DoctorSpuds

I have recently acquired the catalog and will get some high quality scans on here somewhere, maybe in a gallery or for download somewhere. I have also found another difference between the two, the picture they use for the original Breakout is reversed in the standard manual while in the other version it is not.

Apollo, Apollo, Apollo… How many times must we kick your teeth in? And how many times must I attempt to think of something creative to write about in the first paragraph to impart formerly unknown information to the reader? Well in Apollo’s case it’s too many times, I can’t really think of anything to say about them. Well, if I can’t say anything at all interesting about the company, then what about the game itself? Today we’re looking at one of Apollo’s final games, Wabbit, and correct me if I’m wrong but this is one of, if not the, first game to feature a female protagonist. And I noticed something rather strange when looking at the game list on Atariage, this game’s model number is AP2010, and Guardian, Apollo’s final game is AP2012… So what happened to AP2011? Or for that matter AP2007, they’re both missing. Could it be that the two found prototypes of Pompeii and Kyphus were slated to be the two missing games in Apollo’s lineup? Or are there two undiscovered game protos moldering in a box somewhere? Food for thought. Well despite my doubts I still found something to fill the first paragraph with, onto the graphics. This game looks amazing, the amount of detail and color packed into the screen is wonderful to behold. With the exception of the unreleased Pompeii prototype this is without a doubt the prettiest game Apollo ever made. From the house in the top left and the fence stretching across the top of the field to the bright yellow sun beaming in the top right the game is simply marvelous. The carrot field itself is also quite impressive with ten rows containing three carrots each, and guess what, there is no flicker whatsoever. The sprites for the rabbits are well drawn and actually look like rabbits, and the sprite for the farm girl is very well done with a multicolored blouse and a blue skirt, sadly she’s not a redhead like on the box, but I’ll let that slide. Sadly I know the inevitable fates of these amazing looking games, we’ve seen it before, several times in fact, on the blog, and that’s style over substance. With our luck all of the creativity went into the graphics and not into the gameplay. This is one of the bleepiest bloopiest games I’ve ever heard; it’s all just high pitched beeps, with the occasional whoosh and mild explosion noise. There is nothing I could deem remotely melodic in the whole game, its all beeps. We’re already seeing the effects of style over substance, the game has incredibly detailed graphics, but the sounds feel like they’re from one of the 1977 launch titles, completely lacking in creativity or effort. This game is, believe it or not, a shooter; you, as Billie Sue the farm girl, throw rotten eggs at rabbits, which emerge from rabbit holes at the sides of the field, to scare them away from your carrot patch. That’s all you do in this game, throw eggs at rabbits, there is no variation to it, and to top it off this game is too damn hard right off the bat. The field is rendered in a sort of forced perspective, the top of the field is smaller than the bottom to impart depth, but the rabbits and carrots don’t scale, to the rabbits don’t have to travel too far to get to get the carrots so the top half of your field will be bare within fifteen seconds of starting the game. The rabbits also move way too fast in the starting game variation, if you actually want to stand a chance with this game you have to play game seven where the rabbits move slowest and emerge one at a time. You get 100 carrots to start off with, and every time a rabbit gets back to its burrow with a carrot the carrot counter goes up by one, if it reaches 100 its game over, the game does have some leniency though, with every 100 points you get, the carrot counter goes down by 25, not quite an extra life, but close. This game gets extremely monotonous very quickly, there is simply no substance to this game, nothing to bring you back, you get suckered in by the nice visuals and are left disappointed by everything else. I simply cannot recommend that you get this game. If you really want to round off your Apollo collection though loose carts are anywhere from 7-20$, and boxed copies are anywhere from 45-115$, this is definitely one of those ‘scalped’ games. If you find a loose copy of this game for 4$ and you need it for some reason then go for it and if you just need it in box don’t pay more than 20-25$ for it, yup it’s Collector’s Zone for this one.

Welp, those cats got me in the end.

Oh dear, I'm just trying to imagine a time when the VIC-20 could be described as a "Wonder Computer", Hmmm, I just woke up but now I think I need to go back to bed to sleep this one off. You've shaken me carlsson you should be proud.

There were a lot of “Me To!” games back in the day, whether it be from Pac-Man or Space Invaders there were a lot. Very few “Me To!” games actually expanded on the initial idea of the game they’re taking inspiration from, that’s where GORF comes in. GORF was basically a five-in-one arcade machine where you face off against marauding space aliens who have different behaviors and configurations in every game. The first game is basically a direct rip of Space Invaders; the second was the laser barrage, where two groups of five enemies flit sporadically around the screen, the center enemy shoots long solid laser beams which will blow you up; the third game is basically a decent rip of Galaxian; the fourth game is the space warp, where are single enemy would spiral out from a black hole whist shooting at you, the dots in the center of the warp represent the amount of enemies you have left to destroy before moving on the next game ; the final game was a boss fight where you have to be a stellar marksman and shoot a tiny weak spot on the ship to get treated to a massive BOOM! All around the arcade is a wonderful experience, especially with that Speak ‘n Spell voice insulting and goading you much like in Berzerk. Sadly though we’re not looking at the Arcade version, we’re looking at the Atari 2600 version, which if you ask me is the WORST version available. After looking through the Mobygames screenshot collection I can say that the Atari 2600 port of GORF is the most limited visually, and that’s even when stacked up against the VIC-20 version, ouch! The background in this space shooter is black, no starfield, no nothin’. All of the ships are a single color with the exception of your ship and the Gorfian flagship. As soon as you start the game you’ll notice something that’s missing… Where’s the shield? This version of GORF does not have the shield, one of the few things that really set it apart from the rest of the copycats was the shield, and they didn’t put it in this version, even the VIC-20 version had the shield! The second mission is the laser barrage mission and this one is also lacking something integral to the game, there is only one group of enemies where in every other version there are two. Mission three is also lacking something, though not integral this time, the growing lines that give the impression of being at warp are gone, all you are left with is a flickering circle of dots, again the VIC-20 had the lines. Mission four, the flagship, again the shield is missing, but that’s the only thing I can really complain about. This game has many sounds; unfortunately they all sound pretty much the same, shooting sounds and explosion noises galore in GORF. I really don’t have anything to say about this so I’ll just go straight into the gameplay if you don’t mind. Mission 1 – Astro Battles: Its Space Invaders… you already know what that is. Mission 2 – Laser Attack: A group of five enemies move up and down the screen in a somewhat erratic pattern, even though they are stuck on the same tracks as the Space Invaders from the previous missions. The blue ship at the bottom of the formation shoots long solid laser beams at you whilst the others in the group will dive bomb you Galaxian style, when the laser enemy is destroyed the enemies left in the group will ‘Space Invaders’ at max speed towards your ship. Mission 3 – Space Warp: Enemies will fly in a spiral motion from the center of the screen while rapidly firing their Subquark Torpedoes, if you can find the sweet spot you’ll hit all five of them in rapid succession, if you are unable to find the sweet spot you’ll have great difficulty with this section. The circle of dots do not represent the amount of enemies left, they are simply a visual indicator of where the enemies are going to emerge from, even the VIC-20 had this feature. Mission 4 – Flag Ship The Gorfian Flag Ship is descending slowly from the top of the screen, all you have to do is hit that really obvious spot on its underside and you win the game. All the other versions of this game had each shot destroy a pixel of the ship and have that pixel fall as debris on your ship; the 2600 version does not have this. Also the enemy shield is missing from this mission as well, in all other versions you have to shoot through their shield to in order to get at the Flagship, this feature is sorely lacking from the 2600 port of the game. This is a very weak port of the game, its missing features integral to making this game a unique experience, and is simply lacking any visual flair whatsoever. All of that said though, I would much prefer to play the 2600 port of GORF over the original Space Invaders arcade, or even on console. 2600 GORF still has variation and challenge to it, which makes it stand out amongst the rest of the space shooter games on the system. GORF isn’t too expensive, loose carts will set you back 7-10 dollars and boxed copies are 20+, personally I would recommend against buying a boxed copy, but if you find one in decent shape for 15$ or less then it might be worth it. I will spare this game the Collector’s Zone, but only barely, and yes the VIC-20 version is far better.

Another one of these has turned up in Wisconsin of all places. It came in with a small lot of boxed games, oddly enough the only Atari brand game is a sealed Pole Position, the rest were either CBS or Parker bros. These things found their way into circulation somehow. A mystery indeed.

I have never seen anything like this before. The inside is similar as the regular 45 game catalog it just has a different front cover. the # is CO16725-Rev. D just like a regular catalog

I'd buy that for a dollar... or 25. It's looking great so far!

Glad your working on it again! Keep up the great work!

Are you ready to jump down the rabbit hole again? Because I am... Not too deep though, I don’t want to get a concussion. Froggo, Froggo, Froggo, what a weird little footnote in the history of gaming, in some ways I’m grateful to Froggo for making accessible several European titles that would only be available in PAL format or simply too expensive to acquire otherwise (I’m looking at you Panda). Froggo usually stole from Sancho, even though at that point in time Sancho was simply a lifeless husk and their games were likely in the public domain. After looking back through the blog I realized that I haven’t taken a look at a Froggo title since late July, and that is simply too long to go without that froggy goodness, and whaddaya know I just got a Froggo game in the mail today, so how about we take a look at it today. Today’s review will be on Cruise Missile, originally by Sancho, stolen by Froggo. This game simultaneously disappoints me and impresses me. Your ship and the enemies are all blocky messes that make the word abstract seem plain by comparison. The only visual item that does not make me unhappy to look at is actually the environment itself. The cave that takes up much of the middle of the screen scrolls smoothly and fluctuates in width; clearly it’s just the two halves, top and bottom, moving independently up and down to give the impression of movement, but the fact that the programmers got two objects of that size to move so fluidly on the 2600’s hardware is quite admirable, unfortunately the game this effort was attached to make it all moot. If I had to describe the soundtrack of this game in a single word it would undoubtedly be obnoxious, but since this is a review I am allowed to go into more detail. This game has about three sounds, there is the sound of you shooting, oddly enough there is no sound for enemy fire, there is the sound of you destroying an enemy/ getting destroyed by an enemy, and the worst sound of them all… a constant trilling noise plays whenever you aren’t shooting at enemies or whenever enemies aren’t blowing up. The sound is incredibly irritating and I really wouldn’t blame you if you pressed that big red mute button on your TV remote. This game is as mundane as it is frustrating, which is very. All you do in Cruise Missile is shoot at extremely large enemies , after shooting 10 incredibly large enemies on the surface you can then go underground and shoot more incredibly large enemies in the caves. This game has a ‘story’ but nobody cares since this is a Froggo game and they likely thought up the story while high on some sort of illegal drug. The controls in this game are very broken, almost to the point of unplayability, you have to be moving in the direction you want to shoot in order to shoot in that direction, I know this doesn’t seem too bad since Vanguard did somewhat the same thing, but the problem with Cruise Missile is the fact that you move SO fast while the enemies also move SO fast towards you. You get one shot, if you miss that shot with some enemies, the taller towers on the surface especially, you WILL lose a life. I think the programmers knew of this stupidity and that’s why you get eight lives to start out with, just like in Sea Hawk. This game is absolutely pointless, the only increase in difficulty you’ll get is a narrowing of the cave if you manage to hit a couple enemies down there, but it’s highly unlikely that such a thing will happen and you’ll simply spend most of your time on the surface shooting the same two enemies over and over again. While not being an expensive game Cruise Missile ain’t cheap either, a loose cart will set you back 7-15$ while boxed copies are up for anywhere between 14 and 25 dollars, a small influx of NOS has lowered the price of boxed copies somewhat especially sealed copies, in fact the cheapest boxed listing I’ve seen is factory sealed so snap ‘em up while you can if you NEED to round off your Froggo collection. And that’s exactly where this game goes, into the Collector’s Zone.

I am unsure if there is a box, but pictures do exist of what appears to be a Spectravision style box for this game, even Atariage uses it on the CTCW page, I don't know if this is a clever fake or if some games came with a box, and they stopped printing them to save money, I just don't know. Also my end label is upside down as well, oh well, less chance of sun damage if it's on the top of a stack for whatever reason. It's nice to have simple games, and it's even nicer that the 2600 has such a straightforward library of games but some do tend to be on the complicated side, and yes they do tend to be rarer titles. Just try to do anything with Magicard without the manual, or any of Apollo's game's 4 trillion game variations,and for the longest time I didn't know you could repair your ship in Star Wars: TESB, until I read the manual AFTER the HSC was over.

Telesys was one of those oddball publishers that I view in the same vein as Commavid, while not garnering a HUGE amount of success they still made creative and fun games that quickly got rarer and rarer as they slowly died a horrible painful death during the Video Game Crash. Most collectors will have three of their six games: Cosmic Creeps, Coconuts, and Fast Food. I’ve already looked at Coconuts a long, long time ago, so it seems to be about time that I look at another of their games, Fast Food, which while not being a hidden gem falls somewhere around Infiltrate in cult status. The goal of the game is to control a freakish pair of purple chompers to eat as much junk food as possible while avoiding the dreaded purple pickles. All of the foods are very well drawn and you can actually tell which food is whizzing at you, shakes, burgers, ice cream cones, amongst others. The problem with Fast Food is that it’s a one trick pony, you do one thing and the only variation is that the foods get faster and faster until it becomes quite impossible to play, much like Infiltrate. Fast Food isn’t a very expensive game, coming in at around 5-10$ for a loose cartridge and 20+ for a boxed copy of dubious quality, if you can find it cheap enough it might be worth it, but it’s definitely a pick up and put down game.

When one has worked in a grocery store, as I have, they sometimes will just pick items off the shelf and read the back, sometimes to see the nutritional information, or just to see which mega-corporation made it. Monopolies and Duopolies are nothing new, they’re everywhere: Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, Disney, and Unilever own much of the business in the U.S. and abroad, sometimes a brand that you thought was independent is actually owned by one of those big mega-corporations. The brand that surprised me the most though was Purina, mainly since they basically own the pet food isle at almost any grocery store, but it turns out they’re owned by Nestle. I’ve been sitting here for several minutes trying to find a decent segue into the game I’m reviewing today but am unable to think of anything good… so… Chase the Chuck Wagon! This legendary game was available by mail-order only by Ralston-Purina back in 1983, and while not being as rare as its counterpart Tooth Protectors it is better known. Of all the companies to get to program this game Purina chose Spectravision, not my first choice but still better than most. This game is most often ridiculed as just being a waste of time and money and a flagrant cash grab on Purina’s side. The story of the game tends to overshadow the game itself though, so let’s take an honest look at Chase the Chuck Wagon. This is a modest looking game (at best). The only thing that really stands out is the good looking chuck wagon at the top of the screen, though oddly enough the canopy appears to be flickering. This game has a grand total of five moving parts; in the maze screen there is the dog, the dog catcher, and the strange flying object that changes after every round. There is also a bonus screen that has a rainbow bowl of Chuck Wagon® brand dog food descending from the heavens towards the same dog that you see in the maze portion of the game. This game is a maze navigation game and thankfully unlike some Chase the Chuck Wagon actually has multiple mazes, it has three, which is appreciated. The only other thing really worth mentioning is a little touch that I find to be rather cute, the little dog’s tail wags, it’s cute and I like it. Otherwise the graphics are clean looking, there’s quite a bit of flicker on the dog catcher and floating object but on the wagon it's more noticeable, nothing is glitching out at least, let it pass. This game is incredibly sparse on the sound effects; you have the sound of the timer ticking down, the sound the flying object makes when it makes contact with a wall, the sound of you running out of time (which is an ill-placed explosion noise), another random explosion noise when the dog catcher gets you, a cacophony of random noises whenever the UFO hits you, and a dreadful constant beeping whenever you win the bonus screen. These sounds are just absolutely dreadful; did Purina not have a jingle? Or just any scrap of music to put into this game. It seems Spectravision was rather averse to having anything regarding music in any of their games; of their eleven only two games of theirs that actually have music and those are Master Builder and Mangia, so it seems they waited until the very end to put music in their games. When it comes to gameplay Chase the Chuck Wagon is as simple as it gets, you get the dog to the end of the maze whilst avoiding the weird floating object and the dog catcher. The dog catcher will pose little threat to you but the floating object will. If you are hit by the floating object you will be stuck in place for a short period of time, the more times you’re hit the longer you have to wait, the problem is that if you’re hit once that means you’re in the flight path of the object and will it will keep hitting you until you lose the round, and the object gets faster and faster as you get hit more and more so it’ll get back to you faster and faster as you have you wait longer and longer, do you see the issue? The first few times you’re hit it’s not a big problem since the object is moving slowly and in a slightly irregular pattern, but soon it’ll be game over. The floating object also seems to zero in on your position, so unless you’re very good at predictive positioning you’re trip will be a short one. If you manage to exit one of the mazes you’ll be awarded with a bonus screen where a bowl of Chuck Wagon® brand dog food falls from the sky and you have to wait until it’s lined up with your dog then press the button, the dog will meander over to the bowl and begin chowing down and you’ll be awarded 100 points, the bowl gets faster as you progress. This is a shallow game, it won’t hold your attention for too long, nor is it very entertaining even when it does have your attention. This seems like it was programmed on short notice by an intern with very limited knowledge of videogames, what’s popular? Maze games; well let’s make it a maze game. There is nothing to hold your attention, and the sounds make me want to mute the TV. Perhaps this game should remain more of a story than an actual game, and for that reason I award it to the Collector’s Zone. Also… don’t bother trying to get a copy they’re at least 65$ on Ebay and poor fools have paid upwards of 500$ for a boxed copy, even the manual, it seems, is more expensive than the game.

Well... It may seem strange but I can find more entertainment value from a crappy game like Karate than from a game that I find to be middle of the road like Laser Gates. I also enjoy playing notorious stinkers like Sea Hunt, Sorcerer and Fire Fly, Open Sesame/I Want My Mommy, and even Sssnake. I guess I just have unconventional tastes, but they can offer some form of entertainment value, games that I think are middle of the road, not too great and not too bad simply don't hold my interest like the crappy games do. Games like Laser Gates and even today's review No Escape, to an extent fall, into this category, I guess that's why it took me so long to review an Activision game, almost all of them just fall into the middle of the road, they're fun to play but they're not what comes to my mind when I think 'Atari'. If you were to offer me a choice between playing Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-man, Junior Pac-Man, or Pac-Man 4K, I'll choose the original every time.

This genre bender cones from the same time period as one of my previous Imagic reviewees Laser Gates. This was a period of great decline for the company as the crash was getting into full swing and Imagic hadn’t prepared in the slightest, leading to its untimely demise in 1984, I already spoke about the death of Imagic in my Laser Gates review so let’s move on from that, shall we? The first thing that immediately strikes me about No Escape! is that box art, wow, that guy looks so out of it, at least I know where all the budget went for this particular title, I’m sure gluing wings on an actual horse is not cheap. The manual is also a work of art in and of itself; the top of each page is lined with images drawn in the style of the Greek Red Figure pottery as well as all the pictures in the manual that are not screenshots of the game. It seems the programmers did a bit more research into Ancient Greek mythology since the premise of the game also fits in with the mythology of the time as well, so far so good, but a game can’t be carried by the manual and box alone, is the game any good? No Escape! looks pretty good, albeit simple. There isn’t a lot to this game, you have the temple outline with the rainbow roof of death, you have Jason running about on the bottom of the screen rendered in four colors (even though his skin is grey), you have the Furies whizzing across the screen each level has a new colorful design, and at the very end of the game the temple collapses and Jason flies away on Pegasus. So like many Imagic titles the game may not be visually astonishing but the game is technically impressive instead. All the Furies move smoothly and are flicker-free, the roof is rendered brick by brick and can be disassembled as such, it’s all very impressive. No Escape! isn’t going to win any awards for sound quality. The main sound you’ll be hearing is a rhythmical low buzzing/whooshing noise that is somewhat reminiscent is Wizard of Wor, it changes in tempo and rhythm after every round. Otherwise you have basic beeps ‘n boops with a fairly layered and chunky explosion noise whenever you hit an enemy. I don’t hate the sounds but I can’t blame anybody for wanting to press the mute button. I don’t really know what to classify No Escape! As, it could be an action game, or it could be a reactionary puzzle game, perhaps it’s a reactionary action puzzle game; that sounds about right. The premise of this game is that you are the famous Greek hero Jason who is trapped in the Temple of Aphrodite with a load of angry Furies (not angry Furries, though it don’t know which is scarier). The gods are displeased with Jason after he stole the Golden Fleece, now, armed only with rocks, Jason must match his wits with increasingly clever enemies, but there is No Escape! Unlike with many of these move-around-on-the-bottom-of-the-screen-and-shoot-at-things games you’re not actually shooting at the enemies, you’re shooting at the ceiling. The only thing that can destroy these creatures are the sacred bricks that make up the roof of the temple, so you need to time your shot just right so the brick you shot will intercept an enemy and kill it. Later rounds have the enemies avoiding the bricks altogether leading you to need to trick them into moving into them, and enemies the will sporadically dodge. My main problem with this game is the actual shooting since shooting while moving will cause your shot to launch to the side then go straight up, ruining your aim. Overall this is a fairly fun game to pick up every once in a while but it’s definitely a pick up and put down game and sadly, since this is one of Imagic’s later releases, No Escape! Isn’t a very cheap game. Loose copies on Ebay go from anywhere between 7-20 dollars and boxed copies are anywhere between fifty and sixty dollars, that’s just way too much. I’m putting No Escape! In the Collector’s Zone for simply being too expensive for its own good.