DoctorSpuds

I wasn't very happy with my original Turmoil review so i decided to go back and give it a bit more of an in-depth look. 2600 games aren’t known for being all too complex, and that’s for a very good reason, the controller simply wouldn’t allow for it. There were a few enterprising games that came with alternate controllers or addons to make things a bit easier, the Booster Grip for Omega Race, the dual controller thingy for Spy Hunter, basically the entirety of Amiga’s offerings were going to have some sort of unique and wacky controller and let’s not forget about Milton Bradley. Some games just need a special or specific controller to be played properly; many people in the Atari sphere will agree that the lack of a Track-ball controller and compatible games on the 2600 is a great loss for the system, especially since many of Atari’s great Track-Ball games were ported to the system. If there was a game that should have been ported onto the system but never was it should have been tempest, well Atari did make a version but it was never released due to the fact that it sucked. Thankfully for Atari owners TCF showed up on the scene and released their own take of the classic arcade game, but it was different enough to avoid a lawsuit thankfully. Fox released Turmoil, and it is generally regarded as being one of the best Tempest-like games on the 2600, well actually it’s one of the only Tempest-like games on the 2600 so the bar is admittedly pretty low, but they did well regardless. The graphics don’t matter with this game, even though I will say that they are done quite well, the main focus is entirely on the gameplay. This game is fun, it’s fast, it’s addicting, its everything you want from a shooter. You are stuck between seven horizontal corridors; enemies will approach from either side and your goal is to simply destroy them, before they destroy you at least. There are five different types of enemy ship, they all move at slightly different speeds but don’t really pose too much of a challenge. The arrows you need to look out for, if they make it to the other side of the screen they’ll turn into a tank that can only be destroyed from behind so it’s best if you get them before they can get around to doing that. Then there are the prizes, these things are tricky. You’ll see a flashing object at the end of one of the corridors, you can go down and collect it if you so desire, this is the only time you can move down the corridors in the game. When you collect the prize an enemy ship will immediately appear at the opposite end of the corridor and approach you, this ship is indestructible and if you get stuck at the end of the corridor then that’s one life gone. You could also reasonably say “Screw that, I’m not grabbing the prize,” the game has prepared for that as well, if you take too long in getting a prize it will turn into the fastest moving enemy in the game, which means you’ll have to watch your step when trying to shoot it or even avoid it. The game may seem too easy to start off with but thankfully you’re able to choose your starting level when you begin the game with the Select switch, all the way up to level nine. Turmoil is just a fun game, and it keeps making you flick that reset switch for just one more game. Prices for Turmoil vary wildly, it doesn’t help that there is a Zellers version thrown into the mix. Loose carts will cost you anything from 7-20 dollars, some listings have the manual thrown in as well. Boxed copies are sitting around 25-40 dollars and Zellers copies are listed from 35-110 dollars, all loose. If you can get a cheap enough loose copy then this game is way worth it!

Of the nine titles that Atari released in 1977 I have reviewed three of them, them being Combat™, Star Ship™, and Indy 500™, I think it’s about time to add another to that list. Now I think we can all agree that some of these titles have not aged all that well, sure they were well liked back in the day (with the exception of Basic Math™ BLECH) but they were all new and unique ideas that hadn’t really been explored before on a home console, yes the Channel F did it first but Atari did it right. Due to these games extreme old age and dated graphics ‘Atari detractors’/12-20 year olds playing whatever new game is popular today always use them as a reason to mock and criticize the console, and while some of those criticism could be warranted, yes the graphics haven’t aged well and the sounds are very basic (No Timmy CD’s did not exist back then) the core gameplay is still solid. One of the launch titles that always seems to get a bad rep is Street Racer™ and I can tell you exactly why, the graphics are terrible. Well the graphics are almost terrible, yes the ‘car’ does not look like a car it looks more like the drive train of a car rather than a whole car, but this isn’t the whole story. Many people who are inexperienced with the 2600 often forget that there is more to the game than the default game variation; if you had the picture label cartridge and no manual/box you wouldn’t know that this game has 27 game variations with 6 different gameplay styles. Each style has its own set of graphics, so here’s what I’ll do; I’ll write out a separate paragraph about each gameplay style and highlight the game variations that are the most fun out of each of them. Game #1: Street Racer™, variations 1-6 This is a rather generic avoid ‘em type game where you move your car side to side at the bottom of the screen and avoid incoming cars. You gain one point for every car you pass 99 points ends the game if you don’t run out the 2 minutes 16 second time limit first. The default game has one player against the ‘computer’ which really means the other car is moving side to side while accelerating recklessly and missing the other cars out of sheer luck. I would recommend that you play the two player variation, game 2, if you can get another person to play with you. I feel the need to mention the acceleration which is a bit odd to get the hang of. Unlike with other games of this type, think Enduro, you don’t have any reference for your acceleration so you hold down the button and you won’t know how fast your going until you hit the back end a car going the speed of sound. Instead of maintain your momentum letting go of the accelerate actually slows you down so you’ll have to get good at feathering the throttle to maintain your optimal speed while avoiding cars and talking shit to your opponent. There are three and four player variants but I would advise against them since players three and four won’t have a very good time since they’re placed halfway up the screen and have even less time to react than you. The optimal variation is game 1 for one player, game 2 for two players and game 5 for a more frantic two player since there are now two incoming cars on the screen at once. Game #2: Slalom, variations 7-12 This variation is my personal favorite. In essence Slalom is the reverse of Street Racer™, instead of avoiding a large obstacle in your path you must squeeze between two large obstacles, going from around to between. The game is made somewhat easier since your skis are narrower that the car was so you will have plenty of space to weave through obstacles. The game plays identically to Street Racer, same points, time limit, acceleration, and even variations, the only differences are the graphics and obstacles. My preferred variations are 7 and 8 for one and two player gameplay, and game 11 for two players and two incoming obstacles, just like game 5. Game #3: Dodgem™, variations 13-16 Dodgem™ shakes the formula up a little bit, instead of avoiding obstacles to gain points you must make it to the top of the screen while avoiding obstacles to gain points. You control a small buggy (though it looks more like a mushroom of wheels) and avoid moving obstacles, yes the obstacles move side to side, and try to get to the top of the screen. This is my second favorite variation after Slalom since it properly uses acceleration, instead of increasing the speed of the obstacles, like in the previous two games; it increases your speed which gives you far greater control. Dodgem™ doesn’t have any three or four player modes only one and two player. I would recommend all of the variations actually; variations 13 and 14 are just one and two player modes of the standard game while variations 15 and 16 have two obstacles at once making the game more frantic. With either one or two players this game is good fun. Game #4: Jet Shooter™, variations 17-20 This game is pretty self explanatory; you shoot incoming enemy jets for points, and honestly I don’t think this game really stacks up to the previous three. There are two issues that make me dislike this game somewhat. First off is the acceleration, it’s automatic so you’ll have the jets coming at you as fast as they possibly can right off the bat and since you use the only button of the controller for shooting you have no control over this. The second issue is the shooting itself, your shots move so incredibly slowly that if you miss a shot you’ll have to avoid five or six enemy jets before you can shoot, and miss, again. Despite how fast this game moves the action is incredibly slow. The game variations are copied from Dodgem™, but I would recommend that you skip this game and play the jet mode in Combat™ instead. Game #5: Number Cruncher™, variations 21-24 Instead of avoiding obstacles like in all of the previous modes here you actually want to hit what’s coming at you. In Number Cruncher™ all you do is hit the incoming numbers with the tip of your motorcycle that looks more like a man in a wheelchair, the value of the number you hit (2,4,6) is added to your score, first to 99 wins. If you don’t hit the numbers with your head you’ll collide with them and lose time, though you can mitigate this by moving your head into the number when you collide with it so the collision cuts short and you’re on your way muck quicker. This is the fastest paced game on the cartridge as you are actively trying to hit things, which is quite fun I’ll admit. The game variations just add more players as the numbers already come two at a time, I would recommend variations 21 and 22 for the one and two player games as three and four players can get a bit crowded. Game #6: Scoop Ball™, variations 25-27 Scoop Ball™ is more complicated than any of the other game modes on this cartridge. Your objective is to collect balls and deposit them in a Computer Scooper while avoiding obstacles. You can collect points by just collecting the balls (one point) but you can get even more points by collecting multiple balls and them depositing them into the scooper (three points). I noticed that as you collect more points the game gets more difficult, there are fewer balls and scoopers and more obstacles, and even later on the objects and obstacles start to move. Not only does this game have multiple ways to score points it also has scaling difficulty for each player, which is pretty darn impressive. Unfortunately this game has only three variations and none of them are single player, you can play variation 25 but it isn’t as much fun as playing against somebody else. All in all I am amazed at how much was stuffed into this tiny 2K cartridge, frankly it’s incredible. If I were to order my most to least favorite of the games it would be: Slalom, Dodgem™, Number Cruncher™, Scoop Ball™, Street Racer™, and Jet Shooter™. I didn’t even mention that the difficulty switches can be used as well, if you switch them to A you’ll lose points instead of time when you collide with obstacles which changes the game up somewhat. This is an essential Paddle game for everybody’s collection, everybody should own a copy. Thankfully this is an incredibly common game; you can find it in dump bins at every game store that sells Atari for 2 dollars or less. If you’re feeling a bit crazy and want to get a boxed copy you probably won’t have to pay too much, the cheapest boxed copy is sitting at 10 dollars while nicer looking copies are listed for 11-15 dollars. G out and get this game if you haven’t already, I think you might just enjoy yourselves.

We’re back with Commavid today but which game to choose? Mines of Minos… Why? It has the best box art, and it’s unique, and well… It’s fun (Also CaptainBreakout recommended it, so yeah I gotta do it now). Mines of Minos is not a graphically impressive game, Commavid games rarely are they tend to make it up with fun and interesting gameplay. If you want a game to compare the graphics to Entombed by U.S. Games is almost a dead ringer. Enemy design is quite good, they’re large and fairly detailed, and there are several variations as the game goes on. At first glance you’d be forgiven for assuming that all you do in this game is run up and down the single maze collecting dots and bringing them back to the bottom to collect points and extra lives, this is not the case. This game is huge, and far deeper gameplay-wise than I thought possible, and you would never know it if you didn’t read the manual. There are five levels to the maze, each containing more difficult monsters than the last, if you just blitz the game and go straight to level five immediately you’ll find that you are far outclassed and your bombs are ineffective, your power level isn’t high enough. To increase your power level you must score 1000 points, and every subsequent thousand will increase your level by one, Mines of Minos is like a very basic RPG. The longer you spend in each maze the harder the enemies become, getting faster and faster until they just ignore the walls entirely. The method you use to deal with enemies is also unique among 2600 games in that you don’t just shoot them. You drop time bombs and you have to hope that the enemies will walk over them, in the early difficulty this isn’t a problem since the enemies are fairly stupid but later on they’ll start to use alternate routes so you’ll have to start getting smart with your placements. This isn’t just a game about enemy avoidance, that would get boring, you have to collect flashing dots and return them to the center of the top or bottommost passageway, collect three of them and you get an extra robot, basically an extra life. This is an excellent way to force the player out of their comfort zone and make them play the game, I’m sure if the player started off with three or five lives they’d just spend most of their time in the corner bombing enemies until they can safely go to the next level. The game never lets the player get comfortable, and unlike with most games on the 2600, instead of having the game go on forever eventually having the difficulty plateau, Mines of Minos actually has an ending. On the fifth level there are three stationary robots, you must make your way to them and ram them. I’ve never beaten the game, I’ve never even gotten close but I think that this would be an excellent game to spend a lazy afternoon beating. There are several helpful difficulty variations; I would personally recommend either games five or seven for a slightly easier trip. Unfortunately this is the point where we come to the price and Mines of Minos is not a cheap game, like most Commavid games. There are currently no boxed NTSC copies but if you want the game loose you’re looking at 60 dollars for the cheapest copy, and 130 dollars for the most expensive one. There is a loose copy with the manual for 80 so that might be a better deal if you eventually want to get the box or get a reproduction. Yeah this game is going to the Collector’s Zone, no matter how good the game is I can’t really justify spending 60+ dollars on one, I’d recommend you get a Harmony Cart or an UNO Cart and just play it using one of those. Basic gameplay If you want to see somebody beat the game then I'd recommend watching this one

Actually, you're right I have begged for suggestions before, I guess its been long enough that I've forgotten. But I think this is the first time I gave a collection update. I don't think I'll go for either a Jaguar or a Super Cassette Vision since I don't have the hundreds to spare on the consoles and the billions for the games. At this point I'm just waiting for a cheap enough 7800 that actually has that stupid expensive AC adapter, or to maybe find one in the wild, though that's incredibly unlikely and the price is probably going to be worse than whatever there is on Ebay. Maybe an Adventurevision....

I don’t think I’ve ever actually done one of these but I’d like to give a few updates on the state of my collection. Let me start off with this, I have absolutely no ideas for future reviews, I’m completely out of them, so if anybody has recommendations for games good, bad, or obscure I’d love to hear them. This happened a little while back but I do feel it’s worth mentioning. Back when I got my UNO Cart I decided to sell half of my collection, some of the stuff I sold earlier too. I no longer have my Colecovision or Sega Master System, I sold 115 Atari games, mostly commons, over half of my Intellivision collection amounting to around 25 games and an entire console. Despite all I’ve sold it seems my shelf is fuller than ever, funny how that works out, you sell a whole bunch of stuff but you end up getting it all back in one way or another. One big bit of news is that the elusive world of PAL/SECAM games has been opened up to me, I recently got a tiny 15” Sharp Aquos flatscreen TV that can display European games, sure they’re in B&W but the fact that I can play them means I can review them. It’s a good little TV, I got it for 20$ at my local game store, it displays all of my games pretty well and is really a big step up from by little CRT. Plus it’s in stereo I rearranged my closet last night; it’s frightening how much stuff one accumulates over time, while it’s not full to the point of bursting it is getting there…

I believe so, the packaging that both the Copy Cart and the individual games game in are incredibly similar. They were never really advertised together but it looks like they were both from HomeVision.

Today we’re going to look at an obscure European game published from an obscure European publisher. HomeVision is a rare company; in fact I can’t find a single one of their games that’s priced below 200 dollars. HomeVision was the distributor of a distributor; it was created by a company called VDI to distribute games gotten from Gem International Corporation. Some of these games are original, like the one we’re looking at today, and others are just graphical hacks of preexisting games. The game we’re looking at is World End, a game considered by Atarimania to be a Holy Grail which means that three or less of these cartridges exist, which is unfortunate since I think this game is, despite being flawed, quite good. So let’s just get on with that shall we? Overall the graphics are a bit meh, here’s why. The opening of the game is quite good; a large mothership descends from the top of the screen and releases two hideous creatures, a generic UFO and a troll creature. The mothership, UFO, and troll look excellent despite their blockiness they’re colorful and animated. The enemies are a bit generic looking, mostly vague shapes with the occasional Space Invader thrown in, but the animations some of them have are excellent and they’re also extremely colorful, I think I see a theme starting here. There are also nifty touches that didn’t need to be added but were anyway, for example when you beat a wave of enemies the sides of the screen will close much like theater curtains and wipe the remaining enemies away, I like this a lot. Here’s where a few issues set in, immediately upon starting the game you’ll see something indicative of this game, flicker, flicker everywhere. Due to the frankly ridiculous amount of enemies that are onscreen, as many as eight at a time, there is a boatload of flickering going on, even your shit flickers a whole bunch. While this does not affect the gameplay at all it does affect your eyes, and it can get rather obnoxious after a while, and speaking of obnoxious… These sounds are awful, and no it’s not what you think. Every time you hit the reset button you are treated to this game’s starting sequence, where a song, which sounds suspiciously like the Superman theme song, plays very slowly, then the mothership descends very slowly and the two creatures descend from the mothership very slowly. All while this is happening your ears are being assailed by high and low pitched trilling noises, low for the mothership and high for the creatures. This starting sequence lasts almost 30 seconds, and it is intolerable. The normal gameplay sounds are alright actually, just a bunch of generic shooting and explosion sounds and the curtain close is accompanied by an amazing WHOOSH sound. So far we’ve been presented with a fairly mixed bag, will the gameplay save this game or just make it worse? This is the game that Guardian wishes it was. Unlike with guardian this does not use the Paddles but it does allow you to fire while moving and you can fire quickly, unlike with guardian. This is actually a fairly complicated game despite the simple premise, you are forced to move quickly and shoot accurately while avoiding enemies. Let’s start with the two creatures, the UFO is the one that spits out enemies, up to eight at a time, while the troll fires deadly laser beams down at you without warning. The troll works on a rough pattern so you’ll be able to guess where he will fire next but even so it is advisable to be on the opposite side of the screen as him whenever possible. The UFO shoots out two kinds of enemies, the filler enemies will simply bounce around the screen and do not kill you if they touch the bottom of the screen but they will kill you if they hit you directly. The non-filler enemies, the ones that look like Space Invaders, travel in a straight line towards the bottom of the screen and if they make it they will automatically take a life. You wouldn’t believe a game where you travel on a straight line would have you dodging so many obstacles. The game is split up into waves, every 5000 points, or 50 enemies, you move on to the next wave and greater challenge. Every new wave narrows the playfield somewhat by use of the curtains, and the creatures and enemies speed up as well, I can only get to wave four before I game over. I don’t know if you can get extra lives, if there is a way then it is not immediately obvious. Overall this game is actually hindered by its presentation, the opening sequence is especially awful and between every wave the creatures move back onto the mothership which can sometimes take up to ten seconds depening on where the creatures are. The core gameplay is fun until it gets too hard, round four, and to really seal the coffin it’s not available in NTSC. Yeah this game is PAL only, for now, but if you have a TV that will accept and display PAL signals then this isn’t a problem. Despite the Homevision release only having a small handful of known copies this game was bootlegged by Quelle as Invasion aus der galaxies, these are pretty common, I actually saw one on Ebay for around 15 dollars. There is a rumored CCE version of World End that is in NTSC but as of yet it has not been dumped, and if it has I have not yet found it, and since Atarimania doesn’t have it I’m going to assume it hasn’t been found yet. This game obviously goes to the Collector’s Zone, at least for those who can’t play PAL games on their TV’s, if you can play PAL games on your TV then I would actually recommend you get it, it’s worth a few plays. It’s so rare that an obscure game like this actually winds up being fun… Wow that’s weird.

I can still play it. I just put the PCB into the Atari cart, it works fine but looks strange. At this point I'm just waiting to find a broken copy of Planet Patrol so I can swap the boards.

What I have done is totally unnecessary and some people probably would have advised me against it but I did it anyway. For the longest time I've had an X-Man reproduction cartridge, it didn't come in a Spectravision case but at the time I didn't know that the original came in one either, minus branding. So I got to thinking "what if I take the board from my repro cartridge and put it in a Spectravision case?", and I have done just that. It was oddly easy, in fact the most difficult thing I had to do was cut out the label, since the repro copy had an accurate end label on it. Spectravision and Atari PCB's are fairly compatible with each other, all I had to to was cut away a small portion of the cartridge inside to fit the small divots on the Atari PCB and the Spectravision PCB fit perfectly, if not a bit snugly, into the Atari cart without modification. The most difficult part of the whole process was finding a good scan of the cartridge label, I eventually found a good one, matched the size, and printed it out. At the moment I am still not quite satisfied with the label since the colors are quite off and I made the mistake of using the wrong adhesive to stick it to the cart, it bled through leaving dark splotches on the front, so I'm probably going to make another. Since I printed it with an inkjet printer it's fairly obvious that it's just printed paper with extra wide shipping tape acting as the laminate, it's very fuzzy around the edges, so I doubt it's going to fool anyone, but I don't care all too much. At least it looks authentic when sitting on my shelf and gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling whenever I look at it. All-in-all the whole thing cost me a total of 23 dollars. Twenty dollars for the repro cart and three dollars for the poor condemned copy of Planet Patrol that had to be *ahem* altered. It still beats buying a legit copy for a couple hundred dollars.

You don't want to know how many people I've been Don't forget I'm not legally allowed to drink beer until July, I'm still a baby, remember?

Asthma Simulator 2020

Wait... So asthmatically huffing and puffing while jogging slower than one would walk is not a good thing?

Perhaps somebody will come out with Pitfall!+ or Pitfall Advanced where new sounds are added, or new obstacles, maybe even a controllable jump, its possible...

This is going to be a difficult game to look at since it feels almost blasphemous to do so; the first of something is always sacred. Pitfall (I’m omitting the ‘!’ because Word freaks out and capitalizes everything), is generally referred to as the first side-scrolling platforming game, or at least the first one to do it right. It is one of the best selling games on the 2600 and is considered one of the best games on the console, if not ever for its contributions to gaming as a whole. But, and there’s always a but, how does it hold up? A true sign of a timeless game is that it’s still fun to play all these years later, the Atari and many consoles from that time period have tons of games that could be considered timeless. On the 2600 alone you have games like Missile Command, Centipede/Millipede, Jawbreaker, Worm War I, Frankenstein’s Monster, Combat, Midnight Magic, Ms. Pac-Man, Wizard of Wor, the list will go on for pages and pages if I continue. But does Pitfall make that list of timeless games. Please be aware that I’m looking at Pitfall with my own modern perspective, I wasn’t there in the 80’s so I cannot speak about it in that context, but if it really did spend 64 weeks in the number one spot then I get the feeling that… Well, I might be getting a new asshole after this one. The graphics are simple and clean, the graphics are so ubiquitous that non-gamers even know what game they’re from. The sprite work on Harry and the obstacles he faces are expertly made and definitely hold up, I’d say that the graphics are several years ahead of their time; a game like this probably wasn’t seen again until Jungle Hunt in 1983 or even Montezuma’s Revenge in 1984. I’m still amazed by how smooth everything moves and feels, there is no sprite flickering to be seen, and Harry’s run cycle is extremely well animated and looks uncannily fluid, as do the vine movements. The graphics are perfect, they’re iconic, and that’s the end of that. The sounds I’m a bit more on the fence about, a good portion of the game is played in silence since Harry makes no sound when he runs, he makes plenty of noise whenever he’s jumping or screaming his head off whilst swinging on a vine, but not when he’s running. There is a small selection of sounds that will play whenever you do something or if something happens to Harry. There is a very squeaky jumping noise, an odd groaning noise whenever you fall down a hole, another strange groaning noise when you make contact with a barrel, the classic Tarzan yell when swinging on a vine, and the classic ‘you are dead’ jingle. There is also a triumphant jingle for when you collect a treasure. Apart from those sounds everything else goes by in silence, the snapping of alligators, the hissing of deadly cobras, the whoosh of a suddenly appearing sinkhole, not even the barrels make a sound as they trundle past you at high speed. I know that David Crane was working with a severely constricted amount of memory, fitting the whole game on a 4K cartridge, and looking at the file size on my hard drive it looks like every byte was used, it would have been impossible for him to have fit more sounds in the game if he’d tried. Now this is where we get to the most important part of any game, the gameplay. The premise of Pitfall is simple, get from the left of the screen to the right of the screen while avoiding obstacles and collecting treasures, there are 32 treasures in all and you have three lives and twenty minutes to grab them all or you lose the game. The obstacles you’ll face on your quest for wealth include alligators, tar pits, sink holes, cobras, giant scorpions, an ungodly amount of barrels, and gravity itself. There are 255 screens that contain a combination of these obstacles, but the combinations aren’t random, they’re the same every time, and certain combinations won’t happen, like barrels and alligators on the same screen since that would be almost impossible (unless I haven’t gotten to that screen yet). Some screens are ridiculously easy like the sinkhole with a vine over it, or present a good amount of challenge like the three-pack barrels over a sinkhole. Most of your lives will be claimed by the alligators though, you can only stand on the two pixels that are their heads whenever they open their mouths otherwise you’re dead, the collision detection for this part is rather strict. Pitfall is not a game you can rush through, the obstacles simply won’t allow it, if you get the precise timing of each individual obstacle down to a T then you’ll be able to get through the game with some speed, but even that won’t be enough to get all 32 treasures, that is why you must use the underground caves. The caves can be accessed with the ladders that you see dotted across the different screens or if you’re feeling a bit impatient you can just jump down one of the holes. The caves are not without danger, the giant scorpions are particularly difficult to jump over and dead ends are common forcing you to backtrack past the scorpions again but the trade-off is rather worth it since each screen traversed in the caves equates to three screen above ground, you need to use the caves to beat the game. Unfortunately this is where I come in, and frankly I don’t particularly enjoy Pitfall, I’ve probably been spoiled by other newer platformers, but I just find Pitfall, and even its sequel to be rather boring, I find that the flat design present in every screen makes them blend into one another and I just don’t feel any reward or satisfaction when playing. The controls also aren’t quite my cup of tea, I’d really like to be able to control my jumps in midair much like Bobby is Going home, and I find that pressing down to let go of vines to be rather odd but that doesn’t really detract from the game in any way. All in all Pitfall is legendary, it’s iconic, and I just don’t like it. As you all know I have very unconventional tastes when it comes to games, so this honestly doesn’t come as a surprise. Personally I’m not a particularly big fan of most platform games in general, I couldn’t give two shits about Mario or Donkey Kong and I only like Sonic 2 because of the music and Sonic Spinball because it’s pinball, actually the two platform games I DO like are both on the 2600, Keystone Kapers and Frankenstein’s Monster are both excellent platforming games and I’d readily play them over Pitfall any day. Unfortunately Pitfall’s prices don’t reflect its commonality; you’ll probably find loads of overpriced copies in the wild and online. The cheapest loose copy on Ebay sitting at $7.90 free shipping which is ridiculous for a game that’s as common as 3D Tic-Tac-Toe or Amidar, the latter of which you can usually find in-box for 10 dollars or less, and speaking of in-box… The cheapest boxed copy of Pitfall currently on Ebay is sitting at 52.99$ I think I paid that much or a little bit more for Jawbreaker CIB, or Frankenstein’s Monster CIB, or any of the Mystique titles I own CIB. It’s worth 15 maybe 20 dollars in the box and maybe 3 dollars loose so don’t buy anything that’s on Ebay unless it’s in those price ranges, but you’ll probably find one in the wild that’s cheaper than that, I hope. I won’t send Pitfall to the Collector’s Zone, I can’t, I may not like it but I cannot deny it’s heritage and impact on gaming as a whole, it’s possible that without Pitfall we wouldn’t have Mario or Sonic (or Bubsy) or any modern or classic platforming games. It may not be the best but it was the first, so well… I gotta love it for that.

No worries! In 30 or so years I'm sure I'll be saying many of the same things you said. I fully intend on being one of those guys . Yup, I've been told I have an 'old soul' I have no idea what people are talking about with that one. I prefer blowing shit up to be honest

Unfortunately all I can give is a modern frame of reference, if you check my profile you'll see why. As for the movie I cannot comment as I have not seen it, I can only regurgitate what facts I've read about it, but it does look like the kind of cheesy sci-fi schlock that I adore. I'll have to watch it sometime. As for the game, as I said in the review, it's so close to being good it hurts. I want to like the game so very much, but I've been spoiled by defender which uses the floatier control style also used in Mega Force perfectly. I find the game to be enjoyable when you're not playing it like it wants you to, screw the cities I'm just going to fly off in the other direction and shoot golden arrows then turn around and destroy the city i'm supposed to protect, then I'll kill everything else on screen. Perhaps if it allowed you to score points after the white city is destroyed... hmmm its all about them points. I'm curious... did you perhaps feel obligated to enjoy the game because you paid so much for it? It's definitely been like that with me, I played COD Black Ops for the Wii four hours a day seven days a week because I spent 45 of my hard earned dollars for it at Target, I remember it very very fondly. But now if I try to play it I find that the game is an utter pile of uncontrollable crap, it's all I can do not to get motion sickness. I played that game even though I had games like Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword (which I later completed), and Super Mario Galaxy 2, which I though at the time was a dumb kids game (I have learned from my mistakes with that one.) We all remember things differently, I'm sure there are many people like yourself who enjoy/enjoyed Mega Force and movies like it, I would definitely fall into that category. But on the other side there are people who didn't like the movie, maybe it just wasn't their preferred genre or they are looking at it with a modern perspective and have been spoiled by modern sci-fi thrillers, and that's okay. And yes it's extremely annoying when the climax of a movie is just a few button presses and stock image explosions, that's why I watch the movies that stock footage came from so there's no excuse. The reminds me, I still have to watch Tarantula...

I think it’s about time I finally review one of my favorite Xonox titles, Motocross Racer. This is the pinnacle of pre red box programming; seriously the sheer amount of game they managed to stuff into a little 8K cartridge is amazing. I don’t really have much to say about Xonox as a company, I think I’ve already said all that could be said but for those of you who haven’t heard… Xonox was a subsidiary of K-Tel a telemarketing company that sold a wide variety of products on daytime and late night TV. K-Tel was aware of the burgeoning video game market and wanted to cash in and so they created Xonox to sell unique double ended cartridges. Apparently Xonox was made up of several teams spread across the U.S., none of them had direct contact with the others and they simply sent the finished products to K-Tel to be shipped off. You may notice that some of the games bear a stylistic resemblance to each other that’s because they came from the same team of programmers. Even though K-Tel had Xonox they still weren’t satisfied and so sold cartridges directly under the name K-Tel Vision, I’m pretty sure they’re just rebranded Ultravision T-handle carts, or vice versa. K-Tel Vision carts are incredibly rare and expensive and can co for upwards of 200 dollars for a loose cart so if you see one for a good price then I’d recommend you snap it up. That’s a brief history of Xonox, but we’re ultimately here to look at the game, due to this game’s complexity I’ll split each of the three unique parts into three paragraphs since each of these three parts could be a game on their own. Event 1:Desert Scramble This portion of the game is a behind the back racer where you must avoid incoming obstacles that scale in from the distance. Your ultimate goal is to reach the mountain that is slowly rising from the horizon much like A VCS Tec Challenge or Aztec Challenge. The graphics are quite nice, your little guy on the motorcycle may be wearing an odd assortment of clothes (navy blue shirt and hot pink pants? Seriously) but he’s still well detailed. The scaling obstacles are very good too, they have to be rather small for scaling reasons, but they are detailed enough and the speed at which they can approach the screen is quite impressive. At the bottom of the screen you’ll see a set of timers, the top one is your elapsed time while the bottom one is the pace time, you want to stay below the pace time otherwise the bottom of the screen will go red and you won’t quality for the next event. Unfortunately the sounds don’t quite compare to the graphics, as far as I can tell you have a grand total of two sounds, the sound of the engine and the sound of you hitting something. The engine sound is the same generic engine sound you’ve heard several million times except it’s really loud and there’s nothing to offset it so that’s all you’ll be hearing, it gets obnoxious very quickly. I’d recommend playing some music just to drown out that sound alone. Event 2: Hill Climb In this event you have to remain on a zigzagging path while avoiding obstacles and moving as fast as possible. You’ll encounter all sorts of obstacles like trees, and trees, and logs formerly trees, and giant holes in the ground. The track itself reminds me of Spike’s Peak except the thing actually scrolls vertically, which is rather amazing, and yes the scrolling is nice and smooth. The controls take a bit of getting used to but when you do you’ll find them to be fluid and well suited to this particular game mode. Again it’s the same deal as coming in below the pace time, you’ve gotta keep the bottom of the screen green, thankfully on the standard game variation you only have to be going an average of twenty MPH to qualify for the next event and your bike can go 100! But be careful if you hit any obstacles your bike will become damaged and you will lose 20 MPH from your top speed. If you crash five times the game is over hit that reset switch and try again. If you’re wondering about the sounds then don’t worry they’re exactly the same. Event 3: Beach Sprint This is the final event, a mad dash to the finish line on a beach of all places. I think this is my favorite event from a visual standpoint; the horizontal scrolling on the water and background mountains/sand dunes is excellent and as we all know the 2600 hates going horizontal. This time you’re pitted against your fellow racers who are approaching you from front and back, but they aren’t the only obstacles you’ll face. Beach blankets, flags, and volleyball nets will stand in your way, and don’t forget what happens when you crash. Once you complete it (if you complete it) you’ll be taken back to the start where the average speed to qualify is raised. This game takes on three types of racing game, behind the back, top-down Micro Machines style, and horizontal, and does them all nearly perfectly. The graphics are excellent and the programming is solid, I don’t really have anything bad to say about this game. Well actually there is one thing I don’t like about this game and that’s the price. There is currently one listed on Ebay for 45 dollars free shipping and they have historically sold for upwards of 50 dollars. Since this is Xonox and they’re the double ended cartridge kings this game also came bundled with another, the Tomarc the Barbarian/Motocross Racer Double Ender is sitting at a lofty 9 on the AA rarity scale making it the rarest Double Ender Xonox ever released, it’s so rare that neither Pricecharting.com or Gamevaluenow.com have any sales info on it, Pricecharting doesn't even have it listed, so I can’t even tell you a rough price for it. At a guess I’d say it’s worth around 200 dollars but it could be more or less I just don’t know. Now we come to the point where I either deem this game a collector’s item or something everybody should own and honestly I’m rather torn. The game almost justifies the price, almost… If it was 30-35 dollars I’d say get it without hesitation, but at 45-50 I’m on the fence. How ‘bout this, if you can find a copy for less than 40 dollars get it, if it’s nearer to 50+ then I’d say pass.