormously fun strategic shooter that I have many pleasant memories of playing with my college dorm buddies Dune 2 - Yes, it's been improved on immensely by C&C, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc. but at the time it came out, it was quite unique and a blast to play.

The best resource I've found for collecting old arcade games is the old Usenet group: rec.games.video.arcade.collecting. It's easily accessible through Google Groups these days. While I have some basic electronic knowledge and amateur-level soldering skills, I've only been able to perform very basic maintenance tasks for classic games (I own a Missile Command and a Star Wars.) My proudest achievement was installing a cap kit on the MC monitor which brought that back to life when it died. I've also installed multi-game kits for both machines. But board level repairs are tricky, and are best left to those with some skill and knowledge. (I hosed up my MC board at one point trying to replace a RAM chip.) Thankfully, a number of people exist who will fix a broken system board if you send it to them for about $100-$200. Assume you'll need to do this at some point (I did, with both machines) Best of luck in building an arcade collection!