G-type

if you are willing to get a cartridge in slightly less than pristine condition you can get it a little bit cheaper.

Item fetching Adventure Games: Superman - Repurposed some of the code from Adventure to incorporate the Superman property which Warner Brothers had in the rights to. Fly around the city taking bad guys to jail and rebuilding the blown up bridge. The hardest part about this game is figuring out how the screens are layed out in relation to each other. (It is far from intuitive). When I had this game as a kid, I used to just fly around aimlessly, with no clue where to go or what to do. Some of the helicopter sounds are kind of irritating, but flying around as superman and picking up bad guys is fun. Raiders of the Lost Ark - This game is has some really obtuse puzzles that require you to guess what the programmer was thinking. It’s an almost impossible task to solve this game without getting some hints from the manual. Even when you know what to do, some tasks are still quite challenge, (such as parachuting into the opening under the mesa.) It does give the flavor of the movie fairly well, incorporating a few of the story beats (snakes, whips, guns, map room) Some of the graphics are hard to identify what its supposed to be. The two joystick implementation was a creative (but slightly clunky) way to deal with inventory management. (Riddle of the Sphinx used this control method too.) E.T. This game became infamous in the early 2000s, earning a reputation far worse than it ever had originally (or deserved). The world is rather on the small side, and the falling into pits mechanic was poorly implemented, but the overall concept of the game is pretty good. The relentless FBI agent and scientist provide just enough challenge to keep you on your toes and the randomization of the item and zone placements makes the game far more replayable than it would have been otherwise. Adventure - The original item fetching adventure game. Loosely inspired by the Adventure text based game. Its also famous for the easter egg, its creator inserted in the form of a secret room with his name. Find the key to open the corresponding castle, use the bridge to cross gaps, or the sword to fight the duck looking dragons. Private Eye - This is a pretty wacky but neat game. Drive around a sprawling city, looking for the pieces of evidence and bringing the crook back the police station. The way you leap out of your car when you jump is odd, but the gameplay is interesting and in the later cases it gets pretty tough as there is zero room for error. You will need to consult a paper map to plot out your route ahead of time, as there is no time to explore mid-game. Even looking at the map might be too much of a distraction, when every second matters and knives and falling flower pots abound. You might be better off enlisting a friend to help navigate. Riddle of the Sphinx - If you are one of those people who blindly jumps into a game and then forms an opinion of it from the impression that first minute of game play makes, then you might make the same mistake I did and write this game off as a sub-par shoot’em up. While this game IS a sub-par shoot’em up, that only accounts for 1/3 of the gameplay. The other 2/3 is an item fetching adventure game more akin to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Reading the manual is a must to accurately identify the various temples and figure out what corresponding objects must be delivered to them. The clues in the manual are helpful, if a little on-the-nose. The way the game scrolls down disappearing behind a band that your character is on is very off-putting, but at least the graphics are sharp and flicker-free.

I found score challenges for Quadrun and Gravitar in the AtariAge magazine contest... and some (but not all) of Imagic's games score challenges in the Numb Thumb News magazine I've seen photos of the Gorf and Wizard of Wor medals, but no idea what score you needed to earn one.

where can I find the scores

Activision's patch score challenges are very well known I just learned that Imagic had official score challenges for some of their games. (For the "Imagic Experts Club") Are there any others?

great resource!

I inherited my cousin's 2600, along with a box of games that included: Asteroids Berzerk combat frogger Starmaster pac-man E.T. Superman Jungle Hunt missile command Demon Attack I wasn't super into it at the time, because I viewed it as a step down from my TI-99/4a, which was my primary gaming device back then. I definitely have grown a greater appreciation for it over time.

I've been playing a couple Activision games lately, (Robot Tank and Frostbite), and the pursuit of the requisite patch score really kept me hooked. I wish I could still get these patches, and I wish it was done for other Atari games too. Maybe there could be a digital version of them on AtariAge?

You make very good points. Pat's best move is probably just to ignore Renee's bait, and maybe add a few qualifiers to his previous claims on the next podcast.

The first level is "easy mode".. In levels 2-8 you only have a few verses of the music to find the flame spirit (if you fail you need to get 1000 more points worth of diamonds to reset it). Also, the bats can now steal the flame from you, (whereas on level 1 they only steal the crown). Also the total time limit for the level keeps dropping, as well as the time limit to reach the mountain top. (Even on level 1 there's almost zero room for error)

Warlords is pretty much the ultimate Wizard of Wor is great too. Maybe Boxing. Combat (Tank Pong) is a pretty good time too Also, search on pinterest/flickr for some Atari themed, party foods... like brownie joysticks

I'll definitely want to get in on the 2017 contest! I just started trying to go for patch-worthy scores. I've been hacking away at Robot Tank for a couple of weeks now and kept dying shortly after the 3rd squadron, today I just crushed my personal best with 58 tanks! (just a couple tanks shy of earning the Cross of Excellence!)

Wiz, I think you're really underrating Solar Fox and Wizard of Wor (You're both Wizards, where's the solidarity!?), I like both of them much better than Blue Print or Mountain King.

I can't even beat the first level of Mountain King! The jump physics are so annoying. Gorf, I quite like, although I hate how flickery the graphics are. (its a problem with Wizard of Wor too)

Pressure Cooker Private Eye Warlords Frogger Robot Tank Solar Fox Missile Command Q-bert Joust Dig-Dug Yar's Revenge Enduro Wizard of Wor H.E.R.O. Kung Fu Master Enduro Jr. Pac-man Frostbite Tapper River Raid

Robot Tank is sort of a shooter... I'm hooked on it.

I'm trying to earn my Activision Medal of Merit patch in Robot Tank.. Best I've done today was destroy 3 squadrons. Yesterday I played Solar Fox. I also was playing a bit of Kung Fu Master (and just bought a copy of eBay)

I got my first 2600 from my cousin around '87/'88 along with a box of games and manuals including: Frogger, E.T. Combat, Demon Attack, Jungle Hunt, Donkey Kong, StarMaster, Pac-Man, Berzerk, Superman, and Missile Command (I am not sure what happened to it)

I just noticed today that the Famicom game: "Quest of Ki"(Kai no Bōken) (sequel to Tower of Druaga) is a rip off of Major Havoc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbq1LE9MJc0

The important thing is that you set the framerate according to your regional standards for NTSC its 29.97 (10 MHz×63/88/455/525) frames per second, or else the light gun might not register.

thanks for that link! yes the silver conductive paint seems to be the answer.. unfortunately a 15g bottle costs about $45. probably not worth it.

I am in need of a working joystick, but not sure if I know how connect the wire.

The "up" direction on my joystick stopped working today. I opened it up and took a look and to my untrained and non-technically savvy eye seemed like the trace near the contact point was simply worn out. It looks like very thinly printed foil on a clear plastic film. (sort of reminded me of a partially warn off lottery scratcher. would some carefully placed solder be able to fix this?

can anyone tell me the measurements of the white plastic cx40 handle piece?