Lord Thag

Yeah, same. I have no idea why everyone thinks that game was so great. Found it rather dull back in the day too (and my friends dad had the arcade in his living room). Historically significant? You bet. But fun? Not really. I never liked the concept until Galaxian came out, and never loved it until Galaga. Adventure is more of a cult classic on the system. Fun, weird, but my no means a masterpiece like Berzerk, Pitfall or Solaris.

Cart and box for me, thanks

Yeah, I agree. It's still fun. The community here has extended it as well with all the hacks, particularly the ones based on Nukey's 8k hack (Haunted Adventure II being my personal fav). It's certainly playable today, but it does (as do most Atari era games) require you to step outside your modern gaming expectation. Atari games are, of course, very primitive in terms of graphics and gameplay. The problem is getting someone to devote the time to get used to the older style of game. Once you do, it's still very fun. I experienced something similar on the Switch this last weekend. Picked up the Baldur's Gate two pack. Fired it up and was really underwhelmed. Muddy graphics, dated voice overs, clunky combat. Almost put it down, but I kept at it. Suddenly, that older way of playing the game 'clicked' and I spent the rest of the weekend playing it, and having a blast. The problem wasn't the game: it's that I expected it to look/feel like a modern RPG. Once I dropped that, and was willing to take the game on it's own merits... it was fantastic. Same thing is true of Atari. If you are going to review a 40 year old game, take some time to acclimate past your modern expectations.

Didn't take a pic (I play on hardware), but I was slightly over 100k on Galagon. Best game yet, level 11. Such a great port.

I agree on Tommy's point regarding casual gaming, that simple, fun games and couch co-op are an untapped market. One of the things I'm most looking forward to is that the Amico is targeted at people who are not heavy into gaming. I'd love to play video games with my wife, or when we have a big group of friends over. But a lot of the stuff I play is just too complex and fiddly to make that work well with people who are not avid gamers. I think one of the things people forget about 'casual' (I prefer 'accessible') gaming is that many of us die hards would love to share the hobby with family and friends who just don't have the interest/motor skills/patience to learn how to play something as complex as your average, online multiplayer game. We'll buy these systems too... just to play with others (as I did the Wii, which ended up a disappointment). Dual Analog controllers with 15 buttons are intimidating as hell to someone who hasn't grown up using them. Simple controls, fun, intuitive games etc. are definitely a market if the Amico can nail the launch, advertising and support it needs. I'm hoping it can.

Lost Luggage is a fun Kaboom re-skin I also like Guardian, which doesn't get mentioned much due to rarity. It's basically a cross between Missile Command and Solar Storm

The 7800 never had great market penetration, even in the US. Mainly you'd see it in Sears catalogs, Toys R Us, and Kaybee Toys, and even there, you had to know where to look. It's a classic case of a great system that was delayed so long that it stopped being relevant. When it was made, it would have been the primo arcade home console. When it launched, the NES had changed the whole landscape and few people wanted classic arcade games when Mario, Metroid, Zelda etc were taking the world by storm. Time has changed that. Nowadays, people remember how good those arcade games were, and the 7800 has a bunch good ones. On top of that, it's unique in that the homebrew library for it makes it far, far better than it's original library did. In 2019, it's become a great arcade system with some cool, obscure ports of games that few other consoles ever saw (Frenzy, Baby Pac Man, Space Duel, Moon Cresta and so on.) I find I play it far more NOW than I did THEN.

Let's just say that all of them are available if you know who to PM

So, this isn't about what you probably think. I'm not talking about Imagic or Activision or 1982. I'm talking about Atariage, now, in 2019. I was sitting down this weekend with some of the new homebrews from PRGE (Galagon, Wizard of Wor, Baby Pacman) and just kind of shaking my head at how good they are, and how I never in a million years would have thought we'd be playing anything like this when I joined here back in 2004. Hell, even the near-mythical Zookeeper looks to be a thing reasonably soon. I kinda looked over my shoulder at my cart collection and realized that I now have a whole shelf of Atari 2600 homebrews now. Not only that, but that shelf is pretty much always the one I go to when I grab a game to play these days. Star Castle, Space Rocks, Medieval Mayhem, Thrust, Mappy, Draconian..... and on and on. Dozens of A+ games. Sure I still play some of my favorite classics (a good game is a good game after all), but most of the time, I play homebrews these days. So much care, knowledge and love has gone into so many of these, and there are now more than I can count. The Atariage homebrew library beats the pants of Activision and Imagic as a whole, just by sheer quantity of excellent games. There, I said it. But it's true. So this is just a big thank you post: to the devs, the artists, the players/testers, writers, and, of course, Al for banding together for so many years to make this a thing. I mean, it's 2019. We have AI, we can grow organs in a printer, virtual reality is a thing you can buy at Walmart, and we have tablet PCs that make the Star Trek ones Picard used look like crap. It's the future! Never in a million years would have expected in the 90s, when I started collecting, that the future would include a complete resurrection of one of my favorite consoles. This is truly the golden age of Atari games. And you know what? We did that. And it's pretty damned awesome.

I picked up Wizard of Wor and Galagon as well. Both are outstanding ports. The former has like 99 levels, and is probably now the definitive home version, better even than the Astrocade port. Galagon is something I never in a million years thought I'd be playing on a 2600. Throw in Mappy, Draconian, Scramble etc. and we are truly living in a new 2600 golden age in terms of game quality.

I've been enjoying this port since I picked it up at PRGE, great game. Never thought we'd see a home port of this either, so thanks (as usual) to Bob for a job well done. It's also hard as hell. I find I can make it to the second board with some regularity, but that's about it and I don't seem to be getting much farther. The key is obviously the pinball portion, but I'm stumped at how to improve. Ball loss seems to be largely due to the extra wide space between the flippers (as it was in the arcade), and I don't seem to be 'getting it'. Any tips on how to play this a bit better? I'd like to get better at it.

Of the original set, Tank Command is all I'm missing. Never wanted to drop $150 on one loose. But honestly, the must haves? This is true of ONLY the 7800 I might add too: it's all the homebrew games. Seriously, nowhere else in the history of consoles has a system like the 7800, that wasn't popular, and whose small library had a few gems but not much else, been resurrected in such a fashion. Al/Atariage and the coders here (particularly Bob) have made this console *the* goto classic arcade console for me, as it should have been back in the day. My stack of homebrew games is 2/3 the size of the actual library, with only a couple of early duds. Quality stuff, and I actually play them all constantly. It's also the only system in the world to have the library of Pac Man ports that it does, now including the only home port of Baby Pac ever made.

Yeah this is one of those games that nobody played back in the day because it was a quarter eater, and not in a terribly fair way. Having a home version where quarters are not required is making me appreciate it a lot more than I once did. It really is a clever game. Just ... hard.

It's a great port. Played it all day Sunday after picking up a copy at PRGE. What's impressive is how similarly it plays to the arcade, the pinball physics are quite close to how the game actually plays on a real machine. It's hard as hell too. Pretty much the only classic-style pac man game the 7800 doesn't have now is Pac & Pal. Thanks Bob!

I'm about halfway through, gonna be playing on the train today. It's a great port, no control issues on my end. They only thing that stands out really is that the pet idea, where it can sell junk items in town is still a fantastic idea. Miss that when I play diablo. Otherwise, it's the same Diablo 2 inspired goodness I remember... even if it does get a bit samey after awhile.

I'm at the end, but the thing crashes like crazy. Nothing game breaking on my end, but plenty of crashes to the console menu. Fun game, though the new bads can't touch Handsome Jack.

This is the kinda thing that makes me love nerds. Is there any practical reason to do this? Nope. Is it awesome and impressive? Yep. Love it when people set cool challenges like this and actually pull it off. Nice job!

Yeah. I used to be into TI-99, ADAM, Spectrum, CoCo etc. Over time I realized I never played any of them that much, and sold what I had for each. These days, it's my original love, the Atari XL line and the C-64. it's true of consoles as well. 5 years ago I sold everything I wasn't actively using/playing. Best decision I made. My room isn't overcrowded now, and I love everything I have.

I've seen a lot of game stores close over the years. A LOT. And I've run conventions for years, so I've known a ton of store owners. Here are the things that are generally common to all the closures: 1. They carry only retro games. This just isn't feasible these days. Dwindling pool, rising prices. You have to broaden it out to collectibles, board games, records... something besides just games. With all the easily available emulators and clone consoles, the general public are not willing to buy pricey games when a clone console is cheaper, and collectors are generally not thick on the ground enough to keep a store afloat (and they often have half the store anyway). 2. They're greedy. Don't price like ebay. You're not paying ebay prices for the stuff, don't be an asshole to your customers. Fair pricing. Don't price yourself out of business, but don't price yourself out of business either. If you have a stack of the same game that isn't selling, drop the price. Any decent collector will recognize a fair price and pay it. I see a store selling high ebay... I won't buy anything on principle. 3. They treat their customers like potential thieves. See this a lot. Running a game store means dealing with a ... challenging public sometimes. Some owners let this sour their mood, and become assholes to their customers. Don't do this. Ever. Treat your customers well, even though a subset of them will be the most annoying people you've ever dealt with in retail. 4. Their employees suck. See this one a lot to. Someone opens a store, and it does well. They grow. They start hiring staff. They have no idea how to manage. Staff are assholes, arrogant, dishonest, rude, lazy or checked out. This alienates people, and over time, the customers stop coming. If you hire people, watch them, check up on them, show up at random times. Fire anyone who is lazy or rude.

This is one of those topics where my opinion is 'it depends'. Collectors are not hoarders, necessarily. I am friends/on good terms with several people with enormous game collections, one of which has tons of protos. They are some of my favorite people to meet up with at game shows. I've helped on a couple of releases for unreleased protos over the years as well. The people I am friends with are all historically minded folks who are dedicated to preserving this stuff. In some cases, they have obtained unreleased stuff with the promise not to release it. They keep those promises. This, I have no problem with. It will be saved for posterity, museums etc. Preservation is the #1 priority, not necessarily releasing it for people to have fun with. And then there is the other kind of 'collector'. Greedy, grasping, dishonest, manipulative. Will say/do anything to get something they want, and then they'll hoard it like gollum with a ring. Met quite a few of these folks too... and I'm not a fan. Where possible, I favor releasing stuff just to ensure it's survival, but that's not always feasible, or ethical in the case where an original dev has given a proto to an archivist only on the promise that it's not released (or whatever). So, it depends on the situation.

I spent a lot of hours trying to figure these games out as a kid. I just knew there was something cool hidden in them. I finally, years ago, downloaded the solution and actually spent like several hours and beat Earthworld one rainy saturday. I have seen the actual winning sword and it was... not worth the hours it took to get it. I've always felt the concept for these games was great, but the execution was terrible.

Totally. I swear that was taken in my parents living room circa 1983. All that's missing is the yellow rotary phone with 20 foot cord, and the coffee table with giant b/w picture photo books that no human ever actually read.

Totally get why you're doing this, and I'm totally fine with it. Future-proofing is important. Something else you could do would be to do a once a year 'pledge drive', the way Wikipedia or BoardGameGeek do to raise additional funds. It's not compulsory, but it does raise a significant chunk of cash, and the once a year thing prevents it from becoming annoying to members.

Retro game conventions. I can't tell you how many books I've picked up for a dollar or two because some vendor couldn't sell them and didn't want to haul them back after a big show. Seriously, I have a whole shelf full I've picked up at PRGE for a fraction of what they go for on ebay.

Yeah, there are a lot of bad copies of this. I've had similar issues. Just use a different image.