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(than the outrageous $60+ price tag of a new pc game)

I agree that $60 is more than I'm willing to pay for most games, but let's put things into perspective. $60 is about what games have cost since the beginning, even before you take inflation into account. Here's a thread about it. No sources, but it falls in line with my memory, too.

Back in the day, some larger games cost even more than $60 (think RPGs and even Street Fighter 2). N64 games often went for more than that, too. Take inflation into account, and games are cheaper now than they were in the NES days ($50 in 1985 is $108 now). What's happened, IMO, is that there are a lot of cheaper games out now that make $60 look awful.

http://www.digitpress.com/dpsoundz/dp_frogger_squash.wav

If word of the hype machine and some of my friends who saw Avatar is to be believed, 3D makes everything that was once crap entirely utterly awesome. You're just being cynical and refusing to embrace The Future.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a re-release of Superman 64 on my 3D TV. It'll be like the entire games room is enveloped in purple fog!

Is that really true? What about Castlevania Symphony of the Night? Or did it eak by because of the 3D save points?

Of course it isn't true.

List of 2d playstation games:
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-54374.html

Agreed.. and not saying it's typical, but if you look at Larry Kaplan's interview, you'll see that for awhile he was in rockstar mode.. now he's just another guy writing code for peanuts (his last listed salary was 85k).

A lot of us are still very enthusiastic about classic games. For example: see AtariAge, DigitPress RetroGaming Roundtable, ClassicGaming, etc. There is a community out there alive and well with fans of every type of classic gaming console, old computer, and classic game. And don't forget to do a Google Blog Search for your favorite classic console (atari 2600) or old computer (Apple II) (get the feed...). Classic gamers are buying news products like the Classic USB Joystick Controller (Atari 2600-style) and in the past few years there were a flood of products like the Atari Flashback 2, C64 TV Games, a bunch of Jakks TV games, etc. The classic gaming market will always be around, but I think it will change and update as we get older where newer "old" systems get a chance for the spotlight.

Yar's Revenge!

Hard to read it, though.

The Cougar Boy was made by Cougar, but it was auctally a re-release of a previous system, the Mega Duck, which was made by Creatronic, Videojet and Timlex. The console had less than 30 titles, and was only largely distributed in brazil, meaning that most of the web-pages deicated to it are not in english, with this notable exeption: http://www.digitpress.com/faq/megaduck.txt/

Agreed ... I'm one of the nobodies who contributed to the book. I wrote a couple of the MAME related articles, and there are a couple of pictures of one of my MAME cabinets included within the book. When the final copy arrived in the mail I was super excited to see my final articles in print, but shortly afterwards I read the book from cover to cover. There are a lot of great articles in there!

Rob "Flack" O'Hara
http://www.digitpress.com/ | http://www.robohara.com/

I've heard that this is nothing more than a usual inaccurate famiclone.

And the Atari 2600 was hardly the first as well.
That honor belongs to the Fairchild Channel F. That ugly sucker was out about a year earlier...

Tut tut, don't forget Prince of Persia: Arabian Nights for SEGA Dreamcast.

I'm not sure about Pac-Man and Defender specifically, but digitised versions of some of those records (as well as some really obscure ones, such as a Yars Revenge 'radio drama' record O_o;; ) are available at the Digital Press classic gaming site.

If you have a 2800, you could probably get some serious coin from it on eBay. If you mean a 2600, I don't know how a Lynx emulator would bring you any closer to text-based browsing. But reading any text on a 2600 would be quite painful. They're much more useful for playing four player Warlords.

When I popped open my original Genesis (bought in the days of the Altered Beast package), I seem to remember the chip being rated as a -11(?) or -14. It was also someone else's fabbing of the 68000, though memory is hazy.

So it's been entirely possible that Sega designed around Motorola parts and reference materials, then found a second-source supplier who gave them a better deal in bulk on chips that exceeded their specifications.

Plus, from this site, looks like they designed around the 7.6MHz rate for other things (bus to the Z80 for music-generation, and so on).

I feel bad for Howard Scott Warshaw every time I hear his name mentioned in connection with the E.T. Atari game. It wasn't really his fault it was so terrible... they told him they had to have it on the shelves in time for the Christmas shopping season, and gave him about a month and a half to work on it. At least, that's what he said in this interview. A way overhyped game for one of the most successful movies of all time, and they give one programmer six weeks to do it? Even in 1982 that was suicide, no matter how brilliant the one programmer might have been.

Curious about more this system has to offer? He's a Top 25 thread from Digitpress.com, one of the greatest retrogaming sites out there: Some other great INTV Games.

Let's not forget about the Killer List Of Videogames. It's got a ton of info on arcade games, including lots of great case photos. Also try Digital Press. One of the best videogame collector's sites around, with a ton of system lists and a very active forum. Definitely worth checking out.

and that excuses the unplayability of the game? that the developer was rushed? are you really the developer, looking for some understanding? there should be a certain amout of quality assurance; if a game is unplayable, it shouldnt be released. its that simple.

It's not that simple. Why "shouldn't" the game be released if it's unplayable? Why "should" there be a certain amount of QA? Is that a business viewpoint, or a moral one?

E.T. Still sold over a million copies. True, the low quality of the game may have hurt Atari in the long run (just like the original Pac-Man cartridge) but we'll never know if releasing it was the wrong business decision.

When you have your own multi-million software company, I hope you can make the moral decision every time, but experience suggests real life doesn't work this way. Even in today's marketplace, releasing low-quality games is better than discarding them, and it is a viable long-term business strategy; look at, oh, Acclaim.

No, I am not Howard Scott Warshaw, but this interview tells his side.

i cant believe no one has mentioned the unholy ET and M&M atari game. not only was it blatant advertising, but the damned game was imposssible to play

E.T. was impossible to play because the only developer had to complete the thing in 6 weeks to cash in on the movie premiere. Now, licensed games are completely different than in-game ads, please don't confuse the issues.

And if you're willing to go back as far as the Atari 2600, you'll find stuff like Kool aid man, Ralston-Purina's Chase the chuckwagon, and one of the worst marketing ideas of all time, Coke wins.

Archon (midi)

Archon II (mp3)

anyone remeber a series of games for the 2600 all with world at the end of the title ? 'waterworld, fireworld, earthworld' etc? i had these as a kid and loved them.. i remeber them as being mostly puzzles of some kind.. can someone help me out with the name of these?

They were part of Atari's "SwordQuest" challenge. The idea was to hide Easter Eggs in the four games that gave you hints towards winning a $25k "treasure." It was (at least initially) a great marketing gimmick, and each game came with a mini DC comic furthering the plot. Alas, despite all the excitement, the games sucked rather hard, as they were purposely inscrutable (like the Atari 2600 "Raiders of the Lost Ark" game) and sales of the last couple games in the series were dismal.

The Bally Astrocade or the Fairchild Channel F?

Even those here who steadfastly continue to trivialize the potential for videogames to permanently damage the psyche of impressionable children (yeah, YOU Katz) must be forced to reckon with the spectre of one of the most inarguably traumatic experiences of all our childhoods.

Many games amused and inspired me, some even frightened and frazzled me.

But Midway / Williams was responsible, nay, dare I say irresponsible for bringing to life one game that had the power to terrify through barbaric taunts and satanic jeers.

How many thousands of children were permanently scarred by the memory of this quarter-eating tormentor?

How many millions of nightmares were spawned in response to this evil whose name we dare not speak?

How many more nights will I awake to my own pitiable screams, as I hear that demonic bellow again and again?



He could not be placated... Only postponed....
He could not be killed... Only delayed...
His power was greater than all foes combined...
The only way to win was not to play.

Even those here who steadfastly continue to trivialize the potential for videogames to permanently damage the psyche of impressionable children (yeah, YOU Katz) must be forced to reckon with the spectre of one of the most inarguably traumatic experiences of all our childhoods.

Many games amused and inspired me, some even frightened and frazzled me.

But Midway / Williams was responsible, nay, dare I say irresponsible for bringing to life one game that had the power to terrify through barbaric taunts and satanic jeers.

How many thousands of children were permanently scarred by the memory of this quarter-eating tormentor?

How many millions of nightmares were spawned in response to this evil whose name we dare not speak?

How many more nights will I awake to my own pitiable screams, as I hear that demonic bellow again and again?



He could not be placated... Only postponed....
He could not be killed... Only delayed...
His power was greater than all foes combined...
The only way to win was not to play.

Even those here who steadfastly continue to trivialize the potential for videogames to permanently damage the psyche of impressionable children (yeah, YOU Katz) must be forced to reckon with the spectre of one of the most inarguably traumatic experiences of all our childhoods.

Many games amused and inspired me, some even frightened and frazzled me.

But Midway / Williams was responsible, nay, dare I say irresponsible for bringing to life one game that had the power to terrify through barbaric taunts and satanic jeers.

How many thousands of children were permanently scarred by the memory of this quarter-eating tormentor?

How many millions of nightmares were spawned in response to this evil whose name we dare not speak?

How many more nights will I awake to my own pitiable screams, as I hear that demonic bellow again and again?



He could not be placated... Only postponed....
He could not be killed... Only delayed...
His power was greater than all foes combined...
The only way to win was not to play.

Even those here who steadfastly continue to trivialize the potential for videogames to permanently damage the psyche of impressionable children (yeah, YOU Katz) must be forced to reckon with the spectre of one of the most inarguably traumatic experiences of all our childhoods.

Many games amused and inspired me, some even frightened and frazzled me.

But Midway / Williams was responsible, nay, dare I say irresponsible for bringing to life one game that had the power to terrify through barbaric taunts and satanic jeers.

How many thousands of children were permanently scarred by the memory of this quarter-eating tormentor?

How many millions of nightmares were spawned in response to this evil whose name we dare not speak?

How many more nights will I awake to my own pitiable screams, as I hear that demonic bellow again and again?



He could not be placated... Only postponed....
He could not be killed... Only delayed...
His power was greater than all foes combined...
The only way to win was not to play.

Even those here who steadfastly continue to trivialize the potential for videogames to permanently damage the psyche of impressionable children (yeah, YOU Katz) must be forced to reckon with the spectre of one of the most inarguably traumatic experiences of all our childhoods.

Many games amused and inspired me, some even frightened and frazzled me.

But Midway / Williams was responsible, nay, dare I say irresponsible for bringing to life one game that had the power to terrify through barbaric taunts and satanic jeers.

How many thousands of children were permanently scarred by the memory of this quarter-eating tormentor?

How many millions of nightmares were spawned in response to this evil whose name we dare not speak?

How many more nights will I awake to my own pitiable screams, as I hear that demonic bellow again and again?



He could not be placated... Only postponed....
He could not be killed... Only delayed...
His power was greater than all foes combined...
The only way to win was not to play.

Bachelor Party and the female version Bachelorette Party

Beat 'em and Eat 'em(due to the Atari's lo-res, I first thought the guy was holding a bazooka! Gameplay is like Kaboom, but instead of losing a bucket when you miss, the ladies fart)

Burning Desire and the female version Jungle Fever

Custer's Revenge

Knight on the Town