GoldLeader

Yeah I meant do they make one for Atari 2600... Although I may get a Harmony, I'd say I'm not really into emulating. I have one of those Tron sticks, and they are pretty cool. But alas they don't light up. LEDs have come a long way since they released those.

Yeah some convenience stores I've been to in Denver have armed guards and/or that crazy bulletproof plexiglass where the clerk talks to you through little holes and takes your money through a 2 inch window...I always thought it was so ridiculous, but by the same token I've always felt that if you robbed a convenience store or shot a clerk, you should get the death penalty. I mean clearly the laws and police have let down neighborhoods where they feel this is necessary. I had a friend living in Florida who told me some of his neighborhoods were like Grand Theft Auto...He left a convenience store one day, thought he heard something going on as he left, and when he got home he found bullet holes in the side of his car.

That's pretty neato! I wonder if they make an Atari version?

At least the drunks in your area have clean breath!

Indubitably!

Our Toy Store went from being 3 Wishes, to Circus World, to Kay Bee Toys... And they had the games in boxes either behind the counter or in a big glass case where an employee handed you the game you wanted, although I can remember Atari and Colecovision games being on closeout sales and being on a table up front. It still seems like we were limited in that we selected a few games to look at the back of the boxes (maybe 4 or 5 on a good day) and then bought 1 game or maybe 2...Returns from the toy store were for the same game only and it had to be unopened (unless it was broke). It wasn't until Electronics Boutique came in that you could return a game just because it sucked...And about the time of the Dreamcast they quit doing that because everyone was abusing the policy...Everyone but me evidently. I was a good kid, and if I liked a game I held onto it. I never saw beating a game as a valid reason to return it.

Just saw this poll...Let's see. 3 2600s (1 Light Sixer, 1 4 switch woody, 1 Vader) 3 7800s 1 Sears Video Arcade II 2 Jakks Pacific Plug and Plays 2 Atari Flashbacks (Flashback 1) 2 Atari Flashback 2s 1 Atari Flashback 5 1 Atari Flashback Portable 1 TV Boy (Chinese Atari clone Plug and Play) 1 ColecoVision Expansion Module #1 1 Atari PONG 18!!

I was really thinking the same. That I don't know if there's enough "me"s out there...etc. And small though it surely would have been, I think if there's a market for Homebrews, there could have been a market for this. I don't think it ever would have been more than a small niche audience, however. And it would have needed to have been done right. Obviously A) It would need to exist and B) It would have had to be a Labor of Love ... The idea that anybody was going to "Corner the Retro Market" would have to be thrown out and replaced with a passion for producing a console in small numbers to a please a, hopefully enthusiastic, "cult" crowd.

I've never owned a Wii U, but is it true that the VC games have inexplicably dimmer and harder to see screens than the Wii? I don't know details, but I've heard that and assume it has something to do with emulating in HD...

I do see what you're saying. I guess the thing struck me as though the author is saying, "Calm down! Don't get too excited. It's just off the shelf parts and there's better ways out there to play the games." I wouldn't want my 14 year old self to have been told that. (Please forgive my time traveling tenses here). And while I'm not arguing the facts themselves...That "Been there, Done that" way of presenting it is slightly negative if not a bit condescending...For the record I know I shouldn't hold an internet article to a "print" article standard...Maybe I'll drop it down to a Retro article standard (joke). Actually I can remember some magazines back in the day that actually struck me the same way. There were, on occasion, articles talking about games as though everyone was already sick of them, when in actuality some of said games never even made it to market. I very clearly remember one article about VR on the Jaguar. It started off by talking about an arcade conversion and acting as though nobody even plays that game anymore. The problem with that was that nobody I knew had even seen that game (yet)...And although the author was convinced that Atari Jaguar VR was already "yesterdays' news", It had never even been a product of tomorrow...It must be quite a luxury, I thought, to be so bored of something already that the rest of us won't even get the chance to play...

I understood what the author was saying, and it is hard not to write from a "modern day" perspective...But it leads to...I guess I'd say "false equivalencies". For people who were there at the time, the console market (which I believe could be argued was an extension of the "arcade" market) was Not the same as the home computer market, granted there was some overlap. And the international market, though prevalent now due to the internet, and ebay etc., was not a major factor back then. I remember clearly how big a deal the Colecovision was when it came out. I don't think the vast majority of console buyers were looking for a better experience or more accurate arcade ports by buying home computers, though some did...And as far as Famicoms, etc. and the idea that Nintendo was going to swoop in and save the home video game market After the Crash...Well those of us who bought Colecovisions did not Expect a Crash in the first place, and back then, Very few people imported anything. I highly doubt back then that most of us even knew whether or not a Japanese game system would work on an American TV set. And the amount of people here in the U.S. who knew about Famicoms or SG-1000s in the early '80s would be pretty small (Like equal to the amount of Electronic Games Subscribers with Eidetic memories)...It's not that it's, overall, a poorly written article or anything, and God knows I've seen worse...But acting like Coleco of the past had the same negative qualities and connotations as the Coleco of the present, or looking at it globally and comparing a widely available (and popular in its day) console to a home computer or a console from overseas, would be a modern day viewpoint filled with false equivalencies...If the person writing the article went back to buy a console from the store shelves in 1982...His viewpoint would be different...And his impression of "Old Coleco" would likely be a whole lot more positive.

While part of that retrospective is right on the money (Especially some of the second half)...It is very negative in many ways. I can tell there's no rose colored glasses, but there's also no nostalgia, or maybe it just seems like something a millennial wrote that wasn't there when the Colecovision hit. If Colecovision was so "Generic" then why was it one of the Best consoles of its time? Only someone who wasn't there would make the mistake that the Famicom came in in '83 and wiped the floor with Coleco...Maybe in Japan, but even in America most people I know in practical experience didn't get an NES until '87 or '88...I've met a few people who claimed to have one in '85 or '86. "Liars" is the term I would use for these people. (Not all, Mind you, just the few people I've met who were clearly lying about it or regurgitating "facts" they read on the internet trying to act like they were there on day one...)

I don't know what they were smoking, but I want some!

Also there is a very large difference between drinking a beer or two sometimes, or partaking of a little "indulgence", and being fall down drunk 24/7. It is the latter which tends to kill people... I like a beer or two and my friend who is a doctor said one drink a day is beneficial, namely because it takes off a layer (however small or microscopic) of the fat and cholesterol, etc. that tend to clog arteries (leading to heart attacks and strokes). I also enjoy a slight buzz and I taste the grains, the malt, and hops when I drink beer...I'm very aware of the taste, the foretaste and the aftertaste, and the "finish"...This is quite different from my cousin (May he R.I.P.), who liked to drink an 18 pack a night, and died at age 39... One of my favorite sayings is "All things in Moderation..."

All this talk of Superman brings to mind another game... If Superman was great on Atari (which it is IMO), it should have been good on a system with infinitely more power...Or that is to say, they should have been able to make a good Superman game. And I am reminded of Pitfall. Although I never gave them much of a chance, and might be way off base here, I remember being very disappointed in those Pitfall games that came out for SNES and Genesis. Just a comment BTW, I'm not saying they meet the criteria of being "nearly great"...But it really gets me that all they had to do was keep the basic gameplay of Pitfall for the Atari or Colecovision, and maybe add some more paths or levels and maybe some new obstacles, or cool scenery and they could have made a classic...

My self in my 40's agrees with your 13 year old self

Obviously up to you, But I'd say Keep it! The Wii is Awesome! Also maybe just not worry about the scratches if you got a good deal...I know this is easier said than done for some people...

I am so glad to have read this post! I was beginning to think I was the only person that felt this way! I mean I thought it was rough Every time they changed the controls on a Twisted Metal game and Totally agree they should have just stuck with the Twisted Metal 2 control scheme throughout, but minor differences were ok as long as the main controls for the car were on the D-Pad. I always thought the analog control was just for those few outsiders who preferred it, and though I never asked my friends the question; I thought almost all of them used the D-Pad. And unless they were solely using millennials as their beta testers, shouldn't someone play testing this game have raised this concern? For me this really was the final nail in the coffin for modern video games. With each new game coming out being an even more bland first person shooter or playing like a movie full of cut scenes nobody wants to watch or having an instruction manual that read like a list of chores; I mean here they had a perfect formula. All they had to do was give us new level designs, maybe some new characters, and ever so slightly improved graphics, and we all would have been so happy.

I was thinking in terms of secret societies, parties, and the unspoken idea that power is an aphrodisiac...But, Yeah that works too! LOL ...

Yeah in the good way! Lot of that in the founding fathers, too...

Personal opinion, Have fun, enjoy life...Just don't put yourself or others in danger... and Nobody should ever have gone to jail for possession of a plant. Also to my knowledge, unless you're talking about mixing it with other things, nobody's ever died due to pot. Interesting story, although I can't guarantee it's true, is that pot is the reason Britney shaved her head. Rather than just getting the "usual" drug test, the courts were giving her the hair follicle test. Rather than have this on her record, she shaved her head, and the "mental breakdown" angle may (or may not) have been played up for publicity...

TWISTED METAL for PS3! The one game I thought would save modern video gaming as far as I was concerned. All they had to do was make a proper sequel using the power of PS3, easy right? Nope! They completely screwed it up! They had the graphics, they had the music, Hell they even (probably) had the gameplay. And by putting in an online component I could finally see if I was as good as I thought. Unlike most video games, Twisted Metal was one game series I was actually quite good at. But they screwed with the game in the one place they Never should have changed a thing. The CONTROLS! No longer could you control the car using the D-Pad like in ALL OTHER Twisted Metal games! About 15 seconds in I realized I was never going to be able to control the car using that stupid little analog stick. I put the game back in it's box and, give or take some stuff for my Wii and maybe something to do with pinball, I don't think I've bought a modern video game since...