We asked the big question and got some responses. While it was alot less than I got in previous questions, it was a fair amount. I remember when I could ask something and get 300-500 responses. Now, I do not even get a hundred. Anyway, here is the final vote. 35 votes - Yes, I
want some coverage for Nintendo and Sega As you can see, it was fairly close. But the amount of total votes is quite discouraging. Oh well. So starting next issue, we will open coverage to include Nintendo 8-Bit, Sega Master System and Turbografx. I know some people emailed saying that there was Bit Age Times for coverage of these systems, but the truth is that Bit Age Times is history. I do not have the time or desire to do two newsletters anymore.
If you have a Playstation 2, there are now two more classic compilations to add to your library. Both just recently came out and are priced at $19.99! Hard to go wrong at that price, right? Read on and find out.
Midway
Arcade Treasures One problem I found is the menu. While I applaud Midway for trying something different with the Egyptian Hieroglyphics, I do not think it works. It is quite confusing at first, especially since the picture that shows up when you go over a hieroglyphic does not always say the name of the game. After awhile, you figure out all the games, but at first it is quite confusing. But on a positive note, you can easily bounce back and forth from one game to another. A big bonus is that it allows you to save high scores. This was one big sore spot that I had with the Activision Anthology. This is what adds a ton of replayability as you try put up a score that your friends and family will not be able to beat. Such a little thing, yet it makes a world of difference. The extras are nothing major. There is some interviews that were on the earlier compilations and some extra information or pictures. Overall, it is a nice addition, but nothing major. I wish they did a little more in this department. Heck, they could have sent someone to the Classic Gaming Expo and got a bunch of new information, interviews as well as a bunch of photos. Oh well, I guess the budget was tight. The only real gripes I have with the collection are the lack of support for other controllers. There is no trackball support for Marble Madness, despite having it on the earlier compilations. This is a bummer, but not a big deal. The other gripe is the lack of Burgertime. I can understand some of the other games not included from the earlier compilations (Irem wanted too much money to include Moon Patrol, reportedly and Infogrames who now owns Atari did not want to give the rights to Millipede and Crystal Castles, again reportedly). But Burgertime is a bummer as it is one of my favorites from the earlier collections. My biggest dream would have been to not only have Burgertime, but have as an unlockable, Diner. I know it is a pipe dream, but we all need to dream. Overall, it is an awesome collection and at the low price of $19.99, it is a no brainer. To put it into perspective, it would have cost you twice as much to get a single game from this collection on the Nintendo 8-Bit that it costs to get 24 games with extras on this one. And you are getting a nearly arcade perfect version to boot. And with so many great games, you will find this fast becoming one of your favorite compilations. Here is a complete list of all the games: 720
Intellivision Lives! The first thing you will notice with the game is the look. It really does have the feeling of being in a pizza parlor during the 1980's. There are arcade machines around that have different games on them, grouped together by genres. There is also a jukebox that works as a way to change options and some photos on the wall that open up a history of Intellivision and interviews. It is quite easy to navigate around the place and it is quite nice. About the only things that I would have added would be a few oddball mini games. You pass a dart board, how about allowing you to throw a few games? Not a big deal and it probably would have detracted from the Intellivision games, which are the stars of the show. One thing I must mention is that you need to pay attention to different lists of games as there are more than it shows. This is pretty much limited to the sports arcade machine. It may say Baseball, but there is really two games under it. You have the original and World Championship Baseball. So if you take this into consideration, you will soon find that there is well over the 60 games advertised, probably closer to 65. The games themselves are well emulated. They look great (or as great as they originally did) and the sound is dead on. Nice to have the music playing in Thin Ice and Thunder Castle, two games that really had outstanding music. For the most part, they work great with the Playstation 2 dual shock controllers and there is even force feedback in some of the games. This will surprise you the first time as it is something that you do not expect from a classic game. It is nice that there is some extras with every game. You can view the box art, read some production notes on the individual game and there are different game modes available. These are very similar to the ones on the Activision Anthology with the modes being reversed, upside down, many small screens and bouncing screen. These add a little, but most people will stick with the original mode. Each arcade game has one game that has a challenge on it. This challenge will unlock something, either a classic commercial or one of the unreleased games. Most of the challenges are pretty easy to do (score 20,000 points on Astrosmash or get 300 points on Frog Bog). The average person can unlock most of them in a single day. A few may be a challenge, but none are that hard. Also nice is the ability to save high scores on some of the games. You must remember that many of the games would not have a need for this. Baseball is one that there is no need to save high scores, but it is nice to be able to on Frog Bog or Shark! Shark! It is also nice as you can view these from the game menu to see who has what scores. Nice feature and a must have in all future compilations. There are some negatives with the compilation. First off, getting a game ready can be a chore. You have to use the select button to pull up a game overlay and then use it to choose how many players and other settings. Big problem with this is that the overlay is so small and so hard to read that you cannot tell what you are hitting. For most games, it is no problem, but for some like Utopia or Las Vegas Black Jack and Poker, it can be a real pain. Also, games that require alot of use of the overlays (like the aformentioned games), it will be a hassle to pop in and out all the time. While some games have many of the commands mapped to the controller, some require too many buttons for a PS2 controller. I also question some of the choices. Do we really need Baseball and World Championship Baseball? The latter is the same game with a few improvements, one player mode, fly balls and the player slides into the base. Wouldn't it have been better to add World Series Baseball instead? Also, I was bummed to find that Tower of Doom was the only one of the D & D trilogy to be ported. I know they did not want to pay royalties, but couldn't they use the development names like they did on the computer version? I hoped to find Minotaur as Treasures of Tarmin was called. Last, why did they split the unreleased games between the X-Box and PS2 versions? Wouldn't it be better to just offer all the unreleased games on both versions? I do not understand the logic of this one, except that they are trying to get classic gamers to buy the same game twice. Cheap. Outside of these few flaws, this is an awesome compilation and once again it is very reasonable priced at $19.99. I would recommend getting it quickly as most stores are either not carrying it or only carrying a few copies. I preordered mine and the store that I got it from was sold out immediately (granted they only got 6 copies, all of which were preorders). So it may turn out to be a collector's item in its own right. By the way, I really enjoyed the song "My Intellivision" that is one of the songs available to listen to. If anyone has an MP3 of this song, please send it my way, I would really enjoy having it to listen to. A great song. Here is a complete list of all the games (keep in mind that the three games that made up Triple Action are listed individually): 01. Armor
battle
Is it soup yet? For about 6 months now I've been telling myself and a fellow VG
collector at work, Tim Roach, that I'll post my Many Faces of data
(spreadsheet) online. The contains the scores
and other data and from all of my articles &
research for the games on the following systems: Apple II, Atari 2600,
5200, 7800, 8 bit computers (XEGS), CoCo, Colecovision, Commodore 64,
Intellivision, Odyssey 2, Sinclair
Spectrum, TI-99, Vic 20 & Vectrex. I kept
tweaking it to make it better, and adding more data and realized that
it is good enough for now. I also had to set up the html files for
posting it online etc. OK, you want to see it already . . . right? So
click on the link below and then come back and
finish reading this article later.
This first letter is not the first one I have received. I have received several. While I can sympathize with the people who were ripped off by whoever this company is, I cannot help but get upset by the people who just go into a search engine and start accusing the first place they find. This is one of the nicer letters that I have received. Just another reason why I will be removing my email address from the website in the near future.
I am not sure if I
have the right company, but there have been several debits to my
bank account from Fortune Builder. I have denied them through my
bank. I do not recall purchasing anything from this company. If
there is an account in my name, XXXXXXXX,
please let me know and e-mail me an audit of my account as I do not
recall having one. I would like to know what this is all about
As I said, this is one of the nicer ones. Most people have emailed and swore at me, threatened to sue me and other fun stuff. And it is all over this following page on my website (which comes up first on Google): http://www.tomheroes.com/Video%20Games%20FS/video%20games/coleco/fortune_builder.htm Guess I will have to put a disclaimer on this page as well. This reminds me of when I was approached by an attorney warning me that his client owned the rights to the term "Mountain Madness". I told him to talk to the Blue Sky Rangers who coined that name for their Intellivision game back in the 1980's (Mountain Madness Skiing). There is always something hilarious in the classic game world. Here are some of the results from the question: "What classic video game would you like to see made into a movie?" -Adventure for the Atari 2600. It would rock to see those dragons in CGFX. -I would make it NO VIDEO GAME EVER. Noone wants to see another good game made into a poor movie. Not ever again. -How about Elevator Action (Returns)? Either one would be good. The first one would be a little more simplistic action movie and the second one could be more of a special effects movie. The actor? Governor Arnold of course! -Syndicate - Actually wrote a treatment for it once, but never did anything with it. Would make a cool TV show, lots of blade runner action. -Pong in 3-D! -Not sure what the story would be, but I would like to see a Joust movie. -Dragon's Lair and not a cartoon either.
Well, Alan Hewston put up the
challenge and I thought I would have a go at it. That is, inform
some of you people, particularly many of the American readers of RT,
about the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.
When the topic of Retro gaming and classic computers comes up, the most regular things discussed seems to be Atari, Commodore 64 or early Nintendo. But in England and to a lesser extent Australia, you cannot even bring up the subject without someone talking about the Speccy (The Sinclair ZX Spectrum). While it is almost totally unheard of in the US, the Spectrum was the biggest selling home micro (that is what they call small computers in England) ever. Millions of Spectrums were sold through out Great Brittain with many more sold throughout Europe and as far as Australia and New Zealand. Thousands of games were released for the system. Some sources say there has been more games made for the Spectrum than any other single system (except the PC).
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum was released in England in April 1982. The philosophy behind its launch was to create the cheapest colour home computer on the market. Two versions were initially released, one with 16k RAM and one with 48k RAM. Obviously the 48k version was vastly more successful. 48k was a large amount of memory at the time, and combined with high resolution colour graphics and a built in sound generator, the Spectrum sold rapidly. In fact it took less than 18 months for Sinclair to sell its first million Spectrums. But by aiming to make the computer for such a low cost meant that a lot of short cuts had to be made. The keyboard is made up of little rubber keys. This made the Spectrum look more like a toy than a computer. There were no joystick ports and games had to be controlled by using a combination of squishy rubber keys. Perhaps Sinclair’s most unusual cost cutting trick was to actually use faulty 64k memory chips. The graphics, while being quite a high resolution of 192 x 256, only two colours could be used in any 8x8 square, one for the background and one for the foreground. This caused the infamous Spectrum colour-clash. Some very clever programming gave some games a great mix of bright colours, but sprites were nearly always mono-coloured and backgrounds looked very bland when compared to those of the very colourful Commodore 64. The Spectrum has a palette of 8 colours, but with the very useful BRIGHT attribute programmers could effectively produce up to 15 colours. Perhaps the weakest aspect of the Spectrum was its sound. Unlike the C64’s brilliant SID chip, the Spectrum only had a very basic beeper controlled by a simple BEEP statement. It was single channel, making the vast majority of games sound awful. I have always found it better to have some loud music playing when I am using my Spectrum. But as with the majority of classic computer and video games, it was the gameplay that really shone through. As already mentioned, hundreds and hundreds of games were produced for the Spectrum. They nearly all came out on cassette tape. There were the usual arcade translations as well as some incredible original games that are regarded as absolute classics today - games such as Jet Pac, Manic Miner, Jetset Willy, Chuckie Egg, Knight Lore and many, many more.
Some of England’s greatest game programmers started out programming games for the Spectrum in their own bedrooms. Perhaps the most famous of these is Microsoft’s $300 million baby Rare. The Stamper Brothers started off programming for the Spectrum under the name of Ultimate. And they were certainly the ultimate programmers, creating mind blowing games that pushed the humble Spectrum seemly way beyond its limits. Some of Ultimate’s most well known and loved games include Pssst, Cookie, Atic Atac and Sabre Wulf. In 1986 Sinclair sold the Spectrum to Amstrad. Amstrad quickly brought out “upgrades” of the Spectrum, the +2 and the +3. The +2 had a built-in tape drive while the +3 used a 3inch disk drive. Both computers also had proper keyboards. Despite strong competition from the Commodore 64, the Amiga and the Atari ST, he Spectrum continued to sell right through to the early 90s. But by 1992 it pretty well breathed its last. But with literally millions of people for whom the Spectrum was the first computer / video game system they ever owned, the spectrum will never be forgotten. Particularly in England the following for the Spectrum seems to be as strong as ever. Emulation is a huge business. There are very good Spectrum emulators available for the PC, Mac, Amiga and even the Dreamcast has one. So with a bit of searching around the emulation sites you can very soon have an emulator and dozens of games so you can checkout for yourself what all the fuss is all about. Or if you have a few dollars to spare, why not have a look at ebay where you can regularly find dozens of Speccys and hundreds games up for auction. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum is one of the true classics in the area of Retro Gaming. In some ways it was a shame the vast majority of Americans never got to experience the Spectrum in its heyday. Also, there is no way I could do the Spectrum any real justice in this one article. If you would like to get more information on the Spectrum, then check out the following web pages. This great has information on hundreds of classic computers. It features some great info on the Spectrum as well as some very good pictures. This site is better known as Planet Sinclair. There is loads of info about games, peripherals, software and other computers made by Sinclair. One of the more interesting parts of the site is the information on the games industry relating specifically to the Spectrum. In the U.K. many magazines were released for the Spectrum. CRASH was arguably the best. Its focus was mainly on the games. It quickly became the biggest selling computer magazine in England, selling over 100,000 copies a month at its peak. This site has an extensive amount of information as well as scans of all the covers and reprinted review examples from each issue. Brilliant site. This is where you will find everything you need if you are interested in emulating the Spectrum. There are heaps of emulators available for your PC, Mac, Amiga, Dreamcast, Gameboy Advance and even your Nokia phone. There is also well over 7000 games available. Hardware enthusiasts will also find lots of information about hardware specifications. (Tonks is a keen retro-gamer from Australia. He is married and has two sons who just love playing with their Dad's ever growing collection of conoles and games. Tonks collects mainly Vic 20, Amiga, Vectrex, NES and Commodore 64, but generally just loves videogames. Tonks values your comments and he can be contacted at tonks777@bigpond.com).
Greetings, gamers, and welcome to back to
RCV. This month is also dedicated to George Plimpton, who passed
away on September 26th. He did a lot of things during his writing
career, but of course we remember the two years he spent bashing
Atari and glorifying Intellivision. So I decided to serve up another
double dose of Plimpton, doing what he does best.
I couldn’t find the time to squeeze this review in last month, but it’s still pretty timely since the NBA season just tipped off 3 weeks ago. And of course this is yet another 20th anniversary review of the games from 1983. As the first sports title in Many Faces, it may seem a little out of place from the typical reviews - arcade games, platformers, collect-em ups, shoot-em ups - but let’s give it a try. Electronics Arts has a great reputation for sports video games and those beginnings started with games like One on One and programmer/designer Eric Hammond. Eric first put us “into the game” by emulating the skills and actions of 2 of his favorite NBA stars. We then play 1 on 1 versus a computer or human opponent, using their talents and ability, not ours. The manual gives us the NBA stars perspective on the half-court match up, and how to play offense and defense. We also learn that Larry Bird insisted that fatigue be programmed in as a major factor in the game. Similarly, Eric tells us that he was unable to include hook shots, but in the future, given enough CPU memory . . . This was one of those games that stood out and made you take notice back in 1983. The sound was not great, but the plethora of gameplay options and overall re-play value were phenomenal – like nothing ever seen before, and surely raised the standards for all sports games to follow. Likewise, ask your friends and find out how much PT they spent on this game, playing it to death - trying to win. Even then, they’d have to swap sides to win with the other NBA star. This was damn frustrating game, trying to defeat the computer, cursing at it, determined that it was cheating. You’d want to smash the joystick to pieces, but this just added more fuel to the fire, as your became even more obsessed with winning - especially if it WAS cheating. Yes, this title should bring back some strong emotional memories of “you versus the computer” on some game, some system from your younger days.
Original Version: Apple II (’83 Eric Hammond, Electronic Arts/Micro-Fun) C64 (’84 ?Eric Hammond?, EA) Atari 8 bit (’87 Atari/EA), 7800 (’87 Atari/Man Development Corp.) CV (’84 Chris Oberth, Micro-Fun), Sinclair Spectrum ’85 (EA/Ariolasoft), CoCo (’85 Steve Bjork, SRB Software/EA) Classic Sequels: At least one . . . “Jordan Vs. Bird 1 on 1” (C64 ‘88, Joe Hellesen EA) Home Version Similarities: Except those in <>, all versions have: a demo <CV>; use about 70% of the floor of the half-court; a choice of 4 skill levels (Park & Rec, Varsity, College, & Pro); several choices for game duration (2, 4, 6 & 8 minute quarters or the first to reach a certain score, selectable from 01 to 99; a choice of who gets the ball out next; three point shots; a backboard that can be smashed <CV>, followed by the janitor cleaning up a million pieces (how many of you were ROTFLOL – the first time you saw this?); ability to steal the ball, or block shots, but possibly getting called for a foul; the referee <CV> jumps out to call the foul - provides a text message naming the foul or event; scoreboard keeps track of all fouls; you can then shoot free throws; including a bonus if the field goal was made; a slow motion option <AP2, CV & C64>; a 24 second shot clock; instant replays <CV> for awesome plays; a net that goes swish every time <AP2>, (regardless if it was “nothing but the bottom of the net” – ESPN term); a meter to track your fatigue; and 3 time outs to completely rest your fatigued player; hot streaks shootng if you were en fuego; a pause <CV?>, and anytime access to the options menu <CV?, AP2? unsure?> to change settings & then resume the same game. On a scale of 1 to 10, the Gameplay on most versions goes to 11! Have Nots: Sinclair Spectrum (N/A my guess
28 to 36?)
Since I do not have a CoCo disk drive, nor this disk-based game, I cannot properly review it. But from Curtis Boyle’s reviews at: http://nitros9.stg.net/coco_game_list.html plus the screenshot and then knowing the premier CoCo programmer, Steve Bjork was at work here, it should be a winner. 2-player joystick mode and all significant elements and options are likely. Sound would be unknown.
Have Nots: Colecovision (35) Have Nots: Apple II (35)
Bronze Medal: Atari 8
bit (41)
Silver Medal:
Commodore 64 (42)
Gold Medal: Atari 7800 (43) Notes: Two-on-Two. Can you imagine that next, small step upwards in evolution that could have occurred? What if the programs for the Atari 8 bit and even the C64 were enhanced just a little bit more to play 2-on-2? Perhaps passing would have been tough (try push button to shoot & hold the joystick towards the teammate if passing, otherwise it is a shot). Use 4 joysticks (Atari 800 & 5200 4-port) for 4 players, or use 2 sticks, plus keyboard for 2 joystick port systems. Always give the joysticks to the human players, be it cooperative (both taking on the PC), or competitive (each has a computer partner). Allow all combinations of 1 to 4 human players, each choosing one of 4 or 6 NBA All-Stars. Keep Bird and the Dr. but add 1 or 2 more pairs of NBA stars having the same player type, such as “big men” or “point guards”. These pairs, just like Bird & Dr. J would have equal skill/ability and comparable size and speed. Teams would always be 1 player from each pair but would provide many combinations. You could play 2-on-2, 1-on-1 (each having a computer team mate), or 2 humans vs PC. Could have been one of the ultimate 80’s computer party games? Let me know what you think. Errata. I received word of an Atari 8 bit site http://www.atari8bit-software.de/index_e.htm worth looking into. It has instruction manuals and information including an Atari XE (upgraded) version of Crystal Castles. The 8 bit version that I reviewed was bootlegged to disk, but unreleased. It was ported to the 5200. The XE cart version may be better than the C64’s gold-medal winning port. I was unaware there was a cart/disk difference. Maybe some day I’ll be able to borrow or find this pricey XE cart, or a disk bootleg copy. My apologies. Come back next time for another, the final 20th Anniversary tribute for 1983, with the Many Faces of “Mr. Do’s Castle” on the Atari 2600, 5200, 8 bit, C64 & CV. Alan Hewston, can be contacted at: Hewston95@NOSPAMstratos.net or visit his site at http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/VG/Hewston_vg.html
Everyone has heard of the Phillyclassic game show that has been going on for the past four years. But now there is a second game show in the city of Brotherly Love. Can a city as big as Philly support two game shows, especially when both are more slanted towards classic games? Interesting question. But if anyone can pull it off, the team of Adam Harvey (or as he is known in the newsgroups as BuyAtari, the bigtime Atari collector) and Chuck Whitby of the Intellivision Gaming Network fame, has as good a chance as anyone. But it will take more than just some well known people in the game industry. They have a few things against them. First off, they are going against a well established game show that will only be a month away (the East Coast Gaming Expo as it is called will be held on February 13th and 14th, while the Phillyclassic will be held on March 20th and 21st If that is not enough, they decided to put the show on Valentine's weekend. A video game show is not exactly the romantic trip that most women are craving from the man in their life. And let us not forget about a little thing called snow. February is a horrible month for weather and some people may not like the idea of carting game systems and games through a foot of snow. But even with some obstacles, the show has potential. It has some good leadership and is in a very populous city that is in very close proximity of many other large cities (we are talking within driving distance of New York City, Baltimore, Washington DC, Pittsburgh and other major cities). So there is a large base to draw from. It will be interesting to see how well another Philly based show does. It can be nothing but good for the industry. Here is a link to the official site:
Let us turn the spotlight on a few sites that deserve mention. The first site is one that I may have mentioned before, but even if I did, it is so good that it deserves to be spotlight twice. It is none other than Good Deal Games. This site has so much information that it would take you days to go through it all. And that is not counting the ton of games, both original and the new games that they have for sale (yes, they have acquired the rights to several never released games and brought them to market for game fans). If you have not checked this site out, now is a great time to do it. Also check out RT contributor, Jim Krych's Gyruss story that is in the fan fiction on the page. Here is the link:
Toucan's TI-99/4A's Cartridges http://www.whtech.com/toucan/index.html
I actually have a good reason for the issue being late this month, I got a new computer and my old Frontpage would not work. But I went ahead and got a new version, so hopefully I will be able to tinker with it and learn some of the new features. Also with a new computer, I will be able to play MAME again and with my own Devastator II coming next month, I may start up the arcade game reviews. I must say it is nice to finally have a new computer, my last one was bought in summer of 1999 and it was quite obsolete then. Check back next month as we offer another issue. Now with all my merchandise sold, I can concentrate on adding to the website for fun. It should make me more pleasant in the newsletters as a day off from work will actually be a day off. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
