FujiSkunk

Yea.. it was Atarisoft too... so how many were made by Atarisoft exactly I wonder? At least 17 for the Apple II: the 14 listed in the auction plus Joust, Crystal Castles, and Mario Brothers. Pengo was also ported for the Apple II, but I'm not entirely certain it was an AtariSoft release. The game has some significant differences compared to Atari's other Pengo ports. I'll have to check my "copy" when I'm home.

...looking for a smiley that is having a heart attack...

He probably doesn't do much of anything, resting on his laurels in between Robotnik's invasion attempts. He strikes me as somebody who's a rebel-without-a-cause type when there's no cause.

Joust was released for the Apple II. I have it. I could use the rest of these, though....

The "emailing" of a typed ransom note was your fatal mistake.

Hopefully Connery wouldn't have opted in if he didn't think the game had promise. Generally speaking, he seems to have at least some concern about the quality of the projects he's involved in. That's a nice idea, but I'll be damned if Sean Connery knows a single fucking thing about video games, let alone what makes them good. Whoa, down boy, just offering a point for debate. I'm inclined to agree that he probably wasn't the first in line to buy an X-Box on the first day, but I'm still willing to reserve judgment. I don't know the man personally, so for all I know he may be inclined to pick up a gamepad now and again.. or at least do enough to homework to be familiar with the concept.

Hopefully Connery wouldn't have opted in if he didn't think the game had promise. Generally speaking, he seems to have at least some concern about the quality of the projects he's involved in. And I don't want to hear anything about Highlander II... or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

It's the journey, not the destination. Somebody said that.

I bought one from another AtariAger recently. They're good for what they are, which is a cheap NES knock-off. I've heard there are inconsistencies to be found between real NES hardware and the NES-on-a-chip technology these things use, but so far I haven't noticed any glaring differences.

The red-label releases are quite cool. They're the only label variations I bother collecting. Getting complete sets can be a challenge, though. Some of the manuals were redesigned as red-label manuals, and some are just reprints. Some of the boxes are multi-lingual, and some aren't. My favorite was buying a red-box Space Invaders, new and sealed. Inside was a reprint of the black-label manual, and a silver-label cartridge.

When you're dealing with a store staff that doesn't know what it has, or only thinks it knows what it has, you're very likely to get either unbelievably good or unbelievably bad deals. I once visited a Salvation Army that wanted $15 a pop for old SNES sports games, the kind you're lucky to get a quarter for if you try to sell them yourself. This same store had SNES and Genesis power supplies for $1.50 each. Guess what I bought, and what I didn't buy?

The Apple II version of Spy Hunter is surprisingly decent. It's certainly no replacement for the arcade game, but for what the programmer(s) had to work with, it's a nice job. The analog controls and dual fire buttons help the cause. The 7800 wouldn't have the analog controls, but it would still be possible to use the Apple II version's button lay-out for the weapons. One button controls the machine guns and the missiles; a missile fires whenever the helicoper is directly overhead. The second button controls the oil and the smoke, with oil taking precedence. There is no weapons van button, the van comes after you automatically.

Oh! That's it, I've been playing modern games for too long. I was wondering what a Heavy Sixer PlayStation looked like.

I'll have to go play with my Model 1 again some time, but if I remember correctly, the tray ejects automatically when you reset or turn on the console without a cartridge.

You could call this a form of nostalgia, but one of the reasons I collect is that I am fascinated by the history of video games. Among other things, it's fun to see how various systems tackled a particular game, or particular kind of game, as the technology evolved. I'm not exactly on a quest to own every Atari game out there. I would like to own every arcade port, because I have a particular fondness for games that were originally in the arcade, and I would also like to collect every game released by Atari, since they were the company that started the whole thing. Other games end up in my collection as I find them, but I'm not exactly on a quest for them. Except for the red-label reissues that I think look cool, I'm not even going after label variations.

Are there any particular 2600 games you're hoping for?

Oh, right, the blue one. Sorry.

Pity the hero of Adventure. Time was, he was the center of attention, with a whole game that revolved around him. Eight years later, he's but a mere kneecap, forced to share his spotlight with the other blocks that formed a "more recognizable" hero. And now he's unemployed, his job snatched away by those darn polygons.

Most versions of Paperboy don't let you get more subscribers than you started with, so if you have perfect days from the start, you'll never get resubscribers. However, some ports, including the C-64 and original GameBoy releases, will give you a new subscriber every time you make a perfect run, even if you already have all the subscribers you started with. Save your money. At least on the Genesis, Paperboy 2 is not all that impressive.

Say, has anybody actually read the question? On the arcade version of Paperboy, at the end of the first day, if your performance is judged to be extremely bad (it may be that you have to lose over half of your subscribers, but I'm not sure), you will get a handful of resubscribers as a "second chance." If your performance continues to be bad, you will be fired. If you're fired, the game is over, even if you still have lives remaining. Some of the home ports may also have this feature, though I can't think of any offhand (besides the arcade emulations, of course).

The 2600 games I've rolled over include Asteroids and Video Pinball. I've also rolled over Centipede, but that was when playing the "teddy bear" version, so that one doesn't really count. I once rolled Midnight Magic over. You get a little bonus eye candy when that happens. I can't say I recall rolling games on any other system, or in the arcade.

Dagnabbit. Forgive me for the crosspost. I originally posted this in the other, supposedly dead Q*Bert thread:

Going back to the name thing... For what it's worth, there was an Apple II Q*Bert clone released back in the day, named Cubit. Some pf the characters had slightly different shapes, but otherwise it was Q*Bert in all but name. I can't say for sure the company that released Cubit didn't face the wrath of Gottlieb and/or Parker Brothers, but I'm assuming they didn't. So, simply changing the name may be enough to keep the lawyers happy, or at least looking the other way. I'd still rather see Q*Bert in all his 7800 glory, but if I can't, some cube-hopping dude with a different name will be the next best thing.

How about some smaller JPEGs for those who are merely curious? It'll save your bandwidth.

I'd guess Hopping Mappy for one of them. No idea about the other one.