[Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Spoiler-free review]

1 hour ago, simbalion said:

Massive egos with no sense of direction but to grab the money from the willing audience.

What's especially sad is that they could have made a lot more money if they had taken the trouble to decide on and adhere to a competent plan.  Instead, they invalidated all the stories in the Extended Universe with a snap of their fingers, and through their fumbling, they effectively invalidated the stories of the Original and Prequel Trilogies as well.  What did we end up with?  A derivative, disjointed, inconsistent, preachy, agenda-laden mess of a "trilogy" with little narrative coherence and none of the genuine sense of adventure or fun that the Original Trilogy had ... but with lots of glossy, noisy, CGI-heavy action to keep the undiscriminating normies happy.  Instead of building to a crescendo, as the last chapter of a successful trilogy should do, the numbers for Episode IX are fading fast.  It will probably make money eventually, because it has "Star Wars" in the title and that's good enough for too many people, but the final results surely haven't lived up to what anyone expected or hoped for.  This whole endeavor has been mismanaged beyond belief.

[Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker - Spoiler-free review]

2 hours ago, Nathan Strum said:

Also, the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am that it completely invalidated Return of the Jedi, and by extension the entire original trilogy, by making their victory over the Emperor completely meaningless.

Yes.  The most pernicious thing that this new trilogy has done to Star Wars ...

 

 

... is that it has transformed the "Skywalker saga" into the "Palpatine saga."  By the end of Episode IX, all of the Skywalkers have died ignominious deaths, while a descendant of the Emperor has taken Luke's lightsaber, his former home on Tatooine, and even his family name.  Despite its title, how can "The Rise of Skywalker" be seen as any such thing?  What did Star Wars do to deserve this?

[Bowling (Atari)]

Good review!  Bowling has always been a favorite of mine, too.  One other note about the graphics: if I understand correctly, Bowling was the first 2600 game to associate a color table with a sprite (the player sprite), which allowed them to put "clothes" and "shoes" on the player.  An important innovation, even in such a simple game as this.

[QIX 5200 (Atari)]

I agree about Qix; it's a timeless classic that defies classification but that has always been one of my favorites.  The ability to draw lines in two different ways (aided by the two action buttons on the 5200 controller) adds an interesting element of strategy: drawing blue lines is faster but earns fewer points, while drawing red lines earns more points but is slower and leaves you more vulnerable to the Qix.  So at any given time, you can play it safe, or you can risk being greedy.

 

One slight correction: the 5200 version of Qix was (unofficially) converted to the 8-bit computers later, but the official 1982 version of Qix that Atari shipped for the 8-bit computers was quite different.  (See the screenshots of this version on Atarimania.)  That's the one that I played the most growing up, and it's a passable enough version, but the game action—particularly the fill routines after closing off a section or being zapped by an enemy—are considerably slower, and it really drags down the momentum of the game.

[Choplifter Extravaganza!]

The original Broderbund version is also the version that is available for the 5200, and I think it benefits from the 5200's analog controls.  But on the XL/XE computers, I tend to play the Atari XE Choplifter the most.  It controls very much like the original, but in graphics and sound, I guess it's somewhere inbetween the 7800 and SMS versions.

[Diner (INTV)]

Thanks for the review!  I've always enjoyed BurgerTime, and I consider Diner to be a worthy sequel.  It's remarkable that Diner turned out as well as it did given its unusual development path.  INTV made effective use of the unfinished game code they acquired from Mattel: they contracted with the original programmers to complete and release games that had been started at Mattel, and in the case of Diner, they repurposed code that was originally intended for an entirely different game.  As has been documented elsewhere, Diner was started at Mattel by Ray Kaestner as a sequel to "Masters of the Universe."  As it happens, Kaestner also developed Intellivision BurgerTime, so for INTV, he put the BurgerTime characters into his unfinished "Masters" sequel.  Diner was the result.

 

(A few years ago, Intellivision Productions sold autographed 10" prints of the original Diner box artwork, created by the late Keith Robinson.  I framed my copy, and it will always have a prominent place in my game room.)

[Thunder Castle (INTV Corporation)]

Excellent review!  I thoroughly agree, especially about the sounds and music in Thunder Castle: they really demonstrate what the Intellivision's PSG could do in the right hands, and how important sound is to setting the mood in a game.  The soundtrack includes some excellent choices of classical music, beautifully rendered by the PSG; game co-designer David Warhol's musical background no doubt informed their selection.  The power-up theme in the Forest level, for example, is from Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain (the excerpt that is used in the game is heard in this piano interpretation by Boris Berezovsky, at about 2:55):

 

 

The music that plays when you die is from Beethoven’s Ninth.

[Video Olympics (Atari)]

Thanks for the review!  It's still amazing to me that so many game variations could fit into a 2K ROM.  Thanks also for pointing out what a big deal games like Video Olympics were to the history of video games: it's easy to forget today, but it was quite a tour de force to have a programmable console, with interchangeable program cartridges and controllers, that could play games which previously required dedicated hardware.

 

It's nice to see some of the lesser-known variations of Video Olympics getting their due attention.  I always wish that there were more games on classic consoles that groups of four players could play together, and the next time I have the chance, I'll have to remember to give Quadrapong a try; I can see it being a fun diversion, at least in short bursts.

[The true answer on why Classic Battlestar Galactica was Cancelled.]

That's a reasonable explanation.

 

Now somebody needs to explain "Galactica 1980."

[Fantastic Voyage (20th Century Fox)]

So, to Amy L. Cooper from Madison Wisconsin, or thereabouts, who got to Level 5 with a score of 432,202, I have your copy of Fantastic Voyage, and why did you get that good?

Well, there you have it ... proof positive that women and girls once enjoyed Atari 2600 games. Nowadays, it seems that vintage video games of any kind are like Kryptonite to women.

 

But seriously, good review! I still have the original copy of Fantastic Voyage that I played as a kid (although it now has a new label). I still enjoy it when I'm in the mood for some quick shooter action.

[A small diversion]

Thanks for the review! I've been curious about these. I'd like to pick up the BurgerTime mini-cabinet, but I know that's a different brand. It is truly amazing what they can do at these price points; the proliferation of cheap NOAC chipsets and color LCD display modules has made all kinds of cool projects possible.

[This explains a lot]

The "backwards cartridge" issue jumped out at me as soon as I saw the first photos of the RetroN 77. Even if the technical issues are all corrected, I don't know if I could ever get used to that cartridge slot.

[The number 47 in the INTV Fall 1988 catalog]

47 is the "lucky number" of Pomona College. Realtime Associates produced many of the Intellivision games released by INTV, and Realtime founder David Warhol is a Pamona alumnus, so Keith Robinson (who created the catalog and box art for INTV) did him the favor of using the number 47 everywhere he could. I believe there were also several alumni on the crew of "Star Trek," which is why the number 47 appears so frequently on TNG in particular.

[It either would or wouldn’t have George Plimpton in it]

What about the invisible ghost of George Plimpton? You could draw up a whole new commercial ... without having to draw anything!

[Ticket To Ride]

It's disappointing to see such lemming-like gullibility among people who ought to know better, especially at this early stage and with a company that has (at the very least) failed to demonstrate that they're capable of delivering on anything they've promised. It seems that a shiny new "official" Atari logo, and a plastic case that vaguely resembles a half-melted 2600 with a wooden popsicle stick glued to the front, is enough to make a redundant and undistinguished piece of hardware seem like a must-buy to people who can—and probably do—already have everything it purports to offer.

[Simple as that]

Someone should have instructed him to make his high score submissions bug-free.

[Or maybe “Ten Years and Only One Drawing”]

It may be "only one drawing", but that's still less "recycling" than Garfield. Happy Anniversary!

[Hacks]

N.E.R.D.S. was a close second - but I needed something with a title screen. Plus "The Last Ninja" just sounds funnier for some reason.

Makes perfect sense. Good choice.

[Hacks]

At least it wasn't N.E.R.D.S., a game so simple and shallow that it could actually have been written with the 2600 BASIC Programming cartridge.

[Testing]

Nice! If only we had a version that could fit into a Jaguar shell ...

[Poetry Corner]

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

The scalpers got theirs,

So screw you.

[If You're Going to Go, Valentine's Day Is Better Than Christmas]

Very sorry for your loss, RT.

[Chameleon Blues]

I'm curious ... what were you hoping to have from the Coleco Chameleon that you can't already have from another system, modern or vintage?

[My Mom Is Probably Going to Die Within the Next 12 Months]

Very sorry, RT.

 

I just learned that my grandmother is suffering from Parkinson's Disease, and our family is having the same discussions (treatment vs. letting the disease run its course). No easy choices.

[The proverbial bad penny]

It's the dreaded Kennedy Penny!