Lord Thag

Not the person you were responding to, but I think objectively, the 400 is the least popular of the Atari computers and the consensus seems to be that it's the least pretty of the bunch. Seems an odd choice for the case for this device to me, but I don't think it will affect sales much. Most folks will just want it to do what it's designed to do: Play A8 games on a modern TV. Totally anecdotal evidence, but I would say either the 800 or the 800xl/1200xl are the most recognizable 'look' for the line as you said. I'd have gone with either of those lines personally.

For me, a device like this does a few things: Allows me to play multiplayer games with friends on the big flatscreen in the living room. Four player MULE and Castle Crisis etc Allows easy HDMI connection for modern TVs. Comes in a nice, Atari style case. I have the c64 maxi version of this and once the firmware was developed, it's a pretty powerful setup, emulation non-withstanding. Will it replace my daily drive 800xl and 130XE? Nope. But it will allow an easier way to share the games with friends on a modern TV instead of everyone hunched over a commodore CRT in the (admittedly cramped) game room.

That entire GAME is a Rorschach ink blot. Most of the puzzle solutions are just random shit in various places. A friend and I one rainy saturday, decades ago, took a walkthrough posted to one of the old irc chat groups and beat the thing. Took ages. Tedious as hell. Got the fancy sword at the end too, which is the same one that shows up in fireworld. None of it made a lick of sense.

Yeah getting one of those custom 'one controller, two joystick ports' custom jobs is on my todo list. There are a couple of 'build to order' options via members here. Just gotta have the cash.

This is a damn cool bit of news. It'll be even better if we can salvage the code and disassemble it so someone can finish it, as both of these seem to have the potential to be better than the Atari offerings. If not though, it's still cool. No wonder Dropzone was such a good Defender clone.

There's an Atari 8-bit Stargate prototype. It's a little rough but very playable and well done. The 7800 could do a game like this, no problem.

I don't use a second joystick, I use this. Works great for games like this, Stargate etc. You can use your feet.

Apparently, you are also my new avatar clone and a person of taste lol Yeah, I think 'rediscover' is what a lot of folks do. With all the modern options to play the game library, some folks who were not interested now have the ability to easily rediscover the console, and I think that's driving the big influx of new users. If a new, say, 8-bit computer clone dropped, we'd probably see an influx of new Atari 8-bit users.

Yeah I have always been on the 'Atari's just as good as Activision' bandwagon. Activision unequivocally made *prettier* games than Atari did, mostly, but they're very similar in other respects. Both companies released a lot of early games that were fun at the time, but very shallow, and which paled in comparison to later outings. Once they got some experience, both companies cranked out excellent titles that are on my most played list. Both companies also cranked out quite a lot of 'well, it's fine' games. But the later release stuff is excellent from both companies. Is HERO better than Solaris? Is Galaxian better than Megamania? Is Berzerk better than Frostbite? I dunno. They're all great fun. I think Activision made more graphically impressive stuff than Atari did, but in terms of play-ability and fun, their hit to miss ratio was pretty on par with Atari. Imagic, on the other hand, only has one title I actively dislike (Firefighter), and everything else is good to great. Moonsweeper, Solar Storm, Cosmic Ark, Laser Gates, Subterrania, Riddle of the Sphinx, and Fathom are *always* in my 'most played' pile. If anyone should get the Atari developer with the highest quality' award, it's Imagic.

I love the beast, but none of these criticisms are off base. Throw in the wide availability of cheap SD card interfaces, internet access with Fujinet, far more RAM to run complex games, a bigger homebrew scene, reliable controllers, easy A/V out for upscaling... the 8-bit line is just far superior these days. The GAMES on the 5200 are fantastic, for sure, and I love mine.. but I always steer new fans to an 8-bit computer. There's just so much more you can do, with much less effort.

Yeah its like Moon Patrol that way. I will not admit how long it took me to discover that lol

There are several 2600 arcade ports that I enjoy more than the arcade originals. Berzerk is one, Space Invaders is another. Stargate and Phoenix are not the same, but are damn close in terms of fun. Crystal Castles is nothing like the arcade game in terms of looks, but it plays very well. Shouldn't have worked at all, but it does. Yep, another one that gets few mentions. It's main fault is that goddamn music lol. Other than that it's solid.

We have several retro game/arcade places in my state that do very well. This place... was definitely a case of the owner being sketchy AF. There was a whole range of nefarious stuff going on apparently. Too bad too, we used to do our game meetups there and it was a great little spot. I'm hoping someone else picks up and runs with the idea. Most of the issues I have seen with these places is that a lot of them get opened by passionate gamers who don't really have any business experience or sense. So they don't last. The owners that do have good sense though tend to do very well. We've got one local place that has about 600 pinball and arcade machines. It's amazing, like walking through a wormhole into a 1982 Aladdin's Castle.

If I had to guess, it would be a bleed over from the Reddit crowd. The retro Atari crowd on there is super negative and prone to dog piling on anything they don't like. Which is almost everything lol. I've had the exact opposite experience. The 2600+ is a great product, and out of the box already way more compatible than the Hyperkin. And Ben seems like a really cool dude who is genuinely committed to making the product better. After I posted about some compatibility issues a few of us noticed with Rev 3 coleco carts, he reached out to me and we're sending him a few carts so that the 2600+ dev can figure out why they're not working and fix the issues. I'll take that kind of interest and dedication ANY day over some of the other companies that release stuff, make excuses, and never fix anything. Some people just can't be happy with anything.

Bradley is a very odd dude. A friend of mine who posts on here occasionally knows him IRL and he's even stranger than ordering from him makes him seem. I'll let him chime in if he wants. He's got some stories. I've said it before, but Bradley/Best is basically the Atari equivalent of Seinfeld's soup nazi. Just this crazy ass list of incomprehensible or nonsensical rules, and if you even *slightly* annoy him... no soup for you! And all it takes to annoy him is trying to buy something. Personally, I refuse to support that kind of nonsense. He doesn't have a team, unless you count mild paranoia and crankiness as employees.

I had just enough time for a quick game of this last night. The high score functionality is super neat.

To you as well!

It is. It was my personal holy grail cart for a couple of decades until I finally found a loose one for about $100 a few years ago. And it absolutely lived up to the expectations! An absolutely amazing, unique shooter with a fantastic difficulty curve and it's criminal so few got to play it. Thankfully, emulation allows that now. The backstory makes it even more interesting. It was part of a conceived trilogy, the second game being Imagic's Laser Gates (originally Inner Space), which they bought and released when Venturevision tanked. The third one, Solar Defense is a lost prototype where you defended reactors while colonist supplied them with 'Zenbar crytsals'. I hope one day it will be found, as it was apparently complete enough to warrant a review by Tilt magazine in '83. Thanks! I have intentionally avoided doing so as I love the game and want to legit beat it, but I may just do this to see what happens. Thanks for confirming.

Given how much interest retro gaming events I've done have drawn, I absolutely think you could have a successful local business that charged a fee to give access to a bunch of retro systems and provided some good food/drinks. We had a local arcade that did that with a few consoles and they did great until the owner decided embezzling was a good idea lol Maintenance/component failure would likely be a pain in the ass though, and probably a significant cost. I'd certainly be a regular!

Don't sell. It's cheap to get into. All ya need is a power supply ($15), and then buy an S-Drive Max off ebay or one of the reliable sites like The Brewing Academy or Lotharek's Lair for $50-$60 bucks. That's it. The SDrive Max is a very affordable and easy way to run most anything. You just copy your game images over to the SD card and load them via a touch screen. Plugs directly into the SIO port on the back of the Atari. You can easily find tens of thousands of games over at Atarimania or Fandal's site too, and the 8-bit forums here are full of homebrew games. The 8-bit line is an amazing game platform, even now. If you want more than that, you can get a Fujinet adapter which gives you the SD card interface plus online connectivity to download games directly to the Atari in seconds, play online games, chat online, read Wikipedia etc. Amazing piece of kit If you want even more, you can expand RAM, add a Spartados X cart which allows for an MS-DOS like command line operating system. There's a professional quality word processor called the Last Word maintained by flashjazzcat, all kinds of modern coding options (Mad Pascal, fastbasic MA65 etc). Basically... it's a bottomless pit of fun, it just depends on how much you want to get into.

The manual implies that Rescure Terra I ends when you reach Terra, but the later areas are so tough I'm not sure I've heard of anyone finishing it, especially due to it's rarity. Can anyone confirm?

Not a ton on the interwebs that I have seen, but there's a FAQ with some info and tips, and the excellent suggestions in the high score thread here.

I think the contract requires you use the convention center's in house (and vastly overpriced) food catering options. I don't believe they allow you to bring in external vendors, sadly, as this would be a fun idea. Rick would probably know better, I haven't been involved since around 2012 or so.

Starfire works, as does a lot of the old hacks I have burned onto cart like Adventure Plus, Hack 'Em, Pac Man arcade etc.

It's a fun collection of minigames all released on a single cart. I still pop it in every year.