Herbarius

After some research I found this statement to be false, so I decided to edit it, because taken as a suggestion it could be dangerous. However the post wasn't editable any more so I replied instead. There are several factors influencing the lifespan of a CD-R, and the color alone is not enough to identify its durability, there are other factors like the sealing on the edges of the disc, which can't be detemined by look. As a rule of thumb you could say avoid cheap brands for CD-Rs if you plan on keeping them some while.

As a side note, if I were to try an 8 year old CD-R in my PC, I'd hold my breath, too. However, the really old CD-Rs, like pre-2000s, seem to resist time's grip better. You know, those that were gold or sometimes blue, instead of the silver ones we've got now...

I think the big plus of the 4-switcher is it's smaller size. However, if you ever openend one you see that the case is almost twice as big as the complete circuit board, so you have to wonder why they made it that big in the first place. From this reasoning you could also think I'd like the 2600 Jr model even more. First of all, I have never seen that model in real. Of course I've seen enough pictures, but my opinion is: The idea is good, but I don't like how it turned out. From the pictures it looks very cheap, like a cost-minimizing model, instead of just a small but neat model. As I've never touched it, let alone owned and played one regularly, I can't say if it's really cheaply produced (and hence unreliable).

I purchased a bunch of games recently, two of them Activision carts. One didn't work on the first try, but they worked well on the second try and ever since. Enduro, the Activision cart I got together with my VCS, did cause more trouble, but after some cleaning it works almost every time. Every now and then it won't work on the first try, but then I just turn the console off and on again and that does it.

I hate it if people put up pages about stuff and make such obvious errors. That infamous screen is from the NES version, not the C64 version. Can't you do just a MINIMUM of research? Why do I hate it? People start believing it, I'm sure you know countless examples, like what about "192 byte RAM VCS" or Pac-Man being ab "2K game"... Generally has anyone noticed the kind of tendency for people to just say "NES" if they talk about any classic game they feel nostalgic about, and say "C64" if they talk about classic games that in their opinion isn't worth a lot, maybe "too old"? This may be another example, "yeah that game sucks, of course it's on the C64, not the fine NES." (yes I know there were ports for both, my point is, the screenshot is from the NES version, also the NES version was possibly the worst of all ports) I heard people talking about Atari games, even old PC games, saying something about "C64", as if this was just a designation for everything "old and crappy"...

This thread is about games that got everything wrong. Pac-Man had nice artwork in the manual, the flicker was a common "feature" of 2600 games of that time, gameplay isn't too bad, if you stop comparing it to the Arcade.

And they call themselves "Game Accessibility Forum"? With a name like that they should know better... Shame on you, Game Accessibility Forum Yes, of course, it's supposed to be a joke but... not funny.

It's real, but they didn't release any original titles.Most of their titles were pirated from Sancho, a company that did release original titles. IMO Bi! Bi! is the worst of the worst: http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...2329&MENU=2 - The title is a complete mystery to me. - The artwork doesn't make much sense. - The game itself was stolen (Skindiver from Sancho is the original). - The first level is hellish to play and there's some weird stuff going on in the upper left corner. - The second level of Bi! Bi! contains a fatal bug that doesn't let you complete the mission, thus destroying the whole game. - The game description is... well, see for yourself: http://www.atarimania.com/zoom_frame.php?T...amp;NUM_IMAGE=1 The best part of the description:

Does anyone know something about that "16K Basic Interpreter" that's shown in the scan above? Seems like a third-party device... Does it just use the VCS as a "slave" to connect to the TV? Does it actually work or was it to ripoff customers? It says something about 1.75 RAM? 1.75 what? Tomatoes?

Thank you, jahfish, that helped alot. Exactly the information I've been looking for. Nice scan btw. However "until the crash came", I alway thought the crash didn't affect us here in Europe or at least only had a small impact on the video game market here. I asked my mother once if she remembered the "Video Game Crash of 83" and she didn't know what I'm talking about.

So, today this thing arrived, which I got from ebay: It's a "SIGMA Joystick Multi-Function 2100". The seller wrote he didn't know whether it works or not, but it turns out it actually works. I payed only 5,90 EUR (~8,18 US-Dollar ), plus the same amount for shipping. As you can see it's kind of an arcade stick. It's completely microswitched and also has an auto-fire option. I don't really care about that, but it's nice to have anyway. The case is very sturdy, you might not gather it from the picture, but it's actually made out of metal, not plastic. The stick itself is a little bit disappointing, you see it's kinda small and it also feels rather "wobbly", but all in all it's okay. It also includes a pair of Paddles, there is a small switch to change from joystick to paddle operation and vice versa. That's the most important thing for me, because I didn't have any Paddle Controllers yet. They also work well. The only disadvantage is of course, if you want to play with two players simultanously, it gets pretty crowded as both paddles are that close together. However I think if you turn the controllers 90 degrees and place the device on a surface like a table it should be okay. The only thing that really disappointed me: The packaging promises an "extra langes Anschlußkabel" (=extra long connection cable), but it's just barely longer than a standard CX-40 cable - which is more like "very short".

That's why I mentioned it

That's a QuickShot joystick, I've one of those too, I like it! However, the Auto-Fire option on mine is broken, but apart from that it works fine. It's a third-party controller, in fact one of many third-party controllers. The Atari 2600 used this 9-pin plug for the joystick which was also used by a lot of other game systems and home computers later, like the Commodore 64 and the Sega Master System and Sega Genesis/Megadrive, which makes them all compatible (however, if you try to use C64 and Atari controllers in the Sega console you'll find you don't have enough buttons). That's the reason for the great wealth of third-party controllers for theses sysstems out there. Here you'll find more information about the QuickShot series, however it's in German. Maybe the Google Translation can help if you don't speak German. Seems they were produced by Spectravideo.

I fear that review will suffer a similar fate as the game... James Rolfe wrote he wants to hype that review, because it's his most common request. Also that's the reason why he didn't do it already. But I fear, when he eventually will make it - propably announcing it with enormous trailers - and then when it comes out, the fans will be disappointed, even if he tries hard to do a good review. If it's very negative, there will be complaints about the game not being that bad after all. If it's more forgiving, there will be complaints about him not being angry enough at the alleged "worst game evar". If he tries something creative, people will complain about the review being weird. If he does it in a very straightforward, classic AVGN (or ANN ) style, people will demand a game as infamous as E.T. deserves some "special treatment". However, on second thought, Maybe, this is his intention all the way!? After all it's been mainly the hype that killed the E.T. game, yes it wasn't great, but if it hadn't been hyped that much it wouldn't have gotten any more attention than the dozens of other less-than-average games. Maybe the AVGN will do the same thing to his E.T. review just to prove/illustrate the point... But on the other hand, that's propably just my imagination going wild

Is it just me or why is everyone mentioning Dragonfire lately?

When the Atari came out, lots of TVs were still B&W. I know whenever I played on my 12" B&W set that most games looked better with the switch set to B&W. What I find funny is the Centipede manual: It instructs you to set the TV-type switch to B/W if you have a B/W TV and to set it to COLOR if you have a color TV. However, on Centipede the switch does nothing at all.

Maybe it would help if you could be more precise as to what is wrong with those switches. You wrote you just bought it, but are you familiar with the Atari 2600 in general? I'm asking because if you are not, you might expect the Select and Reset switches to operate like the other ones (Power, TV-type), but they're not supposed to: You press them down and when you release them they should spring back.

It can help if you have a Color TV, but dislike the colors of the game. I use it on Pac-Man, because I think it's a lot of "easier on the eyes" in B/W mode (most importantly the background is black instead of blue). I also use it on a lot of games form my newly aquired 32-in-1 cartridge - it has a bunch of poorly converted NTSC games, so the colors are off, e.g. water won't appear blue but pink/magenta, that really hurts my eyes... Okay, you can of yourse reduce the saturation on your TV to minimum to get a similar effect, but you'd have to turn it up again afterwards

He did WHAT? Seriously, has he ever played it? I can totally understand why you can't forgive him, that's a great NES game!

You really confuse me now, I thought those "pre-defined" channels on TVs are what is old-fashioned/obsolete, not the tuning? At STICH666, I'm curious, could you post a picture with the paddle controllers out, I'd like to know what they look like.

Activision's Tennis? I always thought the AI was quite easy to beat, once you knew where to place your shots. Maybe I just didn't learn to place my shots yet, however I've read and heared the comment about the strong AI a couple of times, the VGC himself is one example, Classic Game Room would be another.

I can't really tell because I wasn't born already / were very young, but if it's in any way similar to the 90s, English titles would appear a lot more "cool" than German ones. On the other hand, the German titles seem to have a cheesy, almost childish ring to them, so maybe they would have been considers as games to buy for your children. So this would make the original games with English titles appear more like games for teenagers and (young) adults, while the Quelle games with their German titles seem to be aimed at younger children.

They are hacks of Activision and other companies games....... READ THIS! http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...quelle&st=0 Yes I know they are hacks of Activision and other companies games, my question is how it was possible. Okay, I read the thread you linked, but it didn't help me at all. That's all more or less what I already knew or at least suspected. What I found interesting was the mention of "S.S." cartridges, as the Quelle games seem to have those as well... So they're traced back to where, I guess no one really knows. However, it talks about "foreign games", have their ever been pirated games being distributed INSIDE the US "back in the day"? If not, I still don't get it. Yes from you perspective it's no difference if its Brazil, Taiwan or Germany, but living in Germany I'd say Quelle selling "pirated" Atari games, while the Atari and it's games, also those by Activision, was actively marketed here, it screws my mind. I wonder why there hasn't been lawsuits almost immediately, filed by e.g. Activision, after all this is not Brazil or Taiwan, copyright infringement isn't tolerated any more than in the US (maybe even less). The only explanation is: they didn't notice. That may be possible, however as I stated before, I wonder why Quelle even put up with the risk of being sued!? One conceivable, but impropable, theory would be that Quelle made a deal with some foreign company to distribute these games, not suspecting those are pirated hacks, then selling them and neither Atari nor Activision even doing or even hearing anything about it - didn't they have german subsidiary even back then? I'm not sure, maybe it was all done from Ireland. Or maybe there WAS a lawsuit, however they settled it out-of-court and were allowed to continue selling them? As they are pretty common it doesn't seem they were forced to stop selling them.

Yet on eBay you see SEALED Atari games, if you can find them, they cost 4 times the price of a loose copy. Yes, even for common games.

Hey, funny that this topic comes up now, I'm trying to get some info about those Quelle games. I already tried searching the web, but didn't find anything helpful. Those Quelle games are obviously hacks or outright copies of other games. E.g. Super-Ferrari is a hack of Enduro. If this was Mexico or Easter Europe, this wouldn't have surprised me at all, however in Germany, how was that possible? After all Atari and Activision sold their own games here and those were protected by German copyright laws. Also Quelle is a big company, I don't believe they'd risk losing their reputation by piracy... So how's that possible, did they have some kind of contract or license that allowed them to release their "own" versions of those games? Maybe like Sears and Atari in USA? (after all, Quelle and Sears seem to be similar bussineses)