Atari 2600 Mega Mini Reviews: Part I
www.armchairarcade.com : Atari 2600 Mega Mini Reviews: Part I. An Armchair Arcade Video Article covering select cartridges for the Atari 2600 Video Computer System (VCS). Chopper Command (by Bob Whitehead, ©1982 Activision); Defender (by Bob Polaro with Alan Murphy, ©1981 Atari, Inc.); Fantastic Voyage (by David Lubar, ©1982 Sirius Software, Inc. and Fox Video Games, Inc.); Space Cavern (by Dan Oliver, ©1981 Games by Apollo, Inc.); Space Jockey (by Garry Kitchen, ©1982 Vidtec and US Games)…
I believe you are thinking of Stargate which was just called Defender 2 on the 2600
Thanks for the info Bill! Looking forward to it! Well I off to Revver to check your other stuff……………………….
By the way, for those who care, I did my last video on Revver, since they were too long for You Tube, but I plan on keeping the future ones short enough to post on here. Details on Armchair Arcade. I probably won’t be doing another video for another few months though, as I have some books to get done.
You should have a good, highly compatible experience with the expansion module. The only major downside is that some of the cartridges are a tight fit. The 2600 of course has some of the best homebrew.
Good stuff Bill! I have yet to delve into the 2600 stuff (yeah I know) but figure I will start with the Colecovision Exspnsion model # 1 since I have 2 working Colecovisions…….
meh. Defender II (aka Stargate) is way better. I give the original Defender on Atari 2600 a 2 1/2 out of 5.
Very very good job buddy ! Iy almost brought tears of nostalgia to my eyes. MORE !!
i have had “defender 2000″ for Atari 2600.
O i think i called like that.
Anybody can help me?
I was 4 years old, and i dont have it anymore. Not even the Atari 2600.
may the lord have mercy on your soul. defender is a five out of five. atari gold. whose with me!?
You’re not supposed to shoot the red blood cells in Fantastic Voyage! That’s why you’re dying so quickly.
11_18.BSXX111_18.BSXX1
11_18.BSXX1 BAKXX1.11_18 REBATS.81.1111_18.BSXX111_18.BSXX1
11_18.BSXX1 BAKXX1.11_18 REBATS.81.1111_18.BSXX111_18.BSXX1
11_18.BSXX1 BAKXX1.11_18 REBATS.81.1111_18.BSXX111_18.BSXX1
11_18.BSXX1 BAKXX1.11_18 REBATS.81.11
Executing…
Fuck!!! Im old!
Great reviews. It’s always nice to see old games running on the real hardware
Do the next video from a Radio Shak, next to a Tandy please… Thank you.
Hmm… very informative review.
Glad you are going to do more reviews, because I love this one. You did a great job.
And Steve Cartwright and Garry Kitchen. These really are the dudes. Very impressive.
I worked in the same group or next to Keithen Hayenga when he was doing FireFox I think. He was a serious game programmer and he’s still doing it.
Bob Polaro. I finished the port of his “Desert Falcon” to the 7800.
I think you’d really be seeing many of the core people that really defined game programming in that era. Every decent game designer of that time aspired to be as good as some of those guys.
I live in Mesa. Here is a quote from CGEXPO. “Meet the Legends of video gaming! Dozens of video gaming’s “alumni” will be present. In recent years has dignitaries such as Nolan Bushnell, Ralph Baer (the “father of home video games”), Al Alcorn (the creator of Pong), Don Bluth (former Disney artist who crafted Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace), David Crane (Pitfall!, Dragster), This year’s list of attendees can be found on celebrities page” Email me at r41412atfreescaledotcom if you need more info.
I hadn’t heard of CGEXPO, nor would I have thought anthing like that was going on. Very cool. I’m driving from Phoenix to Colorado around the time of the show so its on the way, kind of in an opposite direction sort of way. Sounds like it’d be a great trip down memory lane.
As an almuni of programing Atari 2600 games have you ever been to CGEXPOdotcom? It is the 10th one in Vegas in July! You should email them and go if at all posiable!
Very cool man!!!!5/5!
Very cool.
First day I started at Apollo the Pres tossed a catalog with a screenshot of Demon Attack and said “Do this”. My first game design meeting. 30 days later it was shipping. So yeah, pretty crappy.
It was cool seeing the game playing. And the piñata comment, priceless and right on. Thanks
(As a side note, for those who care, I’ll probably start doing videos again in another two to three months or so, with some surprises. It’s only be three years since the last one…
)
As for the comment about the sounds being “pulled”, I’m not suprised you didn’t pull code from other games for some of the sound effects (particularly then it would have been extremely difficult), but it is amazing how close they sound to some of those other games. In any case, thanks again, and I’d love to interview you one day for Armchair Arcade once the book and some other projects are done.
Thank you for replying. I think “Laser Gates” would have scored much higher than that, as it’s certainly an impressive and fun game. At the time I didn’t have the cartridge to review it. I can certainly see the potential in “Space Cavern”, but it obviously wasn’t technically sound and really didn’t get more interesting or at least hold interest as the game went on.