NE146

Yeah! Does anyone remember those TV ads that came out months before the game release that showed video of the ARCADE game screens being played (and in closeup if I remember correctly) and said something like "this is Pacman the hit arcade game. And you can only play it... on Atari" etc.. Now THAT gave me tons of sleepless nights dreaming about the pacman that was to come ;D No need to write anything further because we obviously all know how that ended

Maybe Tempest is really SODA BOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

What makes you think it was ignored? Just because no one commented? I leeched it and it's on my HD right now heheh

Whatever happened to Ken Huston anyway? He used to be such a visible literary figure on the video game / Blackjack front. Did he die or something?

Sorry for the frivoulous post above, (the quote is from Moon Cresta btw) but I just had to add another 2 cents in... Wait a minute.. you're saying that Jr. Pacman is EASIER than the original 2600 pacman!? All criticism of the vcs port of pacman aside, I always thought it was a darn easy game.. Sure you could make it more challenging by changing the 'blue-time' of the ghosts or make your pacman move slower but all in all it's a pretty simplistic/easy version of pacman that I easily played for hours at a time (which I very well did because yes, I liked it too) Jr pacman on the other hand, is pretty hard! It's fast, the mazes are large, and the ghosts pursue you without mercy. I don't last very long with JrPacman and it's a definitely a challenge all the way through Anyone else agree? As far as Ms.Pacman goes, once you get up to the 4th maze it gets harder to survive. But you're right in that the game is a little slow. But I hope you're not comparing it to the now-common "fast" MsPacman arcade machines because in that case 2600 mspac is SLOOOOOWWWWW... hehehheh

Of course I would bring my Playstation 2.. with all the great games that are out for the system it's a no brainer *cough*

But you didn't guess where the quote came from! ;D

Yeah I think Beat Em and Eat Em is an often misunderstood game. But it's a classic in every sense of the word and is true fun for the whole family! Try it now! You will get a lot of Fun & Thrill! (first person to place that quote gets a banana)

I'm pretty sure Megamania came out later than Astro Blaster. Although a lot of the arcade shooters back then weren't very different from each other, you're right that Astro Blaster and Megamania share a couple of similar gameplay elements that you mentioned. That sure does bring back some memories though. Those were the days I constantly played all those crappy arcade shooters (Astro Blaster, Astro Fighters, Uniwars, Pisces, Uniwars, etc) and yeah I remember getting Megamania and indeed thinking that it reminded me of Astro Blaster (sans the "time-warp" feature of course). Back then I considered ANYTHING that somewhat resembled an arcade experience at home to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, and with megamania there definitely was. yknow.... I think I got Demon Attack before Megamania because I remember saying "it aint as good as Demon Attack".. but that's another story.... ;P

Hey! That's a great idea getting some carts from Oshea and reselling them on Ebay!! Why didn't I think of that before.... woohooo!!! Big $$$ here I come!

Well I don't know how applicable these would be to you, but i seem to be playing the following 2 games quite a lot: Stargate/Defender II: I passed on this when it came out and only recently decided to give it a whirl after snagging a cart. Pretty amazing stuff especially when compared with the original 2600 defender. Truly a great arcade port for the VCS imho... Gets nice and difficult too ;P Pacman Hack ("Pac26" or "A Better Pacman"): hacked mscpacman turns out to be 2600 Pacman the way it was meant to be. Evertime I play this on an emu it transports myself back to that time when I was anticipating it for what seemed like ages and imagining that THIS was the version that came out.. (ok so I'm a little wacked). I noticed there are 2 versions floating out there, one with the ghost siren and the other without. The one with the siren of course is the one to get. Oh and yes Crystal Castles does rock. has anyone figured out if there's an ending to it like the arcade game??

whoah!? is that real????? GIMME DA RAWMZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

It was the 5200. Actually I would have kept playing games on both forever except finding games to buy dried out like a puddle in the desert where I was from. I couldn't find a new 2600 game or 5200 game to save my life (and believe me, I looked!) It was only later that I found that several games for the 5200 that were released that I would have loved to buy but didn't have the opportunity (like Robotron) simply because no local stores sold them. Eventually, both the 2600 and 5200 just got put away and I didn't hear anything about video games for a while. Then I went to college and the NES came out... that was the start of a brand new story

All this talk about the ending to Dark Chambers had me remembering my age old question. Is there an ending to 2600 Crystal Castles? And does anyone know how many different "castle" stages there are? I know the arcade game definitely has an ending. However, I would play the 2600 version constantly and would occasionally get far enough into the game to see some new castle maze layouts that i'd never seen before. But I was never quite good enough to see if there was an ending. But then again, that was ages ago... Any ideas?

It would definitely have to be the 5200. Although it doesn't look like it, the 5200 has always been my system of choice. It was the source of countless hours of fun and yes, grief. As I always said, for all the times I loved playing Joust, Robotron, and Space Dungeon on that machine, I've spent almost the same amount of time pressing the "start" button as hard as I could while forlornly staring at the attract mode screens of the above games. Later on in life I eventually figured out how to fix it (pencil erasers on contacts can work marvels), but those darn controllers were the source of both joy and heartache...

Hey.. Dubya and the Mariners are ROCKIN BABEEEY!!!

oh it's just a magazine. I have a pretty good collection of lots of classic gaming mags and books although they're all torn to sh*t. (hey, I was 13).. That particular one is Creative Computings "Video & Arcade Games" mag.. I think there were only 2 issues of that one...

Hahahahaha! I just finally got around to checking the replies to this. Excellent!! I LOVE scans Seeing this, I got inspired and stayed a bit after work (to use the good ol company scanner) and did these PROFESSIONAL *cough* scans of various crap NE1'S L33T SKANZ 1 NE1'S L33T SKANZ 2

But Soda Bob said he LOVED E.T.! Heck even his "avatar" was the little alien bugger himself! Remember that? hey F of i... MORE SCANS!! SCAN EM ALL BAYBEEE.... How 'bout more pages off the catalogs?

quote Yeah of course emulation doesn't equal the real thing. That's obvious Using mame as an example, everyone knows lots of mame games lose quite a bit in the translation (i.e. the mirrored image of Space Invaders, the background in gunfight, the sounds in Phoenix) and the list goes on. Ditto for sitting on a couch playing vcs games on a tv with a vcs joystick. But how can you despise it? The very fact that I can pretty much go anywhere, quickly download an emu and a bunch of roms and in no time be playing Demon Attack on some strange computer while chatting on irc, or posting here, or working *cough*, then delete it as quickly as I got it pretty much rocks... You really can't pit one against the other because they're pretty much seperate experiences. In my particular case, I've never been a "collector" per se. The majority of my VCS cart collection was bought when I was a kid when they were brand new. I've probably bought less than 20 games in my adult life. And I only have one copy of each game. So yer darn right it's cool checking out games I'd never really buy in real life. Plus all those hacks and other nifty things out there.. If you like games and playing them, of course the real mccoy is the way to go. But emu's are always a welcome addition.

I like it all. Emulation rocks basically because: 1. Sneaking in a couple of games at work! 2. It allows me to try out ALL the games...No way I'm collecting all of those Anyway... here's what I've played in both this past week: Real VCS: Frogger is in there now. Truly a great port imho Z26 emu: Last game I played was Demon Attack. Got to the last throbbing egg-like creatures and quit because the phone rang

but... you didn't comment about the "playing the games at work" part

I made this pacman fake a while back before I heard of the Ebivision version or A Better Pacman came out: http://www.gameovernet.co.uk/newpac.gif but I guess now that's ancient history and it really isn't a "fake" anymore eh? well.. i guess it's still a little off

F of i hahahahaa What you're not a big Beat Em and Eat Em fan?

Mr Johnson must be Soda Bob!