JayAre

I definitely agree with you about Parker Bros. 20th Century Fox and Starpath are my other favorites.

I don't believe either of these were exclusives. I went online to get more information, and I found a couple of threads from this forum related to the topic. I don't see any mention of these two games as club exclusives. Here are the links: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242168-list-of-atari-club-mail-order-games/ http://atariage.com/forums/topic/231736-so-what-were-the-4-atari-club-exclusives/

AAA177, thanks for the kind words and your great post. A lot of the points you bring up hit home for me as well. As far as your comment on the Wizard games; I think you're right. I recall seeing ads for the two games in the back of Fangoria as well. And regarding the Atari Game Club exclusives, I believe they were Quadrun, Crazy Climber, Swordquest: Waterworld, silver label Gravitar and Atari Video Cube. Although I think a few of these eventually ended up being sold in stores as well but were initially club exclusives. Thanks again.

Growing up, I think most of us weren't aware of everything that was available for the 2600 at the time. And then, there were those things that we did know about but just never got around to doing them for whatever reason. Thinking back to when you were a kid, if you had known about everything available in the 2600 universe at the time, what are the Top 5 things you would have done that you never did back then? I've provided the list below to give you some ideas: Join video game clubs (Atari Game Club, Activisions newsletter, Imagic's Numb Thumb Club) Purchase mail-order games (Chase the Chuck Wagon, Tooth Protectors, Spacechase monogrammed cart, Kool-Aid Man, the last two, Supercharger games, Video Life, Atari Game Club exclusives) Send away for Activision patches or CBS Electronics medals Purchase Starpath Supercharger games Attend 2600 events ("Pac-Man Day" events when the game was released) Buy controllers other than the CX-40 (Pro-Line Joystick, Trak-Ball, 3rd party joysticks) Purchase "behind the counter" games (the 2 Wizard games, adult games) Enter contests (Swordquest series, Riddle of the Sphinx, Atlantis, Name This Game, Rescue Terra I) Purchase/read video game magazines and books Send away for in-game offers (Robot Tank poster, Bruce Jenner Decathlon glove, Communist Mutants from Space poster) Buy 2600 merchandise (t-shirts, lunchbox, notebooks, pencils, model kits, Kid Stuff records/audio cassettes, Atari Game Club items) Subscribe to the GameLine Master Module service to download games via telephone line Purchase Compumate keyboard add-on Join the Columbia Video Game Club Buy storage devices (Atari Game Center, Modular Cartridge Library, Game Library, Game Program Case)

Good point.

For those of you that played 2600 games growing up and still play them today, do you find that you were a better player back then or now? For me, for the most part, I think I play better now. It seems that, as adults, we tend to analyze the games a bit more to identify the best strategies to improve our scores, more so than when we were kids. Even though we had video gaming magazines back then, the internet is a great resource for walkthroughs and gameplay strategies, which can greatly help players today. Although one of the downsides of playing as an adult is that our reflexes probably aren't what they used to be. Curious to hear what everyone else thinks. Thanks.

Thanks for all your responses. I appreciate the information.

Is the 2600 the only home video game console in history to offer adult games? I'm only referring to commercially available games, and not other sources, like homebrews. Thanks.

Just wanted to update this thread. I recently bought one of these Pirates / Madlock bats. I was reading this thread and decided to contact the Pirates to see if they had any information on it. Unfortunately, they didn't. But while I was online, I noticed that similar Atari bats were made for San Francisco Giants players as well (i.e. Jack Clark, Joe Morgan & Chili Davis). So I decided to contact the Giants. The organization was able to confirm that the Jack Clark bat was a giveaway during the "Atari Bat Day" promotion at a Giants home game on Sunday, June 27, 1982 against the Padres. So if at least one of the Giants bats was given away during a bat day promotion, maybe the Pirates one was as well. Hope this helps.

Warlord, thanks for your response. That makes sense. I'll try getting some information relating to the types of publications you mentioned. Thanks again for your help.

I recently acquired a 1983 RealSports Major League Baseball Schedule. It's an ad with the 1983 schedule for two MLB teams; the ad also provided information on a sweepstakes that Atari was running, along with a list of local, participating Atari retailers in and around the two teams' cities. I'm trying to identify which publication(s) this ad would have appeared in. It seems to have been a magazine, since the ad has staples holes in it. And perhaps it was the centerfold, since the ad is four consecutive pages. I originally thought that it would have appeared in a national sports magazine, like Sports Illustrated, for example. But now I think it might have appeared in a local publication instead. Here's the reason. The ad I have shows the schedules for the Royals and Cardinals. Rom's Atarimania site has the same ad (scan attached), but with the schedules for the Twins and Brewers. It seems that each ad paired up teams that were in close proximity to each other, geographically speaking. Maybe Atari did this to kill two birds with one stone and could place the ad in a local publication with distribution that covered both teams' cities. I contacted all four of these MLB teams and heard back from the Twins and Cards, but neither organization knew anything about the ads. I'd like to hunt down a copy of the original publication with the ad intact. And also to determine if similar ads were made for the remaining MLB teams. Does anyone out there know which publication(s) this ad might have appeared in? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. ATARI Baseball Schedule.pdf

5x7, you're very welcome. Thanks for the pictures of the Polaroid and high score log. Those kinds of items bring back such great memories; they're really cool. Absolutely, Rom. I'll forward the scans to you later today.

5x7, I think this answers your question. Attached are pics of an insert that was probably included with the Gorf and Wizard of Wor games. And you're right. You would earn the medal for a high score. In the case of Gorf, it was 15,000. The insert indicates that you needed to submit a photograph of the game screen, and send in the completed form. Hope this helps. By the way, it's great that you've been able to hang on to the medal after all these years. I don't think there are very many of these out there.

I was recently communicating with the founder of the Joystick Jolter newsletter. For those that are unfamiliar with it, the Joystick Jolter was a monthly newsletter from the 80s that provided video game reviews. Unfortunately, all his issues of the newsletter were lost in a flood many years ago. And he'd like to obtain either originals or copies for his records. Would anyone out there happen to have any issues of the newsletter? If so, please let me know, as I'm interested in purchasing either originals or copies, including in digital form, so I can pass these along to him. Thanks.

Thanks for sharing the log book. It's always interesting to find things like this which bring back great memories. I noticed that you have Breakout, Dodge 'Em and Othello listed together. By chance, was this because you had the Action Pak which bundled those three games? Thanks.

You're very welcome. I'm glad to help. I'll send them over.

Absolutely. Although you already have the missing pages in the scans for CO16725, Rev. F, as the two catalogs are identical, except for the back cover where each one has its own unique catalog number. Maybe it's easier for you that way, since you already have the missing pages in-house. If you still need the scans, though, let me know, and I'll send them over. Thanks.

I'm glad you brought this up, Rom Hunter. I noticed the differences as well. On both Atarimania and AtariAge, the scan for CO16725 has several pages missing. I have more than one copy of this catalog, and they're all consistent with each other. An easy way to tell that pages are missing is by looking at the grey "Race Track" page which serves as the divider for the racing games chapter, but no racing games are shown in the following page; instead, you'll see the "Sports Arena" divider sheet, which doesn't make sense. Another sign is that the catalog cover specifies 70 games, yet there are only 45 in the scans provided. Once you include the missing pages, you'll arrive at the total of 70. I compared the scans to my copies, and the website is missing a total of 10 pages, which accounts for the 25 missing games. I noticed that the scan for this catalog is the same exact copy on both sites, because the pages have the exact same scratches and imperfections in the same spots. I guess one of the sites obtained the scan for the catalog from the other.

Hey, everyone. I just obtained a copy of Atari game catalog CO16725. I already had a copy of CO16725, Rev. F. They both have identical covers (pictured below). Out of curiosity, I went through both catalogs to see what difference there was between the two, since they have different numbers. I compared them line by line, image by image, and there's absolutely no difference between the two. Any idea why these two identical catalogs would have different catalog numbers? Thanks.

Very nice of you to open your sealed copy to check for the catalog; I really appreciate that. Boy, you're right, it looks like not all the copies of a game may have the same catalog. Maybe, at times, Atari would run out of the game catalog currently in use and would start using older, left-over ones. Thanks again for the help.

No problem at all. Thanks for the clarification.

Thanks so much for the info. From what I'm seeing online, the original 1984 release of Millipede is fairly scarce. But at least now I'm pointed in the right direction. Thanks again. Duane, that's a great idea. I hadn't thought of that. I'll definitely take a look on YouTube for unboxing videos of any of those games that were released right around the time of these catalogs. Thanks for the suggestion.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback. You know, after all these years, I think I just realized something about the picture which I had never noticed before. The racing surface is white. Could that be the ice on the track in the Ice Race (game variations 11 to 14)? If it is, then VectorGamer's explanation makes a lot of sense, as the driver would be trying to fight for traction.

In Atari's early game catalogs, the drawing that accompanied the description for Indy 500 depicted the lead driver looking back at the others with a devilish grin. He's snapping what appears to be a cable which leads to his front-left wheel. I remember, as a kid, always looking at the drawing and wondering why. To this day, I still don't understand it. I know it's silly to be analyzing something like this, but it just doesn't make much sense. It seems like the last thing you'd want to be doing during a race is damaging your car like that. Any explanations? Thanks.

SW, thanks for the clarification. I didn't know Nathan created the box. I can see how he would be worried.