Nelio

None of the links work now. You have a typo above: Magnavox.

You should check, indeed. That never crossed my mind... interesting. Kinda like "chronometer", I see. Oh well, need more emphasis on the GAMER part, I suppose. Never happened. For some reason you skipped the remaining Channel F games and jumped to the Odyssey 2. Perhaps because they were actually released in 1980+?

Bummer! Now I have to wait until... I click the next entry! *grin* Hah! Funny enough, I'm only now watching Battlestar Galactica and I'm just missing the final, 2 hour episode!

I loved that! So refreshing instead of the crude "G?" screen!

Just tried this one too! You have some cool videos there, e5frog!

I'm not that much into bowling to understand everything you praised about the game. But I also had fun with it, and found the graphics to be pleasantly simple and elegant.

Hah! I hadn't thought of it in the sense that Checkers was a "simpler version" of Chess! Weird decision. It would be great if someone involved with the Channel F in the day could share some insight on this. But that's probably another great story we'll never hear.

Exactly. From what I recall from playing 2-player Tetris, that always happened. This Tetris port plays very nice. I had a good time playing the single-player version (which you can now launch immediately btw). Fredric, that Pac-man port is soooo solid! Never thought the Channel F could handle a game like this! Very good indeed!

When you mentioned the "thinking light", in your 2005 quote, I thought you meant it was on the screen! Having it on the cart itself is kind of neat and weird at the same time!

*phew* It got me 2 months to get to this post. Why? Because I had to cover all the computer games from 1978, and, finally in 1979, I went through all arcades and pongs before moving on to the consoles. In fact, I still have to read about a few less known consoles (that you don't seem to have played) before joining you in the next entry. Anyway, kind of strange that after two months without visiting, I start reading this entry and it's sooooooo depressing! And I was in such a good mood! lol Talk to you soon! (Here I am talking alone again.)

I'm glad that site doesn't list them chronologically! *phew* LOL Well, now it's time for me to finish up 1978. Computers, here I go again! Hmm, maybe tomorrow. See you soon, blog!

I liked your backstory! It's probably better than the real thing! You know, the other day I was looking for pictures of some system - I think it was the Interton VC 4000 - and I ran into a website about old systems and found some of YOUR pictures there! I recognized the tiles on the floor! Let me see if I can find it again... *searches* Meh, I can't find it. If I run into it in the future, during my research, I'll post it here.

It does, but I couldn't play the game so I don't know if it's anything decent. Talk about high expectations. You know, I don't know if it's because I'm doing this late at night and using emulators, but I find myself confusing some of these systems - or, better yet, many of their games. As all these platforms share sooo many games, I have trouble recalling which games I played on which. Having the hardware in my hands would probably have better imprinted the memories in my brain. :-/ I'm worried, 'cause I'm just starting the long chronogaming journey, so things will probably get more confusing before they get easier (when platforms stop being so much alike). But what matters the most to me is that I'm learning how games (and their platforms) evolved over time. I'm looking forward for 1979, but I still have a few computers to cover: the Commodore PET, the TRS-80, and the Apple ][!

Heh, I didn't really notice that you were purposely ignoring the arcades. In fact, I seem to remember you talking about some arcades - but maybe it was only on the comment sections. That explains why you didn't mention the Sea Wolf arcade sooner, in Channel F's Torpedo Alley entry. In my retrogaming I played an emulated version of the arcade but I also watched a few videos of the real thing (I posted one in that entry) and I was blown away by it. Funny that you now mention how immersive that arcade was. Having said that, I do agree that Seawolf pales compared to it, but so do all the similar games we've seen before and will keep seeing for a while. To be fair, I think these games are all fun, despite the fact that there was a much cooler game on the arcades. Even Missile wasn't that bad. I can imagine two players having fun with both these games, at least for a while. Particularly in 1978 - even if they could go to the arcades and play something better. Oh, by the way, the official name for this game is Seawolf, one word. Funny that you ended up writing it wrong after your first paragraph on how you should list game titles in a more technical manner.

I was impressed by Math-a-Magic!, probably because I had no expectations whatsoever. It's good edutainment, and I liked the available "game" modes. I lost on Echo! after a 23 note sequence. I only played it once, as I had no interest in beating my score (although I was trying to beat yours on that first try ). My sequence was all weird with lots of repeating notes. Also, in 23 notes, the number 2 was only used twice. I'm not sure if this should have actually made it easier for me, but I failed miserably. Maybe I'm just tired. It's 3 AM. (Most of my posts were written well late at night, when I find the time to chronogame in peace.)

Cool game, I liked it. Positioning the golfer to make the ball go in a certain direction was awkward several times, though. But necessary in such a basic game.

As you know, Baseball is really not my thing. But I did give the game a try just to look at the graphics. Two things worth mentioning: - I really liked the bat swinging animation and the "feeling" of hitting the ball. It was more enjoyable than what I recall from the previous Baseball games. - Yet another bug on an Odyssey 2 game: not only the bat sits in mid air after you've hit the ball, you can also still swing it!

You bet, being able to use the keyboard in these games makes a huge difference! And Mastermind without repeated symbols is much easier to beat...

OMG that was so awesome! Better than the games! LOL I actually looked at the effect for 30 seconds, until it looped. Twice! Indeed, there's a surprisingly number of bugs in the Odyssey 2 games so far. I don't recall finding nor reading about bugs in the other platforms. I guess testing wasn't Magnavox's thing. Maybe they still dreaded the original Odyssey. Oh, and Basketball... such an unfinished game...

Not much that I can say, except that I agree with you on both games. I was playing against myself in Sub-Chase and I found it hard to shoot myself, on purpose. That's telling. lol One funny bug in Sub-Chase: you can still fire when hit, while you're exploding. Haha, yeah, they do!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D_engine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_engine Interesting reading. :-) I wonder if it was thanks to you that the Studio II and the APF M1000's carts were dumped. They can be easily found today, although I think a few Studio II carts are missing. I was going to write "who cares?", but I actually do care. It's a piece of gaming history, and these games should be easy to find.

What's up with most space games of this era featuring the Tie Fighter model from Star Wars? This game makes me feel like a cold blooded assassin. The enemies seem like very peaceful people. There are the Tie Fighters, who seem like they just want to say hello REALLY up close, and the other ships that look like... passenger transports? This should be called Cosmic Massacre! With the exclamation mark. But I liked it. Not having that screen flickering on a "3D space shooter" was refreshing. In my retrogaming I'm also going through computers and arcades, and there too I found some flickering in most (all?) the games that made any attempt at "3D". However, it's really weird that the lasers are influenced by our direction after we've fired them... Oh wait, maybe they're missiles. Yeah, that's it. LOLOL

HAHAHA Cool game, although not much can be said about it, right? I with the game didn't have two separate screens. They could have used the green background to place bets as well. Artists... (LOL) Funny that you said that - my wife and I have started watching the whole Battlestar Galactica series just recently! Yeah, what kind of geek am I that only now I'm watching it...

Awwww! That was really sweet of him. :-) I liked these games. Nothing extraordinary, but very capable. It's a weird combination to have a word game together with two racing games, but this is somewhat usual in this period. Yeah, those are just visual artifacts generated by the TV. But I agree it looks cool - it brings some depth to the graphics. EAT BOOGERS has my vote too.

I've finally got to the Odyssey 2 in my own chronogaming! Woohoo!!! It took me a while to get here, as I ended up going through a system that you skipped for some reason: the Interton VC 4000 (and its family of similar systems). It was also released in 1978, so I decided to focus on it before starting the Odyssey 2. It took me a while to go through it because it's nearly impossible to tell when its games were released. There's not even a copyright notice in the game boxes nor in the manuals! I spent quite some time searching for more information, but everyone simply lists all 37 games as having been released in 1978 - which is impossible. Not just because it's way too many games, but also because there are some Space Invaders and Pac-Man clones in the lot. So, yeah, I played nearly all the 37 games - the ones I got to work on an emulator. It felt kind of lonely not to have your blog keeping me company! Ok, the Odyssey 2. I guess the superscript idea isn't bad, but personally I would have gone for something different, instead of a number. The Super Odyssey, or the Odyssey VCS (just to piss off the competition). Or a whole new name, as the original Odyssey by this time was something everyone had already forgotten anyway. The keyboard surprised me. I didn't recall it had one. Not that I ever played on an Odyssey 2, but I didn't recall the keyboard from the pictures I had seen. Weird. Oh, the links above don't work. I wonder if the Odyssey 2 page you were referring to is this one: http://www.the-nextlevel.com/odyssey2/. Anyway, on to the games!