Mxyzptlk

I did not read much other than "Replying to Help me learn to love the Atari 2600!" Here is the reason I love the Atari 2600 .............. Adventure. Simple as that. I played it at my quasi friend Toby Boldens' house when I was 12 or 13 and I have been hooked ever since. There ya go with a simple way to know if you love the 2600 or not.

Chuck E Cheese, Malibu gran Prix, and Round table pizza.

I never heard of Jail break. Do you have any video links for it? I made a video of me getting killed often. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uHa52sX6b4 I hate late 80's and early nineties arcade games (with a few exceptions of course). This game here is a perfect example. It looks not fun to play and very difficult. How the F does the Bazooka count as a power up or whatever? It seems your intro. firing method is WAY more effective. Yeah, this game looks pretty damn hard, but I have never played it or even heard of it.

I never heard of Jail break. Do you have any video links for it?

Thanks for the tips. Regarding the part above in bold, when you say "correlation" I assume you mean that you roughly divide the screen into 3 vertical strips, and fire with the base that corresponds to the strip containing the target? Sounds logical but man, it just moves so damn quickly. Another thing that screws me up big time is when my bases get hit and lose all their ammo. It throws me off every time because I keep hitting the fire button and hearing that dreaded "squeak" sound, and then I just start panicking and completely shit the bed for the rest of the level. Yes, that is exactly right, I should have been a little more specific. Watch that movie on Hulu and do what that guy does. Honestly, Missile Command, Asteroids, Robotron, and many others are games that can be marathoned by most anyone with a lot of practice. Keep at it and I promise you that you will get better and better until one day, you will be able to play as long as you want. NE146 has great point about the trac-ball controls, the full size stand-ups have a huge ball and in my opinion are a pain in the ass. Luckily I bought the cocktail version and it is much easier to use due to the small trac-ball. The downside is the awkward position on my wrists. I play for an hour and my wrists cramp up. I wish I would have waited for a nice cabaret cabinet, which had the small ball and is a stand up. Best combo for me. So keep playing and tell us how you are doing.

Well yeah that's the game. Try not to let your bases get hit That being said I've always sucked at Missile Command probably because I've never been all that good with trackball controls, and Missile Command has a big fat heavy one If you see top players play though, it's crazy how good they are, but after a point it becomes a lot of repetition and endurance. Have you ever heard of the movie "High Score" by the way? It's about some guys quest for the world record in Missile Command. Might be interesting. I think it's for sale on Itunes too if you can't find a place to download it. Thanks for that link. I had never heard of that movie before. I will now try to find it online somewhere for free (hopefully). edit: I just found it on Hulu.com

Because he said he didnt know enough about it. Oh, shit, I did not see that part of his post. Thanks man. My mistake.

Not got the machine in the house here to check the exact score. I've been just over 200K a couple of times in 20 years, but that's it. This is on factory settings. I used to score much higher on a machine in a London arcade, but I realised when I got my own machine that it was set at a much lower difficulty and was a *lot* more generous with extra lives than it should have been. It's fun to set it to give out loads of extra lives, just to see how insanely murderous it gets later on. Whoever had the idea of the Void Zone is a sadist! 200 K? That is incredible. It might be a record. I can't check 'cause Twin Galixies won't let you check anymore. Unless you register and give them your pers. info.

O.K. since you have a MAME cab. you can try over and over again on the games you like to play for free. I own a dedicated Missile Command and can pretty much play as long as I want. There are TWO accepted methods of playing. One is the spray and pray already talked about and specific targeting (very hard to master) method. The specific targeting is hitting your base firing button in correlation to incoming missiles, smart bombs, etc. One missile at a time. Spray and pray is basically laying down a wall of missiles around 5/8ths from the bottom on a rainbow arc with 5/8ths being the top of the arc. Try the specific targeting method and see how you do. I promise you if you stick with it you will eventually be able to marathon the game. Hope this helps.

It is as real as it gets. Why the concern?

The prices have fallen on most of the Atari stuff that I buy. I mainly, at this point, am buying the few odds and ends to complete my collection, label variations and pirate stuff. And these for the most part are cheaper now than a few years ago. I have noticed that most of the r-9s and r-10s are WAY more expensive now though.

I am going with: Sinistar is stupid hard Berzerk Defender

Does anyone know what happened with this auction?

I bought mine a few years ago on E-bay for $50+. I wish I would have waited, but you never know.