graywest

River Raid: 55,670 (Bridge 28) First life: 25,670 (Bridge 16)

Archive.org has scans! https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A"Mondo+2000" Not sure if every issue is included, but there are quite a few. The whole late-80s/early-90s cyberculture is a fun era to study, even if tech reality didn't turn out to be as fun or utopian as they had hoped.

Diamond Mine: 13,185

Diamond Mine: 6,229 This is my first go - never played Diamond Mine before, but it seems fun! I started to get the hang of it by my last life.

Galaxian: 15,390 It's a lot different than the arcade, but I think I like the 8-bit version better. It seems more fast-paced.

Zaxxon: 24,550 I did a little bit better. Still only ever defeated one robot. BTW, is the round over? If I'm too late to submit, you can ignore this one.

Zaxxon: 20,800

Super Pac-Man: 108,930 I was pleasantly surprised that there's another extra life at 100k. I don't think Pac-Man or Ms. Pac give lives past the first at around 10k, do they?

Super Pac-Man: 84,250

I got distracted from the high score club in 2023 by all the other things on my schedule, but I'm going to try to play again this year!

Can I jump in and say I'm honestly happy to know that this thread is still going? I added my thoughts here in 2006 and almost 20 years have passed since then! As an update, I did eventually beat Bubsy for the Jaguar a few years back, and can confirm that it's a fun game once you get used to the controls and gameplay. I might not be as much of a fan as @doctorclu but it's a solid platformer. I also 100% agree with Doctorclu's suggested level order - if the developers had put the levels in that order, it would have improved people's initial perceptions of the game immensely. Makes me wonder if some meddling game company executive said, "Well, put Alice in Wonderland first because people are most familiar with that story" after the levels were already created. Because the difficulty progression of the released game doesn't make any sense to me.

...what would be YOUR vision for the company? I'm talking long-term here. In a perfect world, what do you think Atari's place should be in the greater entertainment ecosystem? Where could they be in 5, 10, or 20 years down the road? Right now, they're mainly looking at leveraging their existing IP, buying well-known classic gaming properties, and creating updated versions that can appeal to modern as well as classic gamers. That includes both hardware and software. My personal opinion is that the current owners are doing that quite well, and I think it's a good first step in bringing some respect (and revenue!) back to a company that hasn't always had that. But where do they go next? What's the next step? I like playing armchair CEO, so... My personal take: I think Atari should lean into one of their earlier, 1970s-era slogans. INNOVATIVE LEISURE. That didn't necessarily box them into being a video game company, although games were obviously the biggest part of their legacy. But they also experimented with some unique ideas like the Video Music (early music visualizer as a stereo system component), holographic handhelds, odd peripherals like the MindFlex, etc. Of course, those things didn't always pan out. But unless someone is TRYING to innovate, we won't know what "could be" and what might catch on in the realm of games, play, and leisure. I can imagine an Atari that focuses less on IP and more on bringing back the spirit of discovery and fun that Nolan's Atari had in the 1970s and early 1980s. I think that the original, pre-Warner Atari's BIG strengths didn't ultimately lie in their IP. They didn't often create sequels, reboots, and updates. Even to this day, there really isn't a character "mascot" that everyone associates with Atari. Old Atari was always chasing what was to come next. And what was to come next was ANYTHING that people hadn't seen before. Unique gameplay ideas Unforseen ways and places to play games New technologies that consumers can have FUN with Things that can bring people together for play (Because the world needs play and leisure right now - real bad.) The people who came up with these innovative entertainment ideas were the real power of Atari. If I were the CEO of Atari, I'd love to bring back that corporate culture and the old Atari spirit of innovation. They could potentially make their own market. While Sony and Microsoft are battling for the top end of the home console market, making incremental improvements on the same old tech and game styles that we've seen for ages, Nintendo is still innovating in this space, so it CAN be done. And it doesn't have to be a HUGE endeavor on the level of what Nintendo does. Look at what PlayDate did with their handheld. I feel like they kind of "ate Atari's lunch" in a way. I LOVE the Recharged series. But it doesn't mean that I want to see these games rebooted every 10 years, forever.

Hello all! A friend of mine found this white box marked "PADDLE" with a lot of Atari items at a yard sale. There was no console in the lot that he bought, but I noticed that the joystick looked like a CX-10, which it turned out to be. The lot seemed to be accessories from a heavy sixer - power supply, CX-10 joystick, paddles, etc. I know the heavy sixers came with paddles in addition to the sticks - I had never seen this white box, though. Is that how the paddles were packed in with the console? We couldn't find a box that was exactly like this one, on Ebay or elsewhere. Does this "PADDLE" box have any value? I'm guessing that most of them were thrown away back in the day. Thanks!!

Finally had some time to play these two! Joust (Advanced): 119,000 Wing War: 550

I haven't played this version of Wing War, but I think it started as a 2600 game (that Imagic only released in Europe). The 2600 instructions might help a little, but I'm not sure how much of a difference there is between the ports: https://atariage.com/manual_page.php?SystemID=2600&SoftwareLabelID=763&ItemTypeID=&currentPage=0&maxPages=4

In Bruce Lee, there's one final lamp on the wall that you have to collect in order to defeat the guy who shoots fireballs and I think it requires a bit of a last-second jump to get it. I don't remember for sure if it's the same way in Eel Ecurb, but I think it might be. Try jumping to the left immediately before you get to the wall and see if there's a lamp that you need to open the exit door?

Bruce Lee: Return of Fury: 54 lamps 79 of 94 lamps

I'm wondering if it would be possible to make something that replicates the functionality of the Atari Video Music on the 2600. The tricky part would be finding a way to interface the 2600 with an external audio source like a stereo system. The controller ports have analog pins that can be read as inputs... is it feasible to make an adapter that takes a line level output from the stereo system and outputs the proper voltage to a controller port? The cart would then display visualizations based on the audio input. With modern bankswitching, it would be easy to implement even more visualization modes than the Video Music had, and the user could cycle through them with the select lever, a joystick, etc. Are there any pitfalls with this approach? Has anyone tried a similar project before? The original Atari Video Music is very expensive nowadays. I think it would be fun to have a retro music visualizer - am I the only one? 🙂

Bruce Lee: Completed the first loop, didn't pick up any extra lives, got to the three pods on the second loop before game over. The ninja and green yamo are so aggressive the second time through - if you get trapped in a corner (where you can't duck) you're done for. Eel Ecurb: Only got a few screens into this one (I died on the screen with the four levels of electric floors). I thought this would be easier since I know my way around the original game, but I was wrong. 🙂 I wasn't aware of this version of the game - it's a clever idea.

You just unlocked a memory in my brain - when I was a kid, my friends and I referred to that thing as the "burping bull". 🤣 Looking forward to getting some plays on these!!

Oh! You're right - thanks for letting me know. Here's a new score on the 1984 version. Millipede: 228,718

Millipede: 222,123

Warhawk (with autofire): 209,013 Are we still doing an autofire bonus table? I used a Sega joystick with variable autofire for this one. It feels like cheating, but at least my hand is not cramping. I'm really enjoying Dawn Raider actually, but I'm in the same boat as @carlsson: despite many plays, I'm unable to beat my first score. I've resolved to get past the first level before we finish this round, though!

Absolutely! Feel free to add it. I'm glad you all are preserving this kind of thing. I'm attaching the .wav file that I pulled from the cassette - let me know if you run into any problems with it. Also, thanks for the info on the pricing for these. It's interesting to see the box alongside the tape for scale. The boxes were tiny! Not that much bigger than the cassette itself. I had pictured these being sold in plastic bags with instructions, or in a full-sized box. Alchemist.wav

Also: does anyone have any info on how much Aim Software was charging for these cassettes back in the day? If it was more than a couple bucks, I think people were getting ripped off. I mean, I know there weren't a whole lot of entertainment options early the 400/800s life cycle, but still... a couple hundred lines of BASIC code? From my cursory inspection of the program files from a couple of these, it seems like they were using a pretty generic game template, POKEing some data to change the character graphics, mixing up the rules a little, and that's about it. They seem to have used this format to crank out loads of rudimentary single-screen arcade games.