freewheel Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Hmmm...I live in MN, so basically share a border with Canada, maybe it had a greater release in other areas? Interesting... Back in those days, Canada and the US were VERY different markets. Even today the US sees a much broader release of consumer products, although the gap narrows every year. And yeah, even in situations where towns/cities are literally minutes apart. I'm already 90% sure that I'm going to have to pick up my Coleco/INTV Flashback units while on vacation this fall. Depending on the exact product and year of release, our labelling laws (the French thing) has led to Canada missing out on some things, or seeing a very different product - hence all the "Canadian" label variations out there. Sometimes they send us the "International" release (somewhat common with SMS games and I often stumble upon Megadrive-labelled games) and sometimes we get one just for us. Especially when you go back 35 years, it wouldn't surprise me if you guys got games that simply never made it up here - or if they did, in very limited quantities. These days we have almost the same stores, but back then the retail chain was entirely different. Which is why you see those "Zellers" pirate 2600 games that are fairly rare in the US, but common as dirt up here. Almost every large lot I see has one or two. It makes for interesting collecting, because I see certain broad trends in the wild and in stores up here vs when I scavenge in the US. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 Another thing about Star Ship is the firing sound sounds exactly like my old Uniden cordless phone ringer sound. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthkur Posted August 8, 2014 Share Posted August 8, 2014 I remember having a difficult time finding that game in the early 80's. I was forced to buy it off of someone. I'd been asking everyone when either at the arcade or bowling alley if they had a copy they'd part with. I remember being disappointed that I had to settle for only getting the cart without box. So much so that I actually made one for it. Sure wish I still had that along with all my other original boxes. My parents insisted in storing them in the basement and of coarse they got ruined by dampness. I recall having to do the same thing for Miniature Golf as well. Never made a box for that one though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 I never heard of this game till now. Never seen in wild or stores ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 Seems like Star Ship could become the next Air Raiders!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 (edited) Seems like Star Ship could become the next Air Raiders!! At least it wouldnt suck as bad. But there is no handle so I doubt it. Edited August 9, 2014 by Jinks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 The warthog... Fight!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 I think the #1 fantasy for a lot of Gen-Xers for whom Star Wars was their formative moment was to play a videogame of 3D space combat. Of course, to do this with the hardware of the time was almost impossible, so when games first started attempting this, it was a big litmus test of the state-of-the-art. It was understandable that even on the 2600, that this would be attempted. It's just that Star Ship was just the first feeble attempt to do it, followed by better ones later. For my money, Star Raiders for the 8-bit is still better than anything that appeared on the 2600. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raskar42 Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 i own a copy, it is kind of a forgotten game - even the atari catalogs didn't list it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 i own a copy, it is kind of a forgotten game - even the atari catalogs didn't list it. Sure they did. Original VCS Catalog (1977) CO-12737 (1978) CO-12737-2 (1978) CO-14356-Rev. C (1979) CO-14356-Rev. D (1980) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted August 9, 2014 Share Posted August 9, 2014 Seems like Star Ship could become the next Air Raiders!! What's special about Air Raiders, apart from being one of the better M-Network titles? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 For my money, Star Raiders for the 8-bit is still better than anything that appeared on the 2600. And many things that came after it. What's special about Air Raiders, apart from being one of the better M-Network titles? I mean Air Raid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 (edited) Sure they did. Original VCS Catalog (1977) CO-12737 (1978) CO-12737-2 (1978) CO-14356-Rev. C (1979) CO-14356-Rev. D (1980) Isn't Star Ship notorious for being the first game to be discontinued? Since a large chunk of the VCS' userbase jumped on board when Space Invaders came out, they would maybe have seen it listed in Rev. D and then quickly disappear from subsequent catalogs. I recall I did. It's hard to really understand why it got singled out because there are other rather weak early titles that stuck around. I don't think I've ever actually sat down to play a round of Slot Machine, for instance. Edited August 10, 2014 by mos6507 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted August 11, 2014 Share Posted August 11, 2014 A10 warthog= the fart of death. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 At least it wouldnt suck as bad. But there is no handle so I doubt it. My Air Raiders does not have a handle. Is it a rare variant? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godzillajoe Posted August 12, 2014 Share Posted August 12, 2014 Air Raiders by Mattel (M-Network) != Air Raid which is a shitty game people pay hundreds of dollars for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted August 13, 2014 Share Posted August 13, 2014 /joke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted August 14, 2014 Share Posted August 14, 2014 You guys do realize this is a port of an Atari arcade game, yes? Might make a fun project for someone to try to do a better version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raiu Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Story time! My mother had a friend who had a teenage son, and that son usually got all the latest electronic goodies first, so he had an Atari and all the early games for it. We went over to visit them one day when nobody was there but my mother's friend. While they chatted for hours, I played just about every Atari game they had. Breakout, Combat, Surround (I enjoyed watching the two sides smash into each other simultaneously more than I enjoyed playing the game correctly), Codebreaker, and, most memorably, Star Ship. Like Surround, I enjoyed it more playing it wrong (I really liked the full-screen flashing "explosions"), but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And then, two or three years later (right around the time Pac-Man came out), I got my own Atari, and was never able to find Star Ship. Even my cousin, who had a lot of the early games and who we used to borrow games from, didn't have it. It wasn't until the mid 1990s, at a flea market, that I was finally able to snag myself a copy (technically, it was the Sears Telegames release, Outer Space, but close enough!) and play again. It hadn't aged well (or I hadn't aged well - it was a good fifteen years since I'd last played it), but I still found it fun. And I continue to find it fun in small doses. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 On the back of the Flashback 5 box it lists Star Ship. It still has Tempest, that ugly prototype, so that should make Star Ship look pretty good. I won't be getting an Atari Flashback 5 because I have a 2 and a 2+ and lots of real Atari 2600's, 7800's, system changers, etc. Its highlights for me would be Astroblast with PADDLES, and Millipede! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 Exidy's Star Fire came out only two years after the Star Ship coinop and it's so much more advanced that it doesn't really make sense to attempt a more faithful Star Ship port since we already have a Star Fire homebrew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godzillajoe Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 Why do we need Starship remade when you have Star Master, Star Raiders and Star Voyager, Star Trek SOS which have already updated the idea. A proper Lunar Lander would be nice. I know it was on one of the FB units but wasn't that one terrible and the rom was never released anyway 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 Why do we need Starship remade when you have Star Master, Star Raiders and Star Voyager, Star Trek SOS which have already updated the idea. At the risk of blowing your mind: At this point in gaming history, we don't "need" ANYTHING on the 2600. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godzillajoe Posted August 24, 2014 Share Posted August 24, 2014 (edited) At the risk of blowing your mind: At this point in gaming history, we don't "need" ANYTHING on the 2600 Well, I look at Atari like art or music, I wanna see what magic people can create when inspired yet constrained by the limits of the system. I mean you can just use Garage Band and Autotune and make songs. So we don't NEED any "musicians" at this point in music history either. Nice to see you're still grumpy. Where's Red Robot though? Edited August 24, 2014 by godzillajoe 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted August 25, 2014 Share Posted August 25, 2014 Why do we need Starship remade when you have Star Master, Star Raiders and Star Voyager, Star Trek SOS which have already updated the idea. A proper Lunar Lander would be nice. I know it was on one of the FB units but wasn't that one terrible and the rom was never released anyway Correct. There's Deimos Lander, an unfinished WIP Lunar Lander clone by John Payson, and of course the flashback version which is indeed pretty bad. None of them deliver an authentic Lunar Lander experience. At the risk of blowing your mind: At this point in gaming history, we don't "need" ANYTHING on the 2600. Nonsense.. And we are not at any point in history. History is the past. We are in the present. And I want more games now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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