Mind Master

Having a weekly "Video Blowout" every friday night in my neighbor's basement. We'd turn all the lights off and play atari until our brains were boggled and all the week's stress dissipated. That was followed by my playing atari solo early Saturday mornings in my own basement. It was pure Zen. It was there that I found Adventure's magic dot, saw the Warren Robinett screen and literally fell backwards out of my chair. I hadn't heard anything about the dot prior to discovering it.

...whether it be from 25 years ago or 25 minutes ago - what's your fondest Atari memory?

The mini-games in MM were as good or better than some of the early Atari VCS games. I especially liked the lunar lander mini-game. I know that some of the Mindmaster's ratings included Quaint, Intriguing, Impressive, and Awesome. What was up with that 6th level? Did the programmer just get bored or something?

Venture is weak, weak, weak. I've never seen the arcade version, but the 2600 version is entertaining for about 15 minutes. How many times can you repeat the same two levels? I think Coleco's best game for the 2600 is Mouse Trap. It, too, is stripped down to the bones, but it's more addictive than Venture or Donkey Kong.

"Pac Man Minus"

I did mean the Coleco one - just couldn't remember who made it.

Could someone enlighten me on the legality or non-legality of playing 2600 games on my PC using an emulator?

I've seen these miniature arcade games (they look like a little arcade machine about ten inches tall) and was wondering if someone who owns one (or remembers one) could comment on how good the Pac Man game is/was...

...is there 26 or 2600 of something on the system? Why the number 26? To me it's still the VCS.

KC Munchkin for 2600 would be great. But it's monstly the programmable mazes I'm after (wouldn't care to see the game if it didn't have that). It would be quite an accomplishment for a homebrewer. Quest for the Rings would be fun, too, but the game board would have to be embedded in the game for this to be feasible. Not sure if that's possible given memory constraints - but it might be - QFTR really isn't terribly complex without the gameboard.

I have two nominees: Warren Robinett (note: is Adventure his only game?) and whomever designed Ms. Pac Man

Atari seemed to have a huge quality control problem. Some stuff got out the door that really shouldn't have. I think they were making so much money they didn't see it as a problem and so didn't pay attention to the details - like making sure their programmers worked hard to capture the look of the arcade game. And many of the programmers, I would guess, were not highly motivated to do their best work. It took a kick in the butt from Activision and Imagic to get Atari to look at their stuff and see how weak it was. None of this applies to Adventure, of course...

You know you've made a bad game when 20+ years later people are still debating what color the monsters are... I also seem to recall (I don't play 2600 Pac Man often) that Pac Man mysteriously always faces the same direction whenever he eats a monster, regardless of which direction he is traveling. If that's true, add that to the list of things wrong. For a cleansing sense of relief from 2600 Pac Man, play either Pac Man Arcade (of course) or to get even closer to the arcade, NES Pac Man is excellent.

I'd like to add the highly redundant design of the maze to the list of 2600 Pac Man's faults. Also, the monsters are four different colors: Inky is Yellow Blinky is Banana Pinky is Lemon and Pokey is Gold

"Frogger style"? I don't understand. Please explain... I also don't recall any way to skip to the last level from the first. Perhaps your tape was malfunctioning?

I enjoy setting 'em up and watching all you guys knock 'em down...

...anyone have fond memories of this game? When all is said and done, I think it was my favorite Starpath game. It was incredibly engrossing at that time to see a videogame with a first-person maze perspective. Those weird monsters roaming ominously around, the moving force field barriers- it was creepy fun! But that 6th level was perhaps my greatest videogame disappointment ever... But still a fantastic game. "The Mind Master declares you to be Quaint" cracked me up when I first saw it on the screen. Anybody remember the sequence of Mind Master ratings? Quait, Intriguing, Impressive, Awesome, or something like that...

I forgot to add that horrible, off-key opening "music" to the list of what's wrong. I gotta get me a copy of "Pac Man Arcade" to cleanse my soul of the emotional damage suffered from Pac Man 21 years ago. Oh, I also forgot to mention that pac man is slowly chewing his cud rather than rapidly opening and closing his mouth as in the arcade version. I can't stop! AAAAAH!!! :wink:

(if you add "it was a bad game", you get 17.

17 Things Wrong With 2600 Pac Man 1. The background is blue- should be black. 2. The walls are brownish orange - should be blue. 3. The dots are dashes. 4. Pac Man doesn't point up and down. 5. Pac Man has an eyeball. 6. Control of Pac Man is horrid. 7. Tunnels are on top and bottom - should be on sides. 8. There are no bonus fruits. 9. The bonus "vitamin" is represented by a square. 10. The monsters do not have separate personalities. 11. The monsters are not different colors. 12. The monsters flicker uncontrollably. 13. The bonus item is the "vitamin" only - no progression. 14. The sound effect when "Pac Man" eats a "video wafer" is "dunk" rather than "waka waka" the way God intended. 15. There is no siren sound in the background. 16. Monsters eyes rotate randomly rather than looking where they're going.

...What's with all these "video wafers"? Pac Man, Ms. Pac, Dodge 'Em, they all seem to use dashes rather than dots. Why?

I'm wondering if there's anybody out there who has, for example, 8 copies of Combat, or 10 Pac Mans, etc. I'm wondering who has the highest number of copies of a single game, and what that game is... I myself don't have any redundant copies.

I guess all three of these systems had bad controllers. What's up with that? It was like a disease that afflicted post-2600 systems.

I've never quite figured out how these systems compare to each other. Would anyone care to put away their biases and compare these three systems objectively?

Home Run. I'm hooked.