DoctorSpuds

How about reverse Missile Command where one (or two) player(s) using a standard joystick control a flying saucer on the top of the screen, if you had a controller splitter of some type you could have two playing saucers, perhaps Paddles could be utilized, removing the vertical movement but allowing for more players and more fluid and reactionary movement. The saucers would be limited to the top quarter of the screen to allow some time for the bombs they drop to reach the cites below. The player who is defending the cites will use a cursor system much like in Missile Command, but with Track-Ball support (because we're not neanderthals) to shoot down the bombs and the saucers. The defender will have to have unlimited ammo to protect the cites while the attackers will have limited ammo, if you're playing with two attackers the ammo is halved, of course there'd be variations where the ammo is limited on both sides, or unlimited on both sides. For extra variations, the control of the attackers would be augmented to either allow for increased or reduced mobility. To reduce unfair deaths on the side of the attackers the defender's would have to be limited in their shots to the top quarter of the screen so that they are unable to fill the area up with missiles, or perhaps remove the blast zone like what's seen in missile command and have them stay as small bullets. I'm not sure how possible it would be but to have a one-player mode where the saucers are controlled by AI would be needed for all those Lonely Larry's, like myself, out there.

If one were to look at the most ambitious titles in the 2600 library Moonsweeper would undoubtedly be near the top, it’s so ambitious that the only game I can really compare it to is Solaris, which as we all know is another one of, if not the, most advanced games on the system. Moonsweeper was released in 1983, Imagic’s final proper year of operation, and as we all know they went belly-up in ’84. The programmer of this game, Bob Smith, has quite an impressive track record if I do say so myself, and I do. This guy programmed the original Video Pinball, which immediately endears me, and he programmed the Star Wars Arcade Game for Parker Brothers which immediately tells me that this guy ain’t no slouch when it comes to putting the most advanced of games onto the tiniest of cartridges. Moonsweeper is by far Bob Smith’s greatest achievement though, in my opinion of course, the simple fact that such a huge game could be hidden in an 8K cartridge is astonishing even today. The game starts with you in orbit around the sun, or as the manual calls it “the sun of Star Quadrant Jupiter²”, with photon torches, space bullets, rogue moons, and aurora flares being spit at you from all directions. All of the objects, with the exception of the aurora flares which are being spit out by the sun, all move in a realistic orbit around the sun, even though you will only see a small portion of the orbit since the objects will whizz off-screen almost as soon as they showed up. The moon portion is the real meat of the game however; the sun portion was just windowdressing. You fly along a suitably 3D moon with towers and stranded miners scaling in a rather smooth manner as you draw nearer. That’s not all however; there is a gigantic ship that will fly over the planet every so often it will spit out a smaller ship to harass you as you fly along the moon’s surface, there is also a wonderfully large satellite, that flies a similar route as the launcher ship, but it won’t fight back and is only worth bonus points. The truly astonishing thing is however, is that despite there being so much stuff happening on screen at one time, there is no discernible flicker at all, which is a stupendous accomplishment to say the least. Sounds are sparse but acceptable, much of what you’ll be hearing is the sound of your engine but unlike with many engine noises this one is rather soft and soothing as opposed to loud and sharp. Many of the sounds are just ‘feel-good’ crunchy explosions, and trilling masses of noise that sound just oh-so satisfying. It’s all balanced very well, no sound outstays its welcome, and none make me feel the need to turn the volume down. Also when you game over the game plays an excerpt ‘Oh Sweet Chariot’ which I find to be just adorable. Moonsweeper’s gameplay is simple and accessible yet hard to master fully. There are two portions of the game, the sun’s orbit, and the moon’s surface, both play rather differently. While in the sun’s orbit you must avoid all the obstacles whizzing around you and attempt to land on one of the moons swinging around in the melee, you are given an energy shield that I didn’t know existed until after I read the manual, hold back and press the button, it costs points but will help you avoid a game-over so it’s a fair trade. There are four colors of moon available between the different difficulties; in game one you will only encounter the green and blue moons, the two easiest. In game 2 you will encounter blue, green and yellow moons, but mostly green and blue. Game 3 has mostly green and yellow moons with a smattering of blue, while game four goes all out with blue, green, yellow, and red moons, I like to call this the suicide mode because you’re dead before you press that reset switch. The moons’ surface is dotted with towers and stranded miners; you must maneuver around the towers while collecting the miners. It’s not all smooth sailing since a ship in orbit will launch surface destroyers, little saucers that will fire on you and collect miners for itself, in the easier difficulties they are easier to hit and have a penchant for running into towers, it is possible to shoot the launcher ship out of the sky by holding back and firing to shoot up into the sky, this also works for the bonus point satellites. Once you collect six miners you will have to fly through accelerator rings that appear in place of the towers, you have to fly through a majority of them to break free of the moon’s gravity and get back to the orbit sequence to collect your points and get on with the next moon. This is an outwardly simple game that hides its true complexities deep within, it’s easy to pick up but nearly impossible to master and is just a good time all around. If you were to ask me what my favorite Imagic game would be I’d say Moonsweeper any day of the week, apart from Monday that’s reserved for Star Voyager. Thankfully Moonsweeper isn’t a very expensive game; you can find loose copies on Ebay for less than ten dollars, and boxed copies as low as 30 dollars, I know I don’t usually advocate for buying a game CIB but I will make an exception for Moonsweeper, if you can find a boxed copy for 30-35 bucks I’d say ‘go for it’. No Collector’s Zone for today, on account of the game being well worth the price of admission.

Both Rom Hunter and I believe that the game is Z-Tack, I PM'd him and that is what he told me. I didn't believe him at first, and did a little investigating if you take a look at my Thunderground review I go into a bit more depth, but he was correct. I still don't know why of all the screenshots to use they used one that depicts a giant red bubble firing at a bunch of giant blue boils on a green hill with a blue sky, since apart from your ship being red in Z-tack the screenshot is not indicative of the game on the cartridge. I don't know where these guys got the screenshot from, considering it wasn't on the original Z-tack packaging I'm led to believe that they drew it themselves or gave a brief description to somebody who'd never actually seen the game before and they drew it.

Thunderground was an oddity from Sega; clearly this game has some serious arcade potential, but was never released in the arcades. This game exists solely on the 2600, which is rather unfortunate since I think this could have gone on to be a hit, both in arcades and on the other home consoles. I was lucky enough to find a Taiwan Cooper version of this game that goes by the highly generic name of ‘Tank Mission’. The odd thing about the ‘Tank Mission’ box is that it seems to have been repurposed from another Taiwan Cooper release, the release in question is ‘Base Attack’ which is in actuality Z-Tack from Bomb, it’s no use trying to find an NTSC version of the Taiwan Cooper variation since they’re all PAL, it seems the only way to play it on U.S. systems is to pony up the cash for an official Bomb cart. Well ain’t this strange, even for Taiwan Cooper, it seems they sank to the utter depths of laziness when they didn’t even bother to change the blurb on the back of the box before selling the game. The only difference between the ‘Base Attack’ boxes and the ‘Tank Mission’ Boxes are the names on the front, how utterly stupefying. I will however still transcribe the blurb for all to enjoy (you can read it off the actual box in Monday’s post but this will be easier to see). In 2100 year, spaceships are attacking the unknown space station. The important point is to break the secret fortresses. Also be careful to the white point and ballon coming from fortresses which will destroy spaceships. If four spaceships are destroyed up, all is gone. The game is over. I have no words that could express my utter dismay at reading this. Thunderground is not a powerhouse of graphics, but it’s no slouch either, I’d say it’s more technically impressive than anything. Thunderground resembles Dig Dug, in that you carve passageways through… the underground, leaving plenty of tunnels behind, but this isn’t Dig Dug, it’s Dig Dug but with tanks. The Taiwan Cooper variant does have modified graphics but only to remove Sega’s nave from the startup screen, otherwise the rest of the game is intact. Simply that you can remove sections of the screen without the game screwing itself up into a ball and combusting is extremely impressive, and because of that I will grant leniency on the rather simplistic visuals, at least the tanks look like tanks, which is more than I can say for some tank based games I’m lookin’ at you Tank Brigade (and only you). The score area is rather unique; it shows an enemy tank moving slowly towards three of your vehicles, which decrease as you lose lives in-game, and when the enemy tank reaches the vehicles you explode in a gory and violent manner, it also acts an your bonus points since when you finish a stage your vehicles will advance on the enemy tank and the more distance they have to travel the more points you receive, it also keeps track of how many stages you’ve beaten, according to the manual there are up to 32 stages, good luck getting to 10. To call this game light in the sound department would be an understatement, there are approximately five sounds, they are: you shoot, they get hit, you get hit, movement, and collecting a bonus item, there is probably a 1-up sound but I have never been alive long enough to hear it. The moving sound is an obnoxious low pitched buzz that plays continuously whenever you’re moving, much in the same way as Dig Dug, but Dig Dug had nice music, this is not nice music. Otherwise the shooting noise and explosion noises are delightfully chunky with the exception of the enemies getting shot since it’s more of a high pitched buzz instead of an explosion noise. I’d recommend keeping the TV on low volume or muted entirely just because of that awful moving noise. This is a game of luck, strategy, and wits all wrapped up into a nice neat package. Your objective is to destroy the enemy bases (the weird white things) whilst avoiding destruction at the hands of the enemy tanks. The tanks come in two flavors, the white tanks can only move through preexisting tunnels while the blue variety can dig their own. You can dig tunnels as well, and you’ll need to dig them in such a fashion as to distract and lose the enemy tanks so you can shoot the bases unhindered by large explosive bullets. The enemy is cunning however, often behaving unpredictably which will lead to you being blindsided despite being able to see the whole playfield. I, and the manual, recommend not shooting the tanks all willy nilly, and vie to trap them in a maze of tunnels of your making, just don’t spend too long constructing them since time is short and death is eminent to those who find themselves procrastinating. The game will shake things up by sometimes presenting you with a completely open playfield or bases that will only appear after another has been destroyed which prevents you from becoming too reliant on a singular strategy and forces you to problem solve. This is a very fun game, and is one that I wish everybody could have in their collection, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Since this is indeed a Sega release it is rather uncommon and is oftentimes the subject of scalping, you can find loose copies on Ebay for 12-15$ with varying levels of label destruction, and the only boxed copy that is currently listed is at a staggering 400 dollars and that’s with it being 20% off, full priced it’s half a grand. You could buy an R10 game for that kind of money, or better yet professionally construct your own Thunderground box and manual, actually don’t bother with the manual since you can buy it for cheaper than the game. If you can find a copy for about 10$ free shipping it would be worth it, otherwise its gonna go into the Collector’s Zone.

Ah, Spectravision we meet again… You confuse me Spectravision, you have published so many unique and enjoyable games, while at the same time publishing absurd crap that also winds up being unique in its own way, I simply cannot find it in myself to dislike you. I think I’ll look at another one of Spectravision’s unique titles today, how about Cross Force? Yeah I think that’ll do nicely. Imagine Demon Attack, except you fire from the top and bottom of the screen, your two cannons move in the reverse of each other and the shots meet in the middle. It’s a very interesting take on the usual shooter style game so often seen on the 2600. I’m going to forgo looking at both the sounds and the graphics since there is almost zero of each present in this game, seriously, this game makes such a small impact on both a visual and auditory level that I won’t even bother looking at, or listening to, them. Gameplay is all that matters in a game like this, and I have to admit that I find myself struggling to like it. I’m already not a very big fan of Demon Attack, which Cross Force seems to take a large amount of inspiration from, so I already have a slight bias towards this game, and I can’t help but feel that it lacks strategy since I just sit in the corner shooting rapidly and occasionally avoiding enemy fire. Suffice to say, I can understand why people would like this game, but I just simply don’t it doesn’t gel with me. This is not a cheap game, I’m seeing loose copies on Ebay for up to 15 dollars, and boxed copies up to 30 dollars, that seems a bit steep if you ask me, I know the game is currently an R5 on the AA rarity scale but I’ve got R5’s for much cheaper, but then again it seems that Spectravision is one of the more often scalped publishers. I would recommend you get the Taiwan Cooper variation since it’s cheaper than even a loose copy, there is one listed for 14$, that’s what I did, and as tradition would dictate I know have to transcribe the blurb on the back for all of you to enjoy. A galaxy-war-game in a new variation. Laser-beams at Your disposal. Screen 1 press button to hit meteorites. Screen 2 will appear two stare animals, use naval boat, Shoot death ray to catch star animals in 15 seconds. When mother ship is warning Bi! Bi!, come back to mother Ship soon, if not, will be hitted by meteorites. When 5pcs red energy exhaust, the game is over. Scoring: hit meteorite can get 10 points. Catch two star animals get 1,000 points, If catch only one animal, no points. Game 1 2: one player, game 2 can’t attack star animals. 3 4 5 6: two players 3 6: use B joystick to control mother ship A joystick to control naval boat. 4 5: use A joystick to control mother ship, B joystick to control naval boat. The navy of the sky… How wonderful.

Dig Dug... I love the game but am not very good at it unfortunately. This is the best I can do for the time being.

Happy Monday! I recently got this Taiwan Cooper cart from Venezuela for one reason, the picture on the back. Sadly the game on the cart is not the game shown on the back of the box, an odd misprint. Does anybody know what game this is? It looks like some sort of Missile Command/Atlantis clone, and like all Taiwan Cooper boxes the description makes absolutely zero sense, so no help there. Any help would be appreciated, because I'd really like to play this game, it looks and sounds fun. If you were wondering the game that's actually on the cart is Thunderground renamed Tank Mission.

It’s time for some spooky shit. Yeah, you all know it, you all may or may not like it, it’s Haunted House. Basically Haunted House takes the gameplay format of Adventure and makes it spooky. I had originally planned to review Haunted House on Halloween, but as you can see that didn’t happen, instead I reviewed Star Fox which is scary for an entirely different reason. Your objective is to simply recover three pieces of an urn and leave the house, you will be harried by ghosts and ghouls but running away is always the answer to that problem. You have matches that you can light up to see the urn pieces, you can use as many as you want but using them raises your score, and you want the lowest score possible. Making contact with an enemy, will take one of your nine lives, you can avoid being hit by enemies by holding the scepter of apathy, when holding the scepter of apathy the enemies will do nothing to you because they couldn’t care less. Haunted house has some decent difficulty variations, especially in games 3-9 when locked doors are introduced, later difficulties will have the walls be invisible, or introduce more monsters in the hunt for your eternal soul. I haven’t really mentioned the graphics, mainly since they’re extremely basic and not really worth mentioning, they are serviceable at best. Haunted house is one of the most common games on the 2600, if you can’t find one in the wild then you’re doing something wrong, on Ebay I’m seeing loose copies for as low as $5 free shipping, and boxed copies as low as $9. It’s a fun game go get it and inject a little bit of spooky into your lives.

It is no secret that I’ve recently acquired an Atari 800 computer, and when I asked on the forum which games were the best to play on it, one game was recommended above all else… Star Raiders. I found this a little confusing since I had played Star Raiders on the 2600 and was thoroughly disappointed, but the game store I bought the 800 from did have a copy of it, so I bought it and played it, and now I know why people like it so very much. The 2600 Star Raiders absolutely pales in comparison to the 800 version, there is no contest which one is best, but for all of those out there who’ve never played either the 5200 or 800 version of Star Raiders and have only played the 2600 one I’ll put in a few comparisons between the two. One thing I must talk about before jumping into the actual game is the rather ridiculous packaging, both for the 800 and 2600 versions. These boxes are huge, the 2600 version is almost three times as thick as a regular box, while the 800 version as approximately twice as tall as a regular box. I can understand why the 2600 version is as thick as it is since it has the Video Touch Pad bundled in with the game itself, but I can’t really understand why the 800 version is as big as it is. Was it for theft prevention? Or did Atari just want to show off? I don’t know, but what I do know is that neither of the fat bastards are gonna fit on my shelf. Enough about the packaging, let’s take a look at Star Raiders for the Atari 800, and kinda the 2600 version too, but only to laugh at it. My first impression from Star Raiders is how absolutely blue it is, the emulator I’m using for screenshots actually has the proper coloration but when I play it on my crappy little tv I think I need to listen to some Eifel 65 whenever I’m playing this game. There isn’t a whole lot to this game; most of what you’ll be seeing is the play screen and the quadrant map. The play screen is where all the action happens, and let me be the first to say that is a nice-ass starfield, it moves in a realistic 3D fashion that really immerses you in the game, unlike the 2600 version which has multicolored stars, the 800 version has only blue stars which is a bit disappointing, but it keeps the enemies from blending in, which is a bit of a problem on the 2600 version. The enemy designs are simplistic at best, in fact I’m pretty sure they were recycled in Solaris, you have the standard TIE Fighter shape, the grabby alien shape, and the classic Cylon Basestar from the original Battlestar Galactica, except in Star Raiders it’s advocating for equal rights since it’s a strobing rainbow. The quadrant map has 128 sectors to jump to, when compared to the 2600’s paltry 16 it seems absolutely giant, you’ll see indicators for squadrons of Zylon ships with special indicators given to squadrons containing a fabulous rainbow base ship, as well as for Star Bases which you need to protect and refuel at. The only other thing I can think of at the moment is the long range scan which gives a realistic 3D radar to show the location of enemies, obstacles, and Star Bases, unfortunately depth perception is a bit of an issue since you can’t really tell the distance between yourself and the object you’re looking at, but it’s still useful nonetheless. All you’ll really be hearing is the sounds of your engines blasting and your guns shooting, and if you ask me that’s perfect for this type of game. I know I sometimes rag on games for having too few sounds, but that’s only if a game would benefit from having more sounds or having higher quality sounds. Star Raiders is perfect with the sounds it has, since I think if it had any more it would actually detract from the gameplay, you don’t need the computer beeping at you constantly all you need is the calming sounds of your engine and the crunchy explosions as you make those alien bastards suck some space. For such a simple premise of “shoot the aliens dead” Star Raiders is a fairly complex game, simple to pick up but difficult to master. The first thing you’ll need to figure out is the Hyperwarp function as you’ll be using that to get around the quadrant, you need to press ‘G’ on the keyboard to bring up the map, and then you simply move your cursor over the sector you want to warp to and press ‘H’, before you jump you’ll need to accelerate while you’re doing that you’ll want to press ‘F’ to bring yourself to the ‘Fore view’. If you’re still on the map when you jump there is a chance you’ll be jumped to a random section on the map wasting fuel. Before you go hurling yourself into dangerous situations I’d recommend you raise your shields with the ‘S’ key and boot up your Attack Computer with ‘C’, now you can take more than one hit and can actually aim your shots. Movement is a bit weird, you control your velocity with the keyboard 0-2 will break you out of hyperwarp and stop you entirely while keys 3-9 will make you move faster or slower depending on the value of the key, I and the manual recommend ‘6’ as being your default speed so you don’t outrun your enemies. You’ll notice that whenever you shoot, or jump, or even use your engines you’re expending fuel, you are given 9999 units of fuel at the beginning of every mission, if you need to refuel you’ll need to jump to a Star Base and refuel there. Refueling is a pain in the ass, you need to position yourself extremely close to the station and four out of five times it won’t take, I’m pretty sure it’s user error but it has lost me several games so far. A warning though to all of those new players who think they’re invincible, if your attack computer is destroyed you are absolutely boned, you will never find a Starbase and you will starve to death in the vastness of space, even with the long range computer, because of the depth perception issues, you’ll simply fly circles around it but never ever find it. This is a fantastic game, I love it, have several games for the 800 already but Star Raiders is by far my favorite. It’s rather odd to me that my favorite space shooter on one system is my least favorite on another, life’s weird that way. Copies of this game are absolutely everywhere, I got mine for 4 dollars at my local game store, but I have a boxed copy on the way that I bought on Ebay for $14. If you ask me every single Atari 800 owner needs to own this game. Also if you’re wondering, no the slowdown doesn’t bother me, nor does it detract from the overall gameplay experience.

Thanks for the clarification! I came to the same conclusion that the vertical movements were intentional, oddly enough that makes it even worse since it was purposely implemented into the game rendering it thoroughly unenjoyable to play. If the programmer had simply left it out it would a far more playable game since I'm not getting headaches from looking at it for prolonged periods of time.

How many games has Bit Corporation made?!? (Or at least been credited with making/stealing) I keep finding more and more all the time, as is the case for today’s game. Technically I can’t play this game since the copy I own is in the PAL format and will therefore display improperly on my TV, but I still own a physical copy so it’s okay. It seems though in the definitive list of Bit Corp. games I have reviewed all but two, and soon it shall be one, the one I don’t currently own is Space Tunnel, otherwise known as Cosmic Corridor from Zimag (I’m gonna take my time in acquiring that particular title). In my “Favorite Atari Games (and then some)” list I posted a couple of days ago I mistakenly put the game Space Robot in with the Bit Corp. games, it was actually most likely first released by Goliath in Germany, not Bit Corporation. So, Sea Monster, actually the version I have is See-Monster I had to get a German copy that had somehow made it to the U.S., a game up until a week or so ago I had never heard of, well that’s not actually true I’d seen screenshots and simply assumed it was a hack of Seaquest, yes-yes alright, can I stop interrupting myself and just get on with the review? Is that alright with you self-interrupting brain? Hmmm? Well alright then, this is Sea Monster by Bit Corporation. As is standard with Bit Corp. titles Sea Monster is bright and colorful, but unlike most Bit Corp. releases Sea Monster looks rather crappy. The wave effect at the top of the water is actually rather mesmerizing, and is animated rather well, yes four frames on animation is pretty impressive for a 2600 game, but that’s about where the positives end. All of the sprites are monochrome, and most are all stretched out and just look like shit really. The real problem though is the screen shaking, even on an emulator the screen is juddery and wobbly, when starting the game the screen will attempt to roll, and when playing the screen will move up and down causing the score, the water, and the enemies to move about in a juddering fashion. This game seriously makes Condor Attack look like a well programmed piece of software, since when I’m playing Condor Attack I’m not constantly fearing that the game will somehow strangle itself to death and crash like I am with Sea Monster, and this is on an emulator something meant to be better than the console it was based on. There are no sounds worth talking about in Sea Monster, all you get are various beeps, which when you consider the sound design on many of Bit Corp.’s other games is rather disappointing. I’ve always found Bit Corp. to be a rather musically inclined game developer, always putting music into their games sometimes to the point of detriment. But I must digress; it’s not worth whining about the sound design (or lack of) in a 30 year old 2600 game, so let’s move onto the gameplay. In Sea Monster you are an ugly orange boat dropping depth charges onto giant fish and stuff that are swimming around in the ocean beneath you. Due to the fact that your depth charges fall at an extremely slow speed and the giant fish move at such an extreme speed you’ll be lucky to score any points at all since you’ll be missing 95% of the time, thankfully they pulled a GORF and you’re able to cancel your previous shot by firing again. The point values in this game are very odd, I know I never bring up points in games anymore but I must make an exception for this one. The top level sea beast is worth a measly 10 points on account of it being the largest and easiest to hit, the middle level usually has three smaller beasts swimming in a row, they move slightly faster but since there are more of them they are a bit easier to hit, they are worth 50 points. The bottom most sea creature is the hardest to hit on account of it being the fastest (most of the time), and hardest to hit what with it being so far away from your ship but for some odd reason it’s only worth 30 points despite it being the fastest, most aggressive, and hardest to hit. If you take into account that you will get a 1-up after every 1000 points and the most you’ll get per wave is 50 points you can see how fast the monotony sets in. Also don’t even think of trying to get rollage on this game since the score counter resets at 999,990 points and I’m pretty sure the youngest of us will die of old age before that happened. This is a collector’s item for sure, even if you factor out the game being in PAL. A quick side note, there actually is an NTSC version of this game, it was released in Canada as Seamonster – Monstre des Mers, and the only one currently on Ebay is sitting at over 300 dollars BIN, you’d be better off buying a PAL TV and a PAL 2600 and playing on those than getting the NTSC version. As it is, Sea Monster is the sort of game you get to round off the collection rather than start it, and considering Air Sea Battle, one of the 2600 launch titles, plays better and is more fun than this I’d say it goes into the Collector’s Zone. There are copies up on Ebay, but apart from the one NTSC copy for 300+ dollars you can buy the German version loose from Germany for $15.64 or you can buy it boxed for $23.75 for factory sealed for $29.75, I got lucky and got mine for about 15 dollars but considering these are all PAL versions it ain’t really worth it. Give this game a big ‘ol pass.

This is a game that needs no introduction, which is good since I’m running out of things to fill the first paragraph with, especially when it comes to Apollo. But seeing as how this game in particular is somewhat legendary I’ll strive to give it an introduction of sorts. Shark Attack had a difficult birth, originally it was marketed as Lochjaw, which is a horrible name probably on par with Spectravision’s Tape Worm. Lockjaw is a symptom of a Tetanus infection where the infected person’s mouth will firmly remain closed against their will, leading to… well you know. There was threatened legal action against Apollo from MCA Universal Studios, the people who made Jaws, so the early carts that bear the name Lochjaw have now skyrocketed in value since very few carts were made before MCA threatened legal action. If you want a Lockjaw cartridge you can find them on Ebay for about 1000$ loose, they don’t come up very often so you’d better get it while you can. Shark Attack is a surprisingly detailed and colorful game, at a glance you can see that it’s an obvious Pac-Man clone, but I’d argue that it looks better than the version of Pac-Man Atari put out. The top of the screen shows a tropical island with palm trees flowing in the nonexistent wind, some clouds in the sky, and a boat sailing absolutely no where. There is also a nice gradient in the sky injecting a bit of pruple into the color palette, it really does look rather nice, but this is only the top fifth of the screen, and since none of the game actually takes place here it’s simply window-dressing on an otherwise bland looking game. The main color palette is lime green and a deep purplish blue, in actuality a very good color scheme, the scuba dude is rather small and rather indefinable, I can only tell which direction he’s facing based on his little legs flailing around. The shark in Shark Attack looks terrible; it’s a big grey blob in only the vague shape of a fish, the shark in Name This Game would have been far better in this game. There are very few sounds in Shark Attack; mainly all you’ll be hearing is a weird crunchy growl whenever the shark is on-screen. There are little beeps when you collect and cash your pellets, and there is a weird sort of shriek whenever you get caught by the shark, that brings to mind the screams of the damned. But the sound that plays when the sea monster/ serpent are on screen are absolutely ear bleeding, it’s just a constant high pitched chirruping noise until it goes away, which won’t be for a while. This is your standard Pac-Man clone game, but with a few detractions. Since the maze isn’t made up of straight passageways and is full of jagged corners you’ll be getting stuck quite often, especially since the collision detection with the walls is absolutely atrocious, it’s so bad you cannot move through some spots on the maze, it is explained away in the manual as the kelp making up the maze being sticky. The shark will appear randomly from either side of the maze and move in a horizontal fashion across the screen, d it’s pretty hard to get outta his way since you keep getting stuck on everything. Unlike most Pac-Man games where you simply have to collect all the dots, in Shark Attack you have to collect all the dots and then make your way to the center of the screen to deposit them in the shark cage, if you get caught by the shark while you’re carrying the dots you will lose all of them as well as a life. Sporadically Nessie the sea monster will appear and assail your eardrums will that vile noise, Nessie can move freely around the maze unhindered by the walls in place; this is the only time that the tunnels come of any use. To get rid of Nessie you have to lure it into one of the tunnels located at the four corners of the maze, it would be nice of those were labeled in some fashion but that ain’t happening. I really wouldn’t have much of an issue with this game if the collision detection on the walls was fixed, if that were the case this game would be one of the better Pac-Man clones on the system. As it stands Shark Attack is a mediocre game with flaws that really hold it back from greatness, I’ll still pop it in once in a while but it’s a pick up and put down game for sure. If you want a copy they’re pretty cheap on Ebay, I’ve seen loose copies as low as 5$ free shipping, boxed copies are more expensive in the 25-35 dollar range. It’s Collector’s Zone for this one, it’s just filler to make your shelf look more impressive.

What a thoroughly confusing and unpleasant game, I think I'll just take participation points for this round.

True... None of us really know what would have happened, it could have ended up all peachy and rosy for everybody involved, or it could have doomed the future of videogames as we know them. Let's leave that sort of thinking to the philosophers.

That would have been astonishing, it probably would have jumped the industry ahead by 3-5 years at least. So... a 16 bit console hitting the market BEFORE the NES was released, that would have been mind blowing.

If the 5200 had launched in 1979 as a games console and not a computer, it wouldn't be too far a stretch to imagine the 7800 being released around 84-85 to get ahead if the NES and still maintain, if not dominance, a decent share of the market. it's nice to imagine what would have been, but never was.

So… This Atari 800 computer was found in the basement of West High School in Madison WI. It was with 2 other 800’s, and 800X and a 520ST, there was also an Atari 820 printer, four 5 ½ inch floppy drives, and an Atari 850 interface. The 800X works as do all the floppy drives,the 520ST is not functioning due to an issue with the power button and likely something else,and two of the three 800”s are functioning as well, it is unknown if the 820 or 850 work since we have no idea how to hook them up and use them. It also took us quite a bit of time to figure out that the 800's had to have the front door closed to actually power on the system, we were worried that they were all broken, but as said earlier only one 800 was, and it was because the case had broken in such a way that it couldn’t power on, there is likely nothing wrong with the board and the RAM AND ROM were fine since we had to use them on the other 800 that lacked them, now the poor thing is just a caseless empty husk. The Machine I purchased is working quite well (and was originally going to use it to type what you’re reading know but all the photo’s I took of the screen had much of the writing cut off, oh well). In fact I’m finding it easier to type on the 800’s keyboard than the one I use with my computer. The machine itself does have a few detractions, mainly due to age and simply being dirty, the function keys are very sticky and like to hold themselves down, this can likely be fixed with a little bit of cleaning, also the PC speaker likes to randomly beep loudly and quickly when I’m typing, I may just disconnect the thing. Aesthetically this computer looks rather hilarious, in that it is enormous. The thing is as long as an Intellivision, as deep as an Odyssey2 with The VOICE add-on and as thick and it probably weighs more than an original Xbox. Yes, I do know about how the 800 was designed to be a ‘friendly typewriter’ or something like that, but that can’t mask the fact that this thing just looks plain weird. But as it is this is a fantastic machine to both type on and play games with, I hope to expand my collection of games, though it is more likely that I will just buy an SD drive and load it up with all the software I want without spending a small fortune.