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Here's the plan. We're going to move the entire population of the earth to six cities all lined up in a row and all of the nukes will be launched from three locations. One in the middle of the cities and the other two flanking the cities. I'm going to need control of all nukes and hook all of that up to a radar screen. For controls I need a trackball and three firing buttons to select which location the missiles will be fired from. . Everything that gets past earth orbit gets nuked.

Drone swarms got you down? Use your smart bomb. Just be sure you are close enough when pod intersection happens or you might miss part of the swarm.

Drone swarms got you down? Use your smart bomb. Just be sure you are close enough when pod intersection happens or you might miss part of the swarm.

Crossfire, Pin Pong, and Clean Sweep all link to the same page.

Pin Pong appears to be http://www.arcade-history.com/...
Clean Sweep appears to be http://www.arcade-history.com/...

Crossfire, Pin Pong, and Clean Sweep all link to the same page.

Pin Pong appears to be http://www.arcade-history.com/...
Clean Sweep appears to be http://www.arcade-history.com/...

Hi there.

While this doesn't measure up to the depth of your post, on the topic of weird hardware merges, one of my old favorite games Ataxx struck my notice years later when I looked it up. While probably underpowered at the raw level for its time, the practice of arcade games (and maybe later consoles) may have pushed along the mindset of obscure hardware add-ons that work beautifully for say 1-5-10 or whatever games, but then no one else can do it ever again because the five people who knew that system cold went elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataxx
http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=ataxx&page=detail&id=141
"Main CPU : (2x) Z80 (@ 6 Mhz)
Sound CPU : I80186 (@ 8 Mhz)
Sound Chips : Custom (@ 8 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Horizontal
Video resolution : 320 x 240 pixels
Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz
Palette colors : 1024"

Is this version based on the Atari Arcade game from '87?

http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=apb-all-points-bulletin&page=detail&id=86

I'd much rather have an Xbox Live Arcade/PSN release of the Sega arcade game. Preferably with "Thriller" in the soundtrack this time.

R-Type had a wonderful Turbo Graphics-16 port, as well as a surprisingly decent Master System port and a poor Game Boy port. It's currently on the Virtual Console (TG-16 & SMS) and Xbox Live Arcade (Arcade).

Also, it was created by Irem in 1987 on their custom hardware, 3 years before the Neo Geo existed.

I'm glad you were good enough to mention the artists, since it seems they never get the recognition they deserve. Some of the artwork they produced for Atari is exceptional. Unfortunately, much of this work has disappeared, either thrown away or stolen by people at Atari. Among the creators of the "Atari look":

Cliff Spohn is a talented and sought after portraitist of real people, sports figures in particular.
http://www.artworkoriginals.com/JAAAAAOU.htm

Steve Hendricks also usually focused on portraiture and has created some of the most evocative and distinctive work to come out of Atari.
http://www.sundancecreative.com/

Rick Guidice often worked with NASA doing space illustration.
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/view/search?q=Guidice&search=Search
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Rick_Guidice
http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/advart.html

James Kelly is not just an artist, he was one of Atari's art directors for many years.
http://www.orangecountyfineart.com/kelly.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/aditaciobanu/james-kelly-painting-nx-power-lite-presentation

Bob Flemate is someone I unfortunately haven't found much information on. He worked on Atari arcade cabinets and created the marvelous Atari 400/800 Space Invaders cover art.
http://thenewgamer.com/content/archives/gamephemera_space_invaders_atari_400_800

George Opperman was one of Atari's first artists and art director, and is notable for designing the original, iconic, and difficult to reproduce Atari "fuji" logo. The logo is meant to resemble the letter "A" and represents two players facing each other with the Pong "net" between them.
http://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?page=person&name=George+Opperman
http://www.cooganphoto.com/gravitar/cabinets.html

Hiro Kimura has had the honor of creating three US postage stamps.
https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10052&productId=10001795&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=&parent_category_rn=10000003&categoryId=10000028&top_category=10000003
http://www.virtualstampclub.com/images/flagcity.jpg
http://www.virtualstampclub.com/images/99chalk.jpg

Warren Chang was a staff artist at Atari for two years, starting in 1981. His beautiful work can be described as classical realism and has garnered several awards.
http://warrenchang.com/

That's an actual arcade game from the time. http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=dactyl-nightmare&page=detail&id=12493

Many people that played that would goof like that when playing to make people watching think it was more that it really was.

That game actually sucked horribly, gave you headaches, and many nausea. Plus coat about $5.00 a play at most arcades.

Star Raiders's concept of environment was a lot more limited than FS-1 because you had to jump from one "block" to the next, whereas FS-1 had a fluid line drawing representation of airports and scenery throughout a large world. More FS-1 history here. If you are going old school on "3D", how about StarHawk (1979) or Night Driver? (1976)

Star Raiders's concept of environment was a lot more limited than FS-1 because you had to jump from one "block" to the next, whereas FS-1 had a fluid line drawing representation of airports and scenery throughout a large world. More FS-1 history here. If you are going old school on "3D", how about StarHawk (1979) or Night Driver? (1976)

Granted, their version used something like Airsoft pellets rather than live rounds, but the idea was the same. Kind of a fun game, if you ignore the pellets that keep bouncing off the target and hitting you in the face...

Some info on the game.

What educational value beyond the current educational technology (e.g. books and mentoring) does VR actually give you? And keep in mind it has not only provide some value, but a value that offsets the increased cost of the VR environment to begin with? Wouldn't in the past 20 years we'd actually see these immersive VR environments in at least some form? The only thing close has been flight simulators, and they've been around for at least 60 years.

Games? Tried that. No body wanted to purchase the hardware when a home console was almost just as good.

Just slap MAME on the machine and play Jail Break :D

And damn straight about growing up during the era of arcades. It's damn near impossible to explain to the younger video game crowd the sheer wonder we felt as these now technologically antiquated games came out back when they were brand new.

Man, talk about an old news story.

Looking at anywhere I can find a list of Arcade credits (remember, those boards didn't have a whole lot of extra bits to be using on programmer names.) for SF II, I don't see Okamoto anywhere, unless you're going to claim one of those pseudonyms is him. The Arcade History Database lists a lot more of his credits, SF II isn't among them, and neither is Final Fight, but for Time Pilot, Gyruss and 1942 he is listed as designer. Then he sort of coasts along as Producer, Exec Producer for the rest of his career.

Looking at anywhere I can find a list of Arcade credits (remember, those boards didn't have a whole lot of extra bits to be using on programmer names.) for SF II, I don't see Okamoto anywhere, unless you're going to claim one of those pseudonyms is him. The Arcade History Database lists a lot more of his credits, SF II isn't among them, and neither is Final Fight, but for Time Pilot, Gyruss and 1942 he is listed as designer. Then he sort of coasts along as Producer, Exec Producer for the rest of his career.

Well, Mercs is the sequel to Commando .

As for Mercenaries, I have no idea.

Well, Mercs is the sequel to Commando .

As for Mercenaries, I have no idea.

It used to be when a publisher released a product, it was bug-free and of good quality. Nowadays, and this doesn't apply specifically to games -- the same can be said for movies, music and all other "software", you're taking your chances when you purchase something. At least half the products on the market aren't worthy and are just fluff, and the other half are un-original and derivative. And products don't stand on their own any more... they're part of a larger franchised marketing and merchandising plan designed to squeeze as much money from you as possible.

The most notable examples are the hoards of terminally-boring FPS games... Wow, it's just like the last 20 games except now you can sit in a turret or your shots damage texture maps.. oooh.

Your memory is a bit rosy, or perhaps you aren't old enough to remember the Pac-Man product tie-ins (cereal , clothes, etc.) sequels (Ms Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, etc.) and clones (Mousetrap, etc.) ? And let's not even talk about movies based on Space Invaders....

A few years ago, someone told me about a show called "Survivor". Believing that we'd finally reached the "Running Man" stage of society, I wondered how the legal arrangements, and concluded that they used a shell corporation and some small country that would change its laws for the right price. Five minutes into the premiere, when I discovered that people got voted off the island in Survivor, rather than starved or killed, I turned the TV off in disgust.

1982: Robotron 2084
1988: NARC
1990: Smash TV ("Big money! Big prizes! I love it!")
1992: Total Carnage ("All we are making is baby milk!")

We've played live NARC for decades, waited 12 years to finally beat General Akhboob's baby milk factory in Total Carnage (we missed the code to unlock the pleasure domes, gotta try again), but I still want my Smash TV!

Like you said, it's Eugene Jarvis' world. We just play in it.

A few years ago, someone told me about a show called "Survivor". Believing that we'd finally reached the "Running Man" stage of society, I wondered how the legal arrangements, and concluded that they used a shell corporation and some small country that would change its laws for the right price. Five minutes into the premiere, when I discovered that people got voted off the island in Survivor, rather than starved or killed, I turned the TV off in disgust.

1982: Robotron 2084
1988: NARC
1990: Smash TV ("Big money! Big prizes! I love it!")
1992: Total Carnage ("All we are making is baby milk!")

We've played live NARC for decades, waited 12 years to finally beat General Akhboob's baby milk factory in Total Carnage (we missed the code to unlock the pleasure domes, gotta try again), but I still want my Smash TV!

Like you said, it's Eugene Jarvis' world. We just play in it.

A few years ago, someone told me about a show called "Survivor". Believing that we'd finally reached the "Running Man" stage of society, I wondered how the legal arrangements, and concluded that they used a shell corporation and some small country that would change its laws for the right price. Five minutes into the premiere, when I discovered that people got voted off the island in Survivor, rather than starved or killed, I turned the TV off in disgust.

1982: Robotron 2084
1988: NARC
1990: Smash TV ("Big money! Big prizes! I love it!")
1992: Total Carnage ("All we are making is baby milk!")

We've played live NARC for decades, waited 12 years to finally beat General Akhboob's baby milk factory in Total Carnage (we missed the code to unlock the pleasure domes, gotta try again), but I still want my Smash TV!

Like you said, it's Eugene Jarvis' world. We just play in it.

A few years ago, someone told me about a show called "Survivor". Believing that we'd finally reached the "Running Man" stage of society, I wondered how the legal arrangements, and concluded that they used a shell corporation and some small country that would change its laws for the right price. Five minutes into the premiere, when I discovered that people got voted off the island in Survivor, rather than starved or killed, I turned the TV off in disgust.

1982: Robotron 2084
1988: NARC
1990: Smash TV ("Big money! Big prizes! I love it!")
1992: Total Carnage ("All we are making is baby milk!")

We've played live NARC for decades, waited 12 years to finally beat General Akhboob's baby milk factory in Total Carnage (we missed the code to unlock the pleasure domes, gotta try again), but I still want my Smash TV!

Like you said, it's Eugene Jarvis' world. We just play in it.

According to the Arcade History Database Pole Position came out in 1982, so you win!

-If

Sega was late to the party then. Aztarac © 1983 Centuri used a 68000, as did other systems in the next year or two. Sorry to hear about Tim Stryker. I never got to meet him, but the company I was working for was going to do a conversion game for the boards. Umm, if only 500 were made, Nova Games mashed a quarter of those after stripping the parts...

Sega was late to the party then. Aztarac © 1983 Centuri used a 68000, as did other systems in the next year or two. Sorry to hear about Tim Stryker. I never got to meet him, but the company I was working for was going to do a conversion game for the boards. Umm, if only 500 were made, Nova Games mashed a quarter of those after stripping the parts...

Well, while the first 32bit arcade games weren't around until 1990 or so, I believe your 16bit console had been around for 5 years or so already.