retrorussell

Robotron came out about 9 months earlier than Black Widow; Robotron about March and Widow about December of 1982. Never really played much Widow for some reason but I did pump some quarters into Robotron. I certainly admired its crazy action and neat sound effects.

Now THAT would be worth some serious money. Gotta wonder what happened to it. Tempest Probably converted to another game or at a dump. Professor Pac-Man was a colossal flop and that's what happened to most of those machines.

Frenzy is a pretty flawed game.. the changes they made weren't very interesting. A Gauntlet-like perspective, IMO, would have made for a nice update. But the lack of technology would have made it impossible at the time. Boss robots, a shop for weapon and item upgrades, bonus stages, etc. would be cool. If any game needs a proper update, I'd like to see Berzerk get one. Oh, and Scramble as well.

Played Astro Invader at drive-ins and old theaters. Not really super-rare I guess. Played Tiger-Heli and Return Of The Invaders at a nickel arcade in Beaverton. OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) used to have a Professor Pac-Man machine! Space Odyssey was a crappy shooter. Played it at Chuck E. Cheese once. I rather like Halley's Comet but I've only seen it once, at a bowling alley near Seattle. I only saw the original Crazy Climber cab by Nichibutsu once, at the Rose Festival arcade back in the early '80s.

Oops, contest is over, never mind. Damn!

I got 163,300 but I don't know how to post pix if they don't have a URL (just saved on my hard drive).

Check out GameFAQs for starters. They have some classic arcade hints. http://www.gamefaqs.com/coinop/arcade/

We had that at the theatre in Raleigh Hills for many years. It had a color overlay along the side to create a death star-trench effect.

You grew up in Milwaukie? Blink and you'll miss it! Haha! That's awesome; my wife grew up in Molalla. We always pass it on the way there! Is it that same one (and only) bowling alley? Our local YMCA had Granny and the Gators on free-play! That game is awesome! Actually I always (save for 3 years in Auburn, WA) lived in Portland, but my dad bowled @ Kellogg Bowl on Mondays in the late '70s/early '80s. Probably the one you're thinking of, it used to be right next to Pietro's Pizza. Haven't been by there in forever, don't know what's there nowadays. Never played Granny & The Gators, but hopefully it's a better pinvid than Baby Pac-Man.. ugh!

Is it Subroc 3-D?

It would be cool if Punch-Out could work on the 2600. Other good ones would be Super Pac-Man, Alpine Ski, Monster Bash, Ivan Ironman Stewart's Off Road, Rush 'N Attack, Contra, and Moon Cresta.

Strange how the drive-in theaters often had obscure arcade games, like Pulsar, Stratovox, etc. and one I remember seeing (but not playing) at one was Zarzon, also known as Satan of Saturn. Also, I saw DJ Boy and E-Swat at an old cinema about 3/4 miles from my house a handful of years ago. Both games had superior Sega Genesis releases.

Same here. My sister and I did that numerous times over. We was damn good at that game!

I haven't played all of those games but Sinistar can be a pain.. I always thought Venture was pretty damn tough. And I was never very good at Targ. Bagman deserves to be put on the list.

Mission X was pretty rare.. one of the games for the DECO cassette system, like Lock N Chase, Burgertime, Astro Fighter, etc. I saw it at my dad's bowling alley in Milwaukie, OR back in about 1982. Not too great from what I remember. It did get an Intellivision port however, and maybe an Atari 2600 port too.

Good deal, Eric. Good luck!

I played so many throughout my life, I can't be sure about the very first one I played.. but I'll take a stab at it. I think it was Sprint 2.

I think they had the same hardware, along with Fax, Hard Hat, and a few others with the black background seen during the game. Also, the long boot-up time was common amongst these (but REALLY long for Fax). I love Mouse Trap.

HEAR HEAR!!! I had that one.. Sega Genesis AND Sega CD AND Portable CD player. Hells yes!

Have you seen Telegames' Universal Chaos yet? Yes, that was the original that was hacked to show Targ graphics. It was good too, but the original arcade game's graphics are more visually appealing. A bit harder to turn around, though, than it was on the arcade original.

Targ, a pretty good arcade game from 1980, got a 2600 conversion on the homebrew list here. I tried it out; it's really good!

I remember the NES version of Spy Hunter worked that way.. I set it up on Mame to work that way once, I think.

The Game Crazys that adjoin the Hollywood Video stores have mostly Dreamcast/PSone/GameCube/PS2/XBOX games used but also a few NES games. However, if I want some good old stuff (like Sega CD!) I go to Game Trader in the Beaverton Mall (now known as Cedar Hills Crossing). Hell, I got a "Fatal Fury" hat from them! BURN KNUCKLE!

Yeah, I played it a bit more through MAME and found the secrets to making the treasures appear and what-not. It still didn't make the game more interesting to me.. not worth the effort.

Cloak And Dagger.. the animated actions of your character as he waited in the elevator for his floor to arrive. A clawed hand would come out of the wall and steal his hat, his face would drain of color if he just missed getting blown up by the bomb, his hat would be on fire, etc.