Ahh...Atari. Or for the pursuits, "Atari 2600". Before I start out, I have to say that while current games are lightyears ahead of Atari, I don't think I ever loved any video game console as much as I did my Atari.

The games were so simple, yet we'd find ways to work them into other areas of interest. For instance, Big Bro and I would be playing with our Star Wars/GI Joe/Micronauts figures and we'd concoct some plot where the bad guys zapped our heroes into a computer game (a direct rip-off of TRON). When I first got my GI Joe guys in 1982, I didn't need any of the big tanks just yet... I conducted all armor warfare via Atari's "COMBAT". Even later, when Big Bro hit the adolescent role-playing stage, we'd find ways to work Atari games into this D&D, Traveller or Gamma World scenarios. In short, the simpicity of this thing spurred alot of imagination in us.

Now here's a weird intro... Big Bro and I first played Atari at a home for juvenile delinquent teenage girls. Over Christmas Break (probably late 1980), we stayed in the rec room of the girls' dorm, playing "Combat" all day, while they were at school. To clarify, my mom was a teacher at the home and took us along every so often. I think we had to wait almost a year (Christmas 1981) before we got our own Atari.

Also of note, I designate games between "Pre-robbery" and "Post-robbery". We had a shit load of games by February 1984, when our house was robbed by some cockgoblin. He took ALL of our games, ALL of Big Bro's audio tapes and a 20 dollar bill I had left on the dining room table. The asshat also threw pool balls at my little 7 lbs. terrier. He didn't take anything of value from my parents' rooms, so I felt like he was simply picking on me and Big Bro. Nobody was ever caught, but if I EVER find out who it was, I will beat that mutherfucker like a red-headed stepchild, fillet his balls, then roast his carcass like a pig at a luau (marinated in my urine, of course). You know what's despicable? Ransacking someone's house. You what's flat-out pathetic? Ransacking someone's house and only taking crap that would have value to 9 and 15 year old boys.

I'll try to keep these in alphabetical order (using a list from Wikipedia to help me remember) and segment them in several posts. Remember, I had a SHIT LOAD of games.

Adventure
This was the first "hot" game I can remember. The thing retailed for 30-40 bucks and was sold out for months. You're a DOT...and you bounce around through a maze, forest and tunnels to slay dragons that look like giant ducks. You can up the difficulty to go through the maze "blind", which is next to impossible. Hilarious in design and execution, this thing is the butt of jokes for videogame-heads today. Had this game both "post" and "pre"

Adventures of Tron
Lost this in the robbery. A slimmed down version of the arcade game. I believe this was actually brought over from the Intellivision console by a company named "M Network". It had three different games-- tanks, light cycles and disc-shooter. The light cycles were fairly difficult to control, so we'd switch to the simple Atari game "Chase" game to get our cycle fix.

Air-Sea Battle
Robbery casulaty. A spin-off from "Combat", with planes vs. anti-aircraft cannons. This was used ALOT in 1982, when the only GI Joe vehicle I had was the FLAK anti-aircraft cannon.

Amidar
This is another cult game. Sort of along the lines of Pac-Man, you're a gorilla, being chased by pigs. Your job is to box off segments of a square grid. After a few levels, you change to a paintbrush and are chased by pygmies. See the significance?! Nobody else does. Biggest fault with this game is that it the movement was sooooo slow. You had to get up to about level 9 (or bump the difficulty meter up) to make it exciting.

Asteroids
A classic arcade and home game. Also known as the punchline to a joke in "National Lampoon's Vacation". Very basic game, but with enough random variable that no two games are alike. The random path of the asteroids is what makes this game. Got alot of use in our Star Wars campaigns. We would hypothesize that Han and Chewie had comandeered a Star Destroyer (the ship in Asteroids was a triangle).

Atlantis
Lost in the robbery again. I remember trading for this game with my pal Shovels (named so, because he was large and would "shovel" food into his mouth). It's sort of like a cross between Missile Command and Space Invaders. From the IMagic company, which seemed to be snazzier than Atari at the time. Also had a cool angular, silver cartridge. This game got worked into our toy campaigns ("the Empire's attacking a planet! But Han and Chewie rally the natives and get them to make laser cannons!")

Bachelor Party
Robbery casualty. This was an "Adults only" game based on the Tom Hanks film of the same name. You're a square, with a suspicious protrusion sticking out on one side. You have to bounce around the screen and take out silhouettes of women. Yes, our parents let us play this. I think we jokingly worked it into Star Wars once... "Han is trapped on this planet and has to jump all the women". In our stories, Han was basically a superhuman Capt. Kirk, James Bond, Batman and every other Cool Guy we could think of. We musta' frozen and thawed him 300 times between "Empire" and "Jedi".

Basketball
From the early "Atari Sports" line and another casualty. You could call it the grandfather of "NBA JAM", as it's two pixel people dueling on a court. Hard as hell to sink anything, though.

Barnstorming
An Activision game that I found at a garage sale in 1988. Like alot of the Activisions, you have to twist your way through an obstacle course. More fun than you'd think. For some reason, I was thinking this was a side-to-side game, but it's an overhead shot.

Berzerk
A classic multi-directional game. Lot of randomness, so no two games were exactly alike. I think I played this up until I got my SEGA in 1994. Got alot of "cross-play" in my youth, too. "Han is trapped in a base and has to fight his way out". Poor Han NEVER made it out though.

Blackjack
Robbery casualty. I bought this with my paper route money in late 1983 for about 12 bucks, just to show-off to Big Bro. "Look, I can buy games now, too"!. It's a classic blackjack game, not unlike those handheld novelty items you see today. Sometimes it was hard to determine the face cards.

Bowling
Another "Atari Sports" entry and robbery casualty...and I think Big Bro had bought this about a month before I bought "Backjack"...with HIS paper route money. A cloogy little game dealing with angles and release points. Like all the "Sports" games, it was good for one or two plays. Most of the "Sports" were two-player games, though...so they were alot of fun when you had your friends over. Unlike the single-user deep campaigns of later consoles.

Breakout
I think the only reason we got this was to use the "paddle" controller. Never a big fan of this game and we only played it if we were bored.

Burgertime
Robbery casualty. This game was red hot in 1984 and available on every platform (Commodore 64 was probably the best). It's basically a twist on the third level of "Donkey Kong". The Atari version left something to be desired, as it was tough to switch levels while climbing the big burger trestle.

Whew...I had alot more than I expected. Nowhere close to being finished with this flashback. But we're out of time for now, fans we've gotta' go!!

C is for...

Centipede
I remember this as being one of the "newer generation" of Atari games. With the cool silver packaging and everything. I think I even got an Atari Force mini-comic with it. Scaled down version of the famous arcade game, but without a rollerball control. Aside from the lack of snazzy graphics, it was quite similar to the arcade. Again, we used this in our stories. "Han and Chewie have a mini-tank and have to fight their way through giant mushrooms!"

Chase
I think this was a Sears-only game. Or else it was simply re-titled and re-packaged from a different Atari game. It's basically the TRON light cycles with simple graphics. But you have a bigger playing field and more variety to your situation. Another game that surprised us.

Chopper Command
Loved this game. It's essentially a fancy version of "Defender". I remember being extremely pissed off when I started third grade, because I couldn't play this game all day. Big Bro didn't have to go to school for a few mroe days, so he'd drop by my classroom and yell into the window: "hey! Me n' Grubby are going home to play Chopper Command! Ha!" Obviously, I wasted hours on this thing, whenever Wild Bill needed to dish out air support and fend off the GI Joe caravan from those nasty Cobra jets.

Circus Atari
An early Atari game that was sorta' like Breakout. But we liked this alot more than Breakout. I remember we got this on sale and didn't expect much. We were pleasantly surprised.

Codebreaker
Another early game and a basic premise. Only reason we got this was so we could use the Atari "keypad" controller. Really, I think maybe 3 games EVER used that thing.

Combat
The game that came with every Atari system. Had something like 28 levels of dueling tanks and planes. The fighter jet games were a big favorite.

Commando
I actually bought this around 1987, when I had the upgraded (and ultimately, failed) Atari 7800. It was a 2600 game, though. Awful graphics and it had the quirky feature of including trapdoors. Don't think those were in the arcade version. You'd suddenly fall down to a subterranean level, where everything was gray. At the end of the level there was some weird wall/watchtower/attacking halftrack thing that I never got past. Didn't spend much time with this game at all.

Cosmic Ark
Another IMagic game with two separate games. In the first, you're a big fat Cosmic Ark and have to blast meteors that fly at you on all four sides. It would speed up with levels and sometimes it was hard to hit the exact direction on your joystick. In the cooler, second part of the game, you'd take a little flying saucer down to a planet and use a tractor beam to suck up aliens. The variety kept you playing this game.

Also, Fun Trivia: a distinctive sound effect from this game was used by the band Garbage for their 1995 tune "Stupid Girl". It's a hollow burpy sound, mixed in with the piano-sounding riff.

Crystal Castles
A cool 3-D game sort'a like Pac-Man with lots o' pretty colors. Graphically, this was one of the better Atari games. It was also a big novelty, since the aracde game had premiered maybe 6 months earlier. I think a beefier version was used for the slightly upgraded Atari 5200 system. But the 2600 version was just as good, minus a few colors.

So that's my "C" list ...that's good enough for me.

No Choplifter?!?! YOU BASTARD!!!

Nope..no Choplifter :(

Did they ever have a 2600 version? I think I eventually got it for the 7800 around 1988.

Also forgot:

Canyon Bomber
Another Combat spin-off. You used the "big plane" and got to bomb stuff. Sort'a like the opposite of "Air/Sea Battle". Yup, Han & Chewie or Breaker & Short-Fuze would sometimes end up in a big ol' bomber.

I'm unsure. I used to love Choplifter though. It, Ghostbusters and some other game I can't remember the name of were my favorite Atari games.

Yar's Revenge still rules all. There was even a comic with it.



Thanks for the trip down memory lane. The Atari 2600 meant everything to me too. Berzerk, PacMan, grandparent's place, the excitement of getting a new game, the difficulty switches, Ice Hockey, Nexar, Circus and so on. I loved it all so much.

Yup..that's coming. Eventually. The comic had some great art, for its time.

I'll also touch on the weird Yars crossover, that occurred inside a completely unrelated game.

The D's & E's:

Defender
Another famous classic, but I was never a fan of the game. I didn't like having to worry about the little people on the ground...I just wanted to blow shit up. It also hurt that the horiztonal scrolling wasn't done too well and it was tough to control your ship. "Chopper Command" was more my speed. Had this game both pre and post robbery.

Demon Attack
Another IMagic entry. I think all of their games went on closeout once and we snatched almost all of 'em. With the exception of "Cosmic Ark", I don't think we ever picked 'em up after the robbery. They were tough to find after 1983. But about this game... it was basically a fancy version of Space Invaders, but with "demons". Some demons looked more like teddy bear than monsters.

Dig Dug
Greatest. Game. Ever. 'nuff said! I think I have a version of Dig Dug on EVERY game console or computer I've ever owned. I'll go to those retro arcade bars just to play an old Dig Dug. I'm Really Fucking Good at it, too. If the fate of the world rests on defeating alien invaders in a game of Dig Dug, call me.

Donkey Kong
This was ported over from the ColecoVision console. Coleco was kicking Atari's ass in 1983, but something happened and they began to transfer all of the Colecovision games to Atari. It was fun to have this game finally, but the graphics were severly lacking. I think it only had two level variations. Don't know for sure... lost this in the robbery. I remember the instruction manual that talked about manuevering your "Jump Man".

Donkey Kong Jr.
Same as above. While the graphics were scaled down, this was actually a very playable game. The background colors would change, but timing your jumps made it exciting. I was the only person in my 'hood who seemed to like this game, though.

E.T.
Wow..quite possibly one of the worst game ever produced. Weird premise to the game: you have to wander around and fall into wells. I mean, I remember ET falling into wells all the time in the movie! Then you have to levitate up in a weird controller sequence. It was tough to figure out how this game played out and it caused instant frustration. When you did figure it out (usually accidentally), it was relatively easy and unsatisfying. Only mildly redeeming part is when you recover all the artifacts and ET's ship comes to pick him up. The theme music from the movie plays in MIDI fashion. The developers probably spent all their time creating that final sequence and skipped over the rest. The opening title screen also shows alot of detail, that is lacking everywhere else. Had this game twice-- paid 35 bucks for it before the robbery, and 3 bucks afterwards. This also may hold the record as being THE most over-produced game in history. Rumor is that this gigantic flop led to Atari's demise.

Eggomania
Can't remember which company produced this quirky game. It was very cartoony and alot of fun. Sorta' like "KaBOOM" and "breakout". You're some kind of animal and have to catch falling eggs from chicken. They stack up on your head and...other stuff happens. Also a kick because it made excellent use of the "paddle" controller.

Enduro
Activision's version of the popular "Pole Position". We bought this as a way to save 20 bucks on Pole Position and weren't disappointed. Probably used that extra 20 bucks to buy some more GI Joe crap. This game seemed to have more variety than the home versions of Pole Position. You couldn't select a track, but the racing was well done.

I remember E.T. My dad hated it because he could never get out of the well. I did a few times, but it was always random frustration

Ah yes, Demon Attack was the other one that was one of my three favorites.

Defender -- Grandparents paid 70 to 80 dollars for this game. I used to pretend I was saving people I knew while playing it.

Did you bury the E.T. game in a desert? :D

I liked the E.T. video game but not the movie. I used to have to go around and explain to people how to play. My brother liked the game too.

..along with my copy of "Atari Pac-Man"!

Gimme an F! GImme an G! Gimme and H! What's that spell?!! Umm... "FGH"!

Fantastic Voyage
Had this for about one month before the robbery. Don't remember much, but I think it was like a combo of "Vanguard" and "Space Invaders". Based on the 1960's movie of the same name-- where a buncha' doctors in a spaceship are shrunk down and sent inside an ailing patient. My mom used to teach Jr. high science and would always show this the movie to her kids, as a way to teach the immune system and anatomy. Early 80's, so most of the teenaged boys just got off on seeing Racquel Welch.

Football
Another early "Atari Sports" entry. You had to really use your imagination to make it seem like football. Took forever to play a game. The field was vertically oriented...so in a way, it was like the ancient ancestor of modern football games.

Freeway
Activision's version of "Frogger", only with a chicken...which makes more sense than a frog. I didn't get this game until 1988 when I found it at a garage sale. I don't know if my version was defective, but I thought it was weird that I wasn't able to move side-to-side..only up-and-down. For that reason, it stunk.

G.I. Joe: Cobra Strike
Lot of hype to this game (including a cool two-page spread that ran in every Marvel comic, circa 1983). Really weird... a gigantic Cobra dances over the screen and you have to shoot it before it can zap your little troops, who are running along the bottom. Canons at each end to shoot the Cobra, so it was sort'a like "Atlantis". Overall, a disappointing game that relied solely on the toy tie-in. Cobra never used a giant cobra robot and there's nothing in the game that ties it to GI Joe's uniqueness...so I don't think alot of research was done by the game developers. "Army guys and a cobra! Go to work!" As much as I used video games while playing with my GI Joe guys, I don't think I ever worked in THIS trudburger. And I was their target audience: a little fanatic who blew all his paper route money on anything with the GI Joe emblem (and if I couldn't afford it, I'd get my folks to pitch in).

Haunted House
Yay! This game was alot of fun. You're a set of eyes and have to find artifacts in a dimly lit, umm, Haunted House! The scrolling movement was great and the controls flowed well. You had to find various "tools" to do different stuff-- like a candle to see in the dark, or a key to open doors. This was what "Adventure" should have been.

Home Run
"Atari Sports"! Again! Think I bought all of the sports games on closeout. They all stunk and this is another stinky-poo-poo stinkypot. Mainly designed to be a two player game, but at least there was some visual connection to baseball. It was basically a fancy version of "PONG". Most of your "home runs" turned out to be inside-the-park jobs, as it took the opposing player forever to field a line drive to right.

In every single episode of Gamemakers that deals with a subject that was relevant during the Atari era, they always use footage of the E.T. game when it gets to the part where video game business nose dived. My girlfriend used to own the game too, she agrees that it was the worst piece of shit she ever played (though she didn't use those exact words).

I hate E.T. now, but for some reason as a kid, I liked it. Never was able to beat it, could never figure out how. Always fell down pits and had this one guy catching me... I think we got ours probably at bargain price at Big Lots in '88 or '89.

Were they paying people to take it off their hands or what?

I-K
Don't think I had any "I" games.. maybe Activision's "Ice Hockey", but the memory's cold (*rimshot*). So moving on to J and K...

Joust
Scaled down graphics, but otherwise identical to the famous arcade game. So much fun. The movement is superb, asyour momentum and timing flow well. The big petrodactyl's screech always scared the crap out of me. Used this game in other areas quite often. "Han and Chewie are trapped on a planet and forced to fight on flying ostriches!!"

Jr. Pac-man
A rare Pac-Man sequel. Even though it was for the 2600, it didn't hit the market until 1987 when the 7800 was around. You really couldn't tell, as the graphics on it were top-notch for the 2600. I think of this game as "Pac-Man deluxe" as it's more of a souped-up Pac-man than any of the other sequels were (like the attrocious "Super Pac-Man"). You have a maze that scrolls vertically, plus a good variety of layouts. It was alot tougher than any previous Pac-Man, so it was a rare occasion when I got past level 3.

Jungle Hunt
Nowhere near as graphically complex as its arcade cousin, but a heckuva' lotta' fun to play. You're a white guy in a Kim Chee safari get-up, but there are unsubtantiated rumors that some 2600 versions had a Tarzan guy. Incorrect, but it probably stems from the arcade version-- when it was originally released as "Jungle King" and had a Tarzan guy. They had to go back and change it to the white guy for legal reasons, I think. The 2600 version doesn't have the different levels as the arcade, but you don't miss 'em. Timing your jumps and duck-unders on the boulder level was always a bitch.

Kangaroo
Same as above, but it was REALLY scaled down from the arcade. Sorta' like Donkey Kong Jr.

Keystone Kapers
Awesome-tac-u-lar-ness! You run through four levels of a department store, with each room stocked with different hazards. Cool timing pattern involved with the elevators as well. Sometimes the elevators could help you out, or else they could kill your time. Inventive game. Behind Pitfall II, this was probably my favorite Activision game. I bought the superb PS2 "Activision Anthology" for those two games alone.

One update from What Hath Gone Before-eth:

Barnstorming
Got this confused with "SkyJinks" since I had both. "SkyJinks" was the overhead game, which was like a reversed version of Activision's "Skiiing". You'd have to fly real fast, through the pylons and beat the timer. "Barnstorming" however, was a total piece of crap. It was indeed a sideways game and not alot of fun. You'd fly through barns and over windmills...to beat an insanely short timer. One of the least-popular Activision games of the time.

One I forgot:
Journey
Yup...supposedly based on the popular music group of the 80's. See, the crazy guys from Journey are on tour and have to get past a crowd of groupies to make it to the tour bus. It's like a scrolling version of centipede, except you get maybe five shots. You had to guide all five guys, one at a time, through the crowd. Each guy was simply a different colored dot thingie. At the beginning and end of the game, you got to hear a MIDI version of "Separate Ways" or some shit. Don't worry, nobody in my family was a Journey fan (even our adopted sister, who was around for all of nine months). We picked this up on clearance for about 2 bucks and thankfully it was lost in the robbery.

Moving on to L...

Laser Blast
This was sort of the opposite of "Missile Command". Instead of zapping incoming warheads and flying saucers from the ground, this time you're the flying saucer zapping stuff from the air. The fire controls were always a little tough to figure out. Aside from the reverse appeal, the game's not too thrilling.

Lost Luggage
A complete load of crap that tried to garner an adult audience. It was sort of like a shitty version of "Freeway", if I remember right. Made by some knock-off company.

Seeing Scrooge's Genesis flashback made me re-visit this. It's taken me forever, but sorta' like Sting in Dune: "I will finish it!" (okay, that joke's only good in-person).

M:

MASH
This game was over-produced almost to the levels of "Atari Pac-Man". We finally picked it up on a clearance sale as Skaggs Drugs for about 3 bucks. Maybe had it for a month before the robbery. Anyways, it was a shitty amalgamation of "Choplifter" and "ET". Yeah, not a good combo. You flew a chopper around and had to tag stuff. The intro played a MIDI tune that sounded vaguely (VERY vaguely) like the MASH theme song. MASH was a comedy/drama, so basing an "action video game" on it is weak.

But I think there was also a MASH toyline that came out around 1983 or so. One of the GI Joe knock-offs like "Sgt. Rock", "A-Team" or "American Defense". I never bought a single MASH toy, so they must have really sucked or been out-of-scale with GI Joe (I was THE biggest GI Joe mark around).

Masters of the Universe: Power of He-Man (M-Network)
A fairly decent game, since it dove into the entire He-Man "world". Skeletor has taken over Castle Greyskull and you have to flush him out (coincedentally, the ongoing plot in ALL of my He-Man stories). You had to fly He-Man in his Wind Raider ship... while you "bombed" guys who looked vaguely like Beast-Man, Tri-clops or Trap-Jaw. It was a bitch to figure out how to get inside the castle... but once you did it switched to an overhead moving maze game. Then you simply walked up to Skeletor, saw a big video picture and you WON. Game over. As soon as you figured this out, the game had no replay value.

Megamania
A sped-up version of the old "Space Invaders" theme by Activision. They were trying for a Galaga or Galaxian vibe, but it's sorta' lame.

Missile Command
Awesome game and a true classic. You can still play this today and be entertained. You have three missile bases and have to zap incoming rockets, saucers, smart bombs and ships from blowing up your cities. The smart bombs become a REAL bitch around Level 6 or so. It speeds up with every level and the location of your cities becomes part of your strategy. Like other games, I used this game for my toy campaigns alot. "Han and Chewie are in the Rebel Command Center and have to blast the Empire's barrage"! When I grew out of Star Wars, this game became: "Hawk and Breaker are in the GI Joe Command Center and have to blast Cobra's barrage!"

Moon Patrol
Slimmed down version of the popular arcade game. Cool, because you got to blast stuff on the ground, plus stuff in the air. The ground portion was poor, since it was almost impossible to jump over potholes. You could blast boulders on the ground, but a simply pothole usually killed you.

Ms. Pac-man
HUGE upgrade over Atari's abysmmal "Pac-Man". Unlike it's predecessor, it's actually quite similar to the arcade game. Color changes, maze changes, colored ghosts, easier movement and floating fruit. I don't think it had the "Act 1, 2, 3" animated cartoons between the levels, though. If it did, they were very forgettable. Unfortunately, this game came out in 1983...well after the Pac-Man fad and when Atari was dying.

MS. Pac-Man? Woman!

Oh chew me, ya' dork! Ms. Pac-Man kicked ass!

My dad was, and still is, THE best Ms. Pac-Man player around. Fucker could play up to 45 minutes on a single quarter. We did the Griswald cross-country drive thing in 1982 and if we stopped at a gas station that had a Ms. Pac-Man machine, we were stranded for awhile.

Were you on y'er way to Wally World or Wacky Land? :D

Worse.... the Boy Scout National Jamboree in Virginia.

Or Gettysburg. Or the World's Fair in Knoxville, TN. One of the three. We seemed to drive across country every year until 1985 or so.

Suddenly I feel like singing that song from the Muppet Movie when Kermit and Fozzie first hit the road. Moving right along and something something.

That's my cue!!

------------------------
Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends you can't lose,
This could become a habit!
Opportunity knocks once let's reach out and grab it (yeah!),
Together we'll nab it,
We'll hitchhike, bus or yellow cab it!
(Cab it?)

Movin' right along.
Footloose and fancy-free.
Getting there is half the fun; come share it with me.
Moving right along (doog-a-doon doog-a-doon).
We'll learn to share the load.
We don't need a map to keep this show on the road.

(Hey, that song is sounding better Fozzie.)

Movin' right along,
We've found a life on the highway.
And your way is my way,
So trust my navigation.

California here we come, the pie-in-the-sky-land.
Palm trees, and warm sand.
Though sadly we just left Rhode Island.
(We did what?!)
(Just forget it.)

Movin' right along (doog-a-doon doog-a-doon).
Hey LA, where've you gone?
Send someone to fetch us, were in Sasketchewan!

Movin' right along (doog-a-doon doog-a-doon).
You take it, you know best.
Hey, I've never seen the sun come up in the West?

Movin' right along.
We're truly birds of a feather,
We're in this together and we know where we're going.
Movie stars with flashy cars and life with the top down.
We're storming the big town,
(Yeah, Storm is right should it be snowing?)
(Uh, no I don't think so...)

Movin' right along,
Do I see signs of men?
Yeah, "welcome" on the same post that says "come back again."
Moving right along, nice town!
Footloose and fancy-free,
You're ready for the big time...
Is it ready for me?

Movin' right along,
Movin' right along,
Movin' right along,
Movin' right along.
-------------------------

And, ooo, lookee here!!:
Movin' Right Along MP3 download

I love the cab it line, for whatever reason. And who can forget Big Bird's cameo. "im on my way to New York city to break into public television!"

Yeah! Even at 5 years old, I got the joke and busted out laughing.

Moving on to N:
Night Driver
A clever way to make a simplistic drving game--- use "lights" (dots) instead of cars! Really monotonous, but there was an urban legend that if you got so far into the game, you'd see a "turn off" and could drive into a new course. I swore I saw the "turn off" once.

P:
Pac-Man
Yup. One of the worst games ever created. Right behind ET. This thing was promoted for MONTHS. Stores took pre-orders at 30-40 bucks. The most popular game of the time, coming to the most popular video game system of the time. The game itself was a legendary flop. A plain blue screen... weird maze... lame controls... bad sounds... squares instead of dots... felt nothing like Pac-Man. You've probably heard about how bad this game was and I can confirm that 100%.

Pele's Soccer
You can't even tell that it's soccer...and that's a good thing. You use three "players", set in a triangular formation and kick the "ball" (dot) around. You could pull off some really cool angled shots while scoring goals. Movement was good, but sometimes you'd get the ball stuck in a corner where your triangle couldn't reach it.

I'll be back with two more "P" games-- two of the greatest Atari games ever, which deserve their own post. Hint: they're both from Activision and one was even in "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance".

Popeye?

And damn, that Pac-Man game sounds like the biggest pile of shit since... uh... well, it was like 1984, so I couldn't say. :P

See the Wikipedia Write up on Atart Pac-Man for all the gory details.

Moving on with the final "P" entries:

Pitfall!
Yup, one of the greatest Activision games ever. Very basic left-to-right pattern, but innovative in that you could go BACK, or drop down to the tunnels below. Seemingly random, but we created a map of the entire thing. Jumping over crocodiles, expanding tar pits, rolling logs and campfires. Good stuff.

Like all of the Activision games back then, they had a "club". If you got a certain high score on Pitfall, you were supposed to take a picture of your TV screen and mail it in to Activision. Then they'd send you a patch (this was in the days before Photoshop, so nobody doctored their pics). We spent most of our 1981 Xmas break getting that score....but our camera didn't capture the TV screen. So there's a picture in my ma's album of me in my ET sweats, sitting by a blank TV screen.

Pitfall lives today! In the recent 2006 "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" game, you can play a Pitfall mini-game during the Murderworld level. It's in the middle of Arcade's circus tent. Clever little easter egg and it's even more bizarre to control Dr. Strange or Iron Man inside Pitfall.


Pitfall! II
The rare sequel. Came out in early 1984 and this was, hands-down, the greatest Atari 2600 game ever made. Takes all of the common elements of Pitfall and expands on them. Amazing, because you had several "health points" and unlimited lives. You would be sent back to certain spots in the giant maze whenever you died. As you died, you would be sent in a straightline to the "health point", during which you could see unexplored parts of the maze.

Mix in some balloons, underwater passageways, deadly frogs, electric eels, timed leaps, great background music, a complex 40-level maze and you've got a Great Fucking Game. When you got to the final screen, you always had to look out for the dangerous "charging mouse". He could push you off the plank and you'd be right back at the start!

In a way, this game was sort'a like "Super Mario Bros", but without all the cartoony elements. A map was almost essential to completing this game. It took me a good month to map everything, but I still know the pattern. Almost 20 years later, I picked up the "Activision Anthology" for the PS2 and was able to navigate my way through the maze.

Pitfall II also incorporated elements of the 1983 Saturday morning cartoon show. Nothing too noticeable, but Quickclaw the cat and Pitfall Harry's niece are the two people you have to save in the game. I think that Pifall was the only non-arcade game to get the cartoon treatment. Everything else on the show was from a big time arcade game-- Space Ace, Q-Bert, Donkey Kong, etc.

Q! Can only mean one thing...

Q*bert
From the Parker Bros. branch of video games... who made this thing for every console or "computer" available at the time. Simplistic in its appeal, much like a 3-D Pac Mac. The Atari version suffered from scaled down graphics and controller problems. It took awhile to master how to jump along Q*Bert's diagonal blocks with the original Atari joystick. You had to hit the angle just right. You'd set up Q-bert in front of a flying disc... but right as the bouncing snake got close, you'd hit the wrong angle and die. This game became much easier with the new 7800 controllers, though.

R mateys....

Raiders of the Lost Ark
Weird game. But innovative in that it used TWO controllers. One to control your character and the other to control the inventory. In a way, it was an ancestor of current video games where you have multiple weapons or devices (even stuff like "Star Wars: Bounty Hunter" or "Medal of Honor").

But this was perhaps THE most frustrating Atari game. You had to go through a strange sequence of events, from blowing a hole in a wall, to parachuting, to selling items in a bazaar. There was even a small crossover with the "Yars' Revenge" game. Took me five years to figure this game out. Had a sleep over party with a buncha' friends in 8th grade...and someone mentioned that he knew how to beat the game. FINALLY, after 5 years, he showed me how. My life was complete... until I discovered how to spank it 8 months later.

River Raid
Very cool game. Another worthy contribution from Activision. Vertical flying game, where you have to blast obstacles, outmanuever canals and be aware of your dwindling fuel supply. You could also control you flight speed with your controller. Played this even after I got a Nintendo and well into the 90's. As a kid, I would think: "Ace in his Skystriker have to fly through this river and blast all the Cobra boats!". Good stuff.

There's a "River Raid 2" that's been released on PC games and with the PS2 Activision Anthology disc. It seemed to be emulating the awesome "1941" arcade game, but is a bitch to control. I don't recommend it at all.

Dammit, I hope this topic never ends. Like Lamb Chops Play Along.

Sorry, but Lamb Chop died. In a toaster over.

It'll end soon...but then I'll come back and say stupid shit like "oh golly! I forgot one" and add to it.

S!
SeaQuest
Another awesome Activision cartridge. Sorta' reminded me of "Defender", but much much better. You're a sub and you have to save divers, while blasting sharks, piranhas and EVIL subs. You also have to be cognizant of your air supply. Going up for air seems easy, but around the third level an evil sub is added, topside. Great game, with some cool sound effects the "air supply dwindling" alarm is such a HAPPY little tune. Yay! I'm almost out of air! The zapping sound when you "die" is another highlight. I'd pretend I was Deep Six or Torpedo, blasting Cobras in my SHARC.

Skiing
Yup..it's skiing and it's a video game. That's it. One of the ealry Activision entries, which were usually known for looking nicer than Atari games, if nothing else. I think the appeal to this game was to try and beat your previous best time. Yup... that's it. It's just skiing in a video game, in case you missed that.

Space Invaders
I think this was the earliest arcade game to be ported to a home system. It brought alot of "adult" appeal to Atari. My dad used to play it in bars during his business travels, so he was thrilled to get it at home. The classic, vertically-oriented "space shooter" game. Spawned tons of rip-offs and created its own genre (see: Galaga, Galaxian, GORF and even Xevious). Painfuly simple, yet it's always fun when the final few "invaders" speed up and approach the ground.

Spider-Man
Another Parker Bros cartridge...which means it was advertised everywhere. Like almost every game not named "Pac-Man" or "Space Invaders", the controls took awhile to master. The opening theme song is still embedded in my skull. You're Spidey and have to web-swing or crawl your way up a building to apprehend the Green Goblin. The buildings would change and you could vary your approach and swings, so it had good replay value. Of course, being "smart" comic fans, we usually liked to mess with the TV's color controls so we could make Goblin look orange and call him Hobgoblin.

Star Raiders
This was a wide release for Atari, as they released a version for all of their systems (home computers, 5200, etc). It attempted to be a spaceship flight simulator, with the straight-on cockpit view and everything. The 2600 version was complete dogshit, though. It was released late in the 2600's lifespan--like in 1984 or so, and I think it had a second keypad controller. Never liked it because we had the much simpler and enjoyable...

StarMaster
Activision's spaceship simulator, relased about a year ealier. Cool "galactic map" as you jump around space and blow up hostile aliens. There's also a main station and a fueling ship. Really liked this game and yup, it was usually "Han and Chewie are flying the Millenium Falcon around". (Never used Luke...that homo).

Superman
Vague recollection of this...as I also had the 1989 Nintendo "Superman" game. It think it was almost like an Atari Sports game as far as graphics went. You had to prevent Lex Luthor from blowing up a bridge and had to fly through several scenes. You also had to change from Clark Kent into Supes by going into a phonebooth (something which Clark did all of ONCE in 70-some years of comics).

More Lamb Chop's Playalong!

Yup, forgot one:

Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back
Based off of some movie. Plays like Defender, without the people on the ground. Instead of having to zap little ships, you have to blast Imperial Walkers (screw you, fanboy--- no way am I calling them AT-ATs). You'd have to shoot each one, literally, 100 time before it "dies". So this game takes ALOT of patience. Occassionally, a vulnerable pinpoint spot will flash on a Waker. Shoot it, and it instantly blows up. If you go a certain amount of time without getting hit, you suddenly get "The Force". You become invulnerable for about 15 seconds-- just like the stars in Super Mario Bros, complete with fun time happy music!! There is no way to end this game successfully, as Walkers are constantly spawned. If you're feeling all wussy-ish, you can even hide in a snow crater at the bottom of the screen until the world blows up. That was a somewhat depressing element of old games: you could never "win", things would just get faster and it was a matter of time until you died. Really...isn't that what life is like? Life's Philosophy from Atari.

Once again, whenever I worked this into my little Star Wars stories, it was always Han Solo or Chewbacca in the snowspeeder (or on rare occassions, Commander Rann or Time Traveler from the Micronauts). Luke was usually off pleasuring himself with R2-D2 and C-3PO, showing the droids his own personal "Force".

Down the stretch, but I forgot some more "S" titles:

Spike's Peak/Ghost Manor
From a company called Xonox. They made incredibly shitty games, but had a gimmick of slapping TWO cartidges together. You'd plug in one side, then flip it over and plug in the other game. See, "XonoX" is like "RadaR"! Basically, if you stuck two Atri cartridges together, end-to-end, you'd have one of these plastic BO-hemoths. Since they were twice as long as the regular cartidge, they were a bitch to store. Always stuck out on your rack.

Spike's Peak was like an incredibly quirky version of "Donkey Kong". You would waltz up a zig-zagged "peak", ducking into caves when a boulder or polar bear came by. Then you'd reach the final screen, which made no sense whatsoever. You had to run to a the top of a simple incline, but you ALWAYS died before you go there. No rhyme or reason to the entire game.

Ghost Manor was worse. I never figured out how to move the character. Couldn't stand more than 10 seconds of this game. Literally. These two games probably ARE the worst in my Atari collection.

Stampede
An early Activision game and another great one. You gallop left to right, moving along your little doggies. You had to manage your herd by bumping them along while also lassoing (eliminating) a few. Each herd was in a line, each would move at different speeds and have different numbers of cattle. Every so often, a Black Angus would appear. They didn't move and if you lassoed one, you'd get a Buncha Points. Speeds up pretty quickly and it sort'a resembles the "Tapper" series of games-- tag things before they slip by you.

Smurfs
Ported over from the ColecoVision. Lot of fun with good graphics. Sorta' like Pitfall or Super Mario Bros. Had some really stupid obstacles (like a small FENCE that would kill you), but it was funny since it was Smurfs. In the final screen, you had to hop around Gargamel's castle and save Smurfette who was captive on the top shelf. We always joked that you'd sneak up to her, then "jump on her bones" to win the game. I lost this in the robbery and whined about it for years. For my 29th birthday, my buddy J got me one for a b-day present. He found it at a thrift store for a buck. He said "finally! You can quit your bitching!". Another reason J is one of the coolest guys I've ever know.

Let's finish out the list(well, you won't, I will):

Tutankham
From Parker Brothers and it was basically "Pac-Man goes Egypt". I think there were some keys and various levels you could advance throughout the "pyramid". I remember really liking this game, but I never got it back after the robbery.

Vanguard
Really cool game. You fly sideways and vertically through a cavern, blasting enemies. It was almost like a four-way "River Raid". Innovative because you could shoot from all FOUR side of your ship. You could also control your speed and slip into little "invulernability" boxes. When you did, the background music would change, playing something that sounded like the battle theme from 1980's "Flash Gordon". There was a map of the entire game in the top console, which allowed you to see where you were in the overall scheme of things. All the variations made this a great game. Of course, Han & Chewie often found themselves in this game.

Warlords
The arcade game was big in bars... the home version was famous simply because it used the paddle controllers. It was just a two-player version of "Breakout", which was really just "PONG" advanced. Bounce a ball and break the other guy's wall. The arcade had some fancy D&D graphics for each "castle", but the Atari version was scaled down. Rarely played this game, if at all.

Xevious
Made exclusively for the 7800 system in 1986 and really frickin' awesome. It's a souped up version of the Space Invaders concept. Only you fly across the ground and ocean, blasting enemies in the sky AND bombing them on the ground. When I got the chicken pox in 7th grade, I was excited because it meant I could stay home and play this sucker. The layout never repeats, as more advanced baddies appear, along with more intricate bunkers and traps on the ground. There's even a big ass floating "base" that appears in a late round. Extremely cool game. Intricate details and outstanding graphics. The best 7800 game they put out.


Yars' Revenge
Sort of like Breakout meets Space Invaders. You're a little bug and you fly across a static field to eat away at a barrier. Then you zap it. Repeat! Pretty inventive concept behind the game, as it came with a comic book and an entire backstory. Big Bro and dad hated this game, but I liked it.

Well, poop...that's the end. FINALLY. We had a few games for our Atari 400 "computer", like "Return of the Jedi" and "Zaxxon". I remember Zaxxon booted up from the old Cassette Tape Drive (wow..remember those?!).

So that's it for my 80's Atari flashback. Looking back, I had a SHITLOAD of games. It helped that 3/4 of my family (along with my one-year wonder adopted sister) would play Atari. You also need to remember that each game would last you maybe 10 minutes, tops. You'd invite your buddies over and you'd play about 6 or 7 different games in one hour. Very short attention spans, compared to today's games.

I might have forgotten a few but this should be everything worth remembering or reading about.

BOOO! WE DON'T WANT THIS TO END!

A nice denouement for this topic (six months after it ended, no less):

The Atari 2600 Label Maker:
http://www.labelmaker2600.com/