Curious Sofa

Altered Beast comments first - I've read some interesting writings about Altered Beast and it matches up with what was discussed. For some, it was too dark (for young kids especially), for some, too hard. It was a far cry from say, any of the Mario Games. But at the same time, you can't out-Mario Mario, so it was better for Sega to take a different path. They eventually got it perfect with Sonic; he was "cooler" than Mario but still acceptable for young kids. And then later Golden Axe. I think Sega took the attitude to be the console the teen / older brother had, and therefore the one that young kids wanted also. Later, the Playstation took this theory to work in the market. As for myself, I loved the style of Altered Beast, but I sucked at it, and it wasn't a big draw for me. I got my Genesis when Street Fighter II SCE came out, and got a 6-button arcade pad. I played it night and day. Sonic 2 was packed in, but I wasn't a platform guy so I just tinkered with it occasionally and let it collect dust. Rented Altered Best a time or two, enjoyed it but didn't need to own it.

Just a gentle bump, eagerly awaiting this fyne piece of work to reach completion. Many thanks for all of your efforts, guys!!

Spice is the man. I cannot quit playing this, Space Rocks, and Frantic. Keep up the great work, I can't wait to see more on this. Only a few arcades near me used to have Bosconian, and I would just go to crazy town playing it back in the day.

Off the cuff, I will go with my favorites being: 1. Pac-Man - no, this isn't a cop out, I really, really, really love the 5200 version. The style, the control, it is just simply wonderful to me. 2. Dreadnaught Factor - I just love blowing up those Star Destroyers er, whatever they're officially called. This one has elements of Xevious, good control, is challenging and fun. 3. Moon Patrol - Always loved the arcade game, and the 5200 has an excellent port of it. Love the bluesy music. 4. Space Invaders - Absolutely love the different aliens, the colors, the animations. I don't like arcade Space Invaders, but do like the 2600 version, and this even moreso. 5. Centipede - a wonderful arcade translation, plays fantastically both with the controller and with the trackball. Looks and sounds great, addictive as all get out. Honorable mentions to Mario Bros, Qix, Galaxian, Dig Dug and Miner 2049er.

I also am thinking whatever is up is a recent problem that I hope they get corrected. I've bought as well as sent in items to them for trade credit and had fair dealings. I don't think they provide as many pictures of the item they're selling as I would like (and prefer Tradengames.com on that basis), but their inventory is impressive, their prices reasonable, and generally they've been fairly quick to ship. So hopefully someone will find out what this recent trouble is and they will right the ship. I would hate to have one of my favorite sources suddenly start being a bad seller.

Kinda neither here nor there, but I am a huge Crossbow fan and _love_ playing the Mame version with a mouse. In case you've not tried it, it's much more accurate than the arcade light-gun was (partly because it was so wonderfully huge, it was cumbersome).

_NICE_!!! I am a huge brawler fan, and your dedication to your in-depth writeup is beyond impressive! I treasure that page, thank you so much for all of your efforts! If you ever endeavor to take on Golden Axe: The Return of Death-Adder in the same capacity, I will be first in line to read it! That and/or Captain Commando.

I found this to be well put together, well written, and it clearly took a lot of work. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was forwarded to me by a friend who griped that he couldn't believe that no mention of Tomb Raider was made. For my part, I could care less about TR, not my bag. And before I make my personal complaints, I will say that it is certainly true that it's hard to boil the entire history down to a short video, that we all have our favorites and biases, and this guy is welcome to his opinion which is all this really is (though you could argue calling it a Brief History sort of claims that it covers all the important points in a text book sort of way). But I really can't believe that their only mention of the Atari 2600 is in reference to ET, that Sega is only mentioned once in reference to Sonic and once comparing Virtua Fighter to Tekken, and that though they were clearly trying to put a lot of games in a short period of time, they still found time for Bayonetta (?!?), Gears of War, Dark Souls, and Splinter Cell while ignoring entire genres completely (for my part, ignoring brawlers and old school shooters was unforgivable). Though you could say they did enough justice in a short time to fighters by mentioning SFII and Tekken, as a fighting game fan I still feel that at least one other fighter should have been mentioned (be it Mortal Kombat, any of Capcom's Versus games, etc). And to generalize, I thought it was far too Nintendo-centric (while failing to acknowledge Kart racers including Mario Kart, wth, and acting as though the GC Metroid was a huge moment in the history of gaming??), Sony-centric (Wipeout and Gran Turismo get big parts, but Virtua Racing, Daytona, Kart racers, Burnout, nothing), and Square centric (though I fully realize Square is a huge developer having made some of the biggest and most important games, felt like they leaned too heavy on it). But that's me. I couldn't make a video this good. And if I could in terms of quality, I'd get ripped several new ones for going on forever about Sega, Atari, Commodore 64, Arcade Games after Dig Dug (including a whole bit on light-gun shooters), RollerCoaster Tycoon, Plants vs Zombies, dungeon crawlers like Torchlight (they briefly mentioned Diablo II to the guy's credit), and Root Beer Tapper. Anyone else have thoughts? I thought it was worth a watch but wanted to see what others thought.

Aww that trailer is killing me! I sooo want this now. And I don't game on the PC anymore. But I would for this (and then I'd finally get around to buying Torchlight 2 )

http://www.tradengames.com/ These are good folks, good selection, reasonable shipping, accurate photos, well organized. Can't recommend strongly enough. Also, I have always had decent luck with atari2600.com, but they don't have nearly the number or quality of pics of their items as tradengames does.

I think the coupler for the ProLines would be the ultimate 7800 twinstick set up. But that said, I can't recommend strongly enough getting two 7800 Europads for Robotron 7800. With the stick on each of them, they really really work well. I don't like the Europads at all for maze games like Ms Pac Man, but they're terrific as a twin-stick fix with no redneckery or other duct-tapery required.

Three is far too few! But off hand I am going to say if I could have three cabs... 1. Golden Axe: The Return of Death Adder (still no good home version of this, whyeeee?) 2. Space Duel 3. Gunblade NY Close runners up: Star Wars (sit down enclosed cab) Daytona USA 2 (again, still no good home rendition of this why??) Front Line Gorf Space Fury Hydro Thunder Star Wars Pod Racer Punch-Out Time Pilot 84 Oh, I could go on and on. But shall cease.

Huge thumbs up on this game! Very eager for a boxed copy when this is all finished up and produced. So great to have you doing Atari 2600 games Ed!!!

Dying, just dying for this! I would just loved a boxed copy as well as Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest. I was an Odyssey 2 kid, and had a whole bunch of games for it. Just loved it, and KC Munchkin was a wonderful treat, even if we knew it to be a Pac Man ripoff at the time. It was different enough to be great fun (and kicked the living crap out of Atari 2600 Pac Man!). This is just wonderful nostalgia, as well as an amazing looking game Bob!! Any thoughts of creating a version of UFO? That may have been my favorite Odyssey 2 game of all.

I heard Garry Kitchen talk about the music, which is awesome. He said that he mapped out the notes that the 2600 could make successfully, and then brought those to a composer who put together the music. Instead of doing it the other way around, which is what results in things like that awful (and hilarious) attempt at O Susanna on Tapper. I just found the game in the last few years when it came out for Game Room for XBLA. Hadn't ever heard of it. It's probably top five of all time for the 2600 for me now. It's not only the memorizing, but the quick action, the hustling. I would compare it in a positive light to Toyshop Trouble, which is also completely awesome. The mechanic and thinking are similar. I'd give Toyshop Trouble the nod if I had to pick one of the two, but they're both fantastic.

I got a 32" LCD and was going to migrate from my old, heavy, power consuming 27" Trinitron. But I'm going back to the Trinitron after trying out the Genesis, SNES, and Saturn on the LCD. It just doesn't look as good to me as the Trinitron. Plus, keeping the Trinitron allows me to play light-gun games for the Saturn. So I say get yourself the Trinitron, and get people to help you move it. And be careful you don't break your back in the process.

I went with a Genesis back in the day mostly because the 6-button controller was incredible. And I played SFII:SCE and Streets of Rage 2 all the live long day early on. I just hated, hated, hated the SNES's controller, and thought a lot of their deeply anime-styled stuff was stupid. (I now do love my SNES, but not more than my Genesis). And to clarify on the Mortal Kombat bit; for Mortal Kombat 1, the SNES version had a bunch of really weak / changed fatalities. Though the graphics were much better than the Genesis version (as well as the sound), Mortal Kombat fans wanted blood and the Sub Zero Spinal Cord Rip fatality. And Nintendo denied them that, and so MILLIONS of Genesis sales were created, simply because Sega was ok with Mortal Kombat being bloody and like the arcade. By the time Mortal Kombat II came along, the SNES got everything, and it was much better than the Genesis version. Lots of details in it that the Genesis version didn't have (and some of these details translated to the 32X version; it _still_ didn't have some of the SNES's details, it was sickening!).

Even though the Wii version is wonderful and ought to have completely nixed my need for it (to an extent)... I want a pristine Gunblade NY someday. With a fully functioning rumbling machine gun. Chances are it is never to be had. Partly because of so many being converted to LA Machine Guns (which is not half bad either, so I guess I could look for that). And partly because I'm not a good machine fix-it man. I worked in arcades and did rudimentary fixes, but nothing like upkeeping a light gun connected to a motor like that. I've a suspicion with the condition of your JP machine, you won't need to be doing much if any upkeep, DaytonaUSA. :-)

Such a happy story! Such a long search, and the fact that it's in such pristine shape....wow. Looks wonderful where it is, that's just fantastic.

Props to those who mentioned Parappa, Tekken 3, Oddworld, Einhander, and Silent Hill. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the two Medal of Honor games. I LOVE them deeply, in a way that is outright filthy. Especially the bonus level in Underground (controversial though it be). I've said too much.

I'd say just have someone work off KO Cruiser as a template, that game's wonderful. And yeah, use whatever characters tickle people's fancy. I'm down with the suggestions above, as well as maybe some 7800 specific (Alien from Alien Brigade, the Ninja Golfer maybe) doods, and / or some Homebrew All Stars like Frosty, the helper elf from Toyshop Trouble, Idk. So easy to make suggestions when you can't program anything.

The version of Charley Chuck's Food Fight was reasonably fun on the FB1. But everything else stunk, esp the controllers. And so mine went to goodwill (got it brand new for $9.99 free ship off ebay) once I got Food Fight for 7800.

I've been really happy with the way that Warner has been treating their venerable licenses. From the Mortal Kombat game going back to 2d on the PS3/360, to the Hydro Thunder Hurricane Downloadable game, and this. Just looks fantastic, I have high hopes. But I really don't game on PC much (or really at all apart from emulation), so I'm hoping they release it for 360. Partially because they never did release Torchlight 2 for console, which is a shame (loved the console version of Torchlight, couch gaming at its best, a great follow to Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance if you ask me!).

Just curious, but is he playing the Streets of Rage Remake here? And if so, how is he doing so on this device??

I really don't like buying new games at $60, but this may be the last new game I get for quite some time as I'm not interested in the PS4 or Xbone. So as a treat for myself I did go out and get it, wound up going with the 360 version since you can install it (I'm a new PS3 owner, and surprised that most games don't let you install them so far, weird). I love it for all of the reasons that Bill L. and WestOfHouse mention. It has been ages since I played an RPG truth told, and I really enjoy the combat system. I'm not a pro and my timing completely sucks, but it's still fun and as said above it forces you to use different attack strategies. Defending some of those kids' multiple arrow attacks is really tough, and I hate bleeding. I do like that you've a chance to perform a pre-attack action each turn. And I love all the sound effects and animations, it's a joy to play all things considered a couple of hours in. It's strange in that it is crass humor on the one hand. And for me (perhaps I'm completely weird lately, wouldn't be a surprise, lot of stuff going on in my life) I'm actually kind of getting into the role of a kid playing a real life RPG, the game within a game of sorts. It's ridiculous, but I like the quest, the "threat" of the dark elves, the difference between the imaginary stick of truth in the prologue and the real stick. And frankly, it's _really satisfying_ to successfully time a multiple hit attack and kick some a-hole kid's butt. No glitches at all, no idea what that guy was talking about thus far. *shrug* Edit - Just watched the video the guy was mentioning from Kotaku, where he shows you the "stuttering". I think he's out of his mind; I think that's how the backgrounds are animated when you're walking. I don't think it's a technical glitch at all; the characters are moving just as they ought to be, just as the show animates them. The backgrounds kind of bump along but needing a Dramamine because it's making him so crazy? Maybe if you played for 10 hours straight (as reviewers are often required to, I suppose). But for those of us with stuff to do, who'll put in an hour or two here and there, it's basically not even worthy of note. Oh, and I was excited that though I didn't pre-order it, I had a code in my case for the Fellowship Ultimate whatever it is pre-order pack. Thank you K-Mart.