mattkain

New trailer for interested parties. Thoughts, comments, etc. are appreciated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCqWHpIvh3E

It's tongue in cheek. Hopefully that's obvious! Matt Kain

Thanks for the input. It's always good to get feedback from fans of the genre. You can keep up with us on Facebook and Twitter. Coincidentally I ended up playing quite a bit of Renegade at this year's California Extreme. Much, much harder than I remember. Matt Kain

I'll be sure to post auctions here. Again, it's been a while since I've ebayed. Not sure how much patience I have for their dictatorial style. Hey, I gotta make a few bucks after circumventing ebay and selling low on Good Luck Charlie Brown! Matt Kain

Thanks to all that PMed with interest. I think I'll end up trying my luck on ebay first. I have a bunch of stuff that I need to start unloading (handhelds, Atari 5200 collection, Intellivision collection, and a ton more) and it might be easier and more profitable to just go through ebay. Then again, I haven't sold on ebay in a couple years. Not sure what sort of a mess it is now. Anyway, if ebay is too frustrating, I'll come back here. Thanks again to all that messaged me with requests and info. Matt Kain

I'm trying to gauge the interest level of some classic gaming magazines. Not sure if I should sell them separately or as a group. Would anyone have interest in any of the following or what a good price might be? Thoughts on the best way to sell them? (sorry for the poor images - using my phone): Videogaming Illustrated , April 1983 Electronic Games, May 1983 Video Games Player, Fall 1982 Electronic Fun with Computers and Games, December 1982 (V1, N2) Joystick Magazine How to Win at Home Video Games, December 1982 Compute, September 1984 Computer Fun, April 1984 Family Computing, July 1984 Missing Covers: Electronic Fun with Computers and Games: November 1982 (V1, N1) and February 1984 (V2, N4) Covers Only: Videogaming and Computer Gaming Illustrated, Electronic Fun with Computers and Games Activision Patches Sonic the Hedgehog Comic, Issue 1, 1992

They have been sold. Moderators, feel free to lock.

They are Atari 2600 Connections (the zine that Tim Duarte did). I got a few replies on these. Anyone know what a realistic and fair asking price would be? Matt Kain

I was rummaging through some of my records and came across the following old video game zines: Atari 2600 Connection issues 2-6 Atari 2600 Connection issues 13-48 Digital Press Issue Sept/Oct 1991 Classic Systems and Games October 1991 Is there any interest in these? These were all distributed on fairly basic white paper and bound together with staples. These were true DIY zines. Anyway, if anyone wants to help take these off my hands, let me know. Matt Kain

Thanks for the post! Somehow I never even noticed the Xbox forum here. The release date is a little unclear - we're hoping to build a little momentum and *try* to release when interest peaks. I'm also in the very early stages of a retro-ish continuous side scroller. I'm trying to pin down the "look" right now. I'll be sure to keep people posted. If people are interested, I wouldn't mind running some ideas by the readers here (since I know the AA audience is filled with seasoned gaming veterans). Matt Kain www.team2bit.com

Well, considering he wouldn't release the proto because he was afraid it would de-value it, it would be pretty hilarious if he did. Is that true? Gosh, I don't remember saying that, but thanks for putting words into my mouth. I appreciate it. Anyway, someone sounds jealous. You should have bid $50 when you had the chance. All kidding aside, the game has been out of my possession for years. We did at some point try to coordinate to dump GLCB, but I was never able to make a trip fit into my schedule where I could travel and meet up with someone with a dumper. I also think someone was going to send me a dumper at some point, but that never happened... Please remember, I was once very involved in the Atari scene, but for years it has been only a tiny, tiny part of my life (I stopped collecting over a decade ago). I do check out the boards every couple months (and I attend CA Extreme every year), but that's about it. While I understand that dumping a rare prototype is hugely important to people on this board, it simply wasn't high on my agenda nor was it easy to fit into my schedule (you know, I was prioritizing things like work, relationships, family, other hobbies, etc. - I'm sure that's not too hard to understand). Anyway, I got a little tired of being hit with messages about dumping, selling, or donating the game so a few years ago I ended up selling it silently. The buyer also requested silence, but it's been a few years so I hope it's ok that I'm revealing the story. Anyone who PMed me and asked politely was told exactly what was going on (game had been sold and had found a very safe home). I think the moral here is that if someone who is not an active member of the community pops up with a rare prototype or one-of-a-kind item, the best thing to do is to be patient and friendly and NOT overwhelm him or her with threats, complaints, constant badgering, and endless spiteful, jealous posts riddled with insinuations, assumptions, and insults. In my experience this only makes the person less inclined to want to have anything to do with the whole Atari community (I'm sure we can think of several cases where this has happened). That being said, hats off to all the super cool people in the Atari scene, and everyone can be assured that GLCB has a very happy home (and has for several years) with a very friendly, gracious and dedicated collector. Sorry for hijacking the thread.

The game has found a safe and happy home with a generous buyer:

I don't see Slaughter Sport on that list. Am I missing it?

Do you ever have one of those business dinners where every topic of conversation is just so darn boring that you find yourself drifting off and daydreaming? I was having one of those last night. I'm here in D.C. attending a medical show where, as one can guess, the after work dinners can be pretty dry. That is until I heard the following magic words: "Isn't that when you worked for Atari?" WAH?! What? Someone here worked for Atari? Yup. As it turned out, one of our dinner guests (now an engineer at LightLabs, a medical tech company) worked for Atari from 1982 - 1984. he was one of the engineers working on the AtariTel, the Atari Telephone. I couldn't believe it. So I grilled the guy for a bit and got a few interesting factoids about the project that I thought I would pass on: - The codename for the project was "Project Falcon." He was the one and only winner of the "Falcon Award" which was some kind of tongue-in-cheek award (and did, as he claimed, include a monetray bonus). - Just as the VCS was dubbed "Stella", he said the AtariTel was given a similar moniker. It was known by many as "Linda". - He claimed the technology was crazy difficult at the time, and they were trying to bite off more than they could chew with the AtariTel. Despite technical troubles, he said the worst part about the phone was that it was heavy and really uncomfortable. He thought there was no way that anyone could or would use based on the way it was designed - clunky, heavy, awkward, etc. - He said they actually shot commercials for the phone that featured Alan Alda. He shook his head when mentioning this bit, "TV commercials for a product that never came to market." I got the impression that he thought Atari had really mismanaged resources here (why shoot a commercial until the engineering was done - especially if the engineering might fail or not be practical?) - He talked a bit about how Porsche designs were working on the phone - No, he has no prototypes of it. Just though I'd share. Matt Kain

I just played this yesterday at CAextreme. Smooth, original gameplay, cute graphics - it's actually quite fun. I only made it through the first 2 levels - anyone know how many levels total it has?

Aha. Thanks for the link. I was fooled into thinking that it was a laserdisc game because it was mixed into the laserdisc section at CAextreme (right between Dragon's Lair 2 and Super Don Quixote). I also assumed, based on the nature of the show, that it was a game from the early '80s. Any ideas about the control? How exactly does the knob work as a controller?

There was a laserdisc game at CAExtreme today called The Act. It gathered large crowds all day, and I was never able to get a chance to try it out. The story seemed to be a romantic comedy featuring a doctor and his nurse (there was a scene where the doctor performed the heimlich on a patient). The control consisted of a single knob. Does anyone have any more information about this game? Who is it by? When was it made? I can't find it on KLOV. Do I have the name wrong?? Matt Kain

Hey, I saw you guys play a few years back at one of the Bay Area retro video game shows (wish I could remember which one), and I've been a fan ever since. To all interested, I highly recommend checking out 8-bit Weapon, absolutely terrific stuff.

Not sure about home consoles, but California Extreme is a ton of fun. Great games (last year was a nice mixture of classics complete with the best lineup of vector games I've ever seen... plus tons of terrific old pinball machines), friendly, diverse crowd of people (from old vets who'd probably been playing since the '70s to teenagers who looked like it was the first time they ever saw Donkey Kong), and nice location (last year it was going on at the same time as the San Jose Jazz Fest which was like a block away - you could pop out, grab some food from a street vendor, listen to some music, and then head back in for some Bump 'n Jump). I think what I liked best was that there was more than enough games for the people in attendance. In other words, very little standing and waiting for a game to play- there was always something fun that was open to be played. I'm going to be going again this year, and I'm really looking forward to it. MK

At age 9, I was told by a very reliable source (my 8 year old cousin) that the fireballs on the second stage in Donkey Kong were mongooses. I'm not sure where he came up with something so absurd and so random, but to this day I can't play that second stage of DK without seeing a little mongoose wobbling over to bite poor Mario. Matt Kain

Going back to the SMB minus world... has anyone else ever seen that the famicom disk version of the minus world is different than the US version? This is news to me. Their minus world is way better than ours. Matt Kain

Does anyone remember a mail-order used video game company called Play It Again? They were around in the late '80s/early '90s. They had a pretty decent selection of 2600 games (at least for the time). I think they used to advertise in some of the old computer and gaming magazines (maybe VideoGames & Computer Entertainment). I'm trying to find scans of any of their original flyers (specifically sale and pricing lists). Thanks in advance, Matt Kain

Does anyone know the story concerning the minus world? Is it a glitch or was it put in on purpose? Another one that I remember finding was in The Adventure of Link on the NES. Stand on top of a tall house in one of the villages, use the jump spell, jump up so that at the apex of the jump Link is offscreen, while still offscreen immediately use the fairy spell. When you moved, you would be warped to really strange parts of the game. Sometimes you would end up stuck in a rock in the overhead map mode and had to reset. I was pretty proud of myself for finding that one. Matt Kain

Major League Baseball on the NES. If you tried hard enough you could wiggle the fielders into the stands where they could then walk around (on the heads of the poor fans - or so it looked). The trick really needed two players. One person controlled a baserunner who would run back and forth on the basepaths so the play wouldn't be called dead. Meanwhile the second player would try to make one of the fielders enter the stands by pressing up next to one of the corners of the stadium wall. With a little joypad wiggling, you would eventually walk right into the stands. Must have been a glitch in the collision detection. Love the topic. I spent countless hours looking for glitches that would expand game worlds or allow access to forbidden parts of games (the most common result being many wasted weekend hours). Matt Kain

Shining Force III on Sega Saturn was meant to be a 3 disc series that would be released in installments. Even though all three discs were released in Japan, only the first disc ever came out in the States. I bought the Japanese second scenario disc, but playing an RPG in a foreign language (especially when you're trying to follow the story) isn't really all that fun. Very, very frustrating. Back then, the Shining games were my favorite RPG series. I pretty much gave up on them after the whole SF III debacle. Matt Kain