Venture Colecovision

Entry posted by Paranoid September 23, 2006

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I was reading a blog here where someone had picked up a copy of Venture Colecovision and was blown away with how good the title is, after being familiar with it on the 2600 versions only.

I also recently reacquaninted myself with this title (bought from the good folks right here at AtariAge, for a great price, I might add)... and I've got to say... I had forgotten just how much fun and how GOOD of a game this is on the Colecovision.

As it happens, when I was a kid, there was a local place that got ahold of a Venture game... and we certainly would have dropped boatloads of quarters into it, if the game had been working. But it had a faulty joystick, and it was basically unplayable. Instead, we hung out at the 7-11 playing Xevious. But everywhere I encountered Venture, it was one of those games that was always broke. I dunno why. Maybe it was just bad luck, or maybe it was badly built.

The Colecovision version though, is VERY faithful to the arcade version, in feel, atmosphere, music, graphics. The whole thing is just a real great and accurate port. The only thing I seem to recall it missing is Winky walking down the stairs into the dungeon after you lose a man.

But this is really one of the gems for the Colecovision, and it kind of illustrates to me how a lot of people claim that the Colecovision really compliments the 5200 for a collection. I think, at the time, and even today, I perceive the Coleco titles as "2nd and 3rd tier" arcade titles. They had a knack for finding sleepers. I also got Pepper II, and had a blast playing that game, too. Sleeper... just like Qix or Space Dungeon, really.

Anyhow... the 5200 still remains my favorite console of all time. But I'm glad I finally added a Colecovision to my collection. It was definetly an important piece that was missing.

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