CapitanClassic

Programming is largely thinking how to solve a problem. Once you have learned a functional programming language (lisp, logo), a procedural language (C, basic), an object oriented language (c++, Java), assembly (6502, 68000, z80) or several other types, other languages if the same type with similar concepts are easy to learn (or relearn). I would find online tutorials that go through the steps of creating a simple program in that language more useful than a book.

No. The Atari Flashbacks came in 4-5 major varieties. AFB 1 is a Nintendo on a chip. It plays NES games and includes a dozen or so 2600 ports. AFB 2 is an Atari on a chip. These can be modified to play most real carts. AFB 3-7 (and 8, non-HDMI) these were the start of emulation being used. These systems were built off an ARM processor with custom software written to run the emulator and the game selection menu. It would be near impossible to modify the custom software (without source code) to load different roms. AFB 8 gold (w/HDMI) these were the start of the Android based systems. I believe someone hacked one to add a USB port to the motherboard to load additional 2600 roms. There is no easy way to hack these. (Although I believe the Gold version had an SD card slot) AFB 9, X, 50th these are all android based, and easy to hack. They all use similar motherboards and chips with similar firmware (but not identical, so when flashing make sure you have the right one)

Well, I’d they bought it brand new in 1977, they are actually selling it to you on a discount. $29.99 in 1977 is worth about $150 in 2023 USD.

4288 - CapitanClassic

It appears as if the OP had a different definition of Adventure Game than the standard one on Wikipedia. The wiki article goes on to describe essential elements of an Adventure Game. Puzzle solving, or problem solving; Narrative, or interactive story; Exploration; Player assumes the role of a character/hero; Collection or manipulation of objects; Of the OPs list, Adventure, Raiders of the Lost Ark, SuperMan, Montezuma's Revenge, Haunted House, Pitfall, HERO, E.T., Private Eye, the Swordquest series, none really have a narrative/interactive story element.The closest thing to that would be Dark Mage, which resembles the old 2”two-word text parser text adventure games. HERO and Pitfall aren’t really adventure games in any sense of the word, only having exploration and problem solving related to the best path to collect treasures/rescue miner with the limited time/resources. Other than Montezuma and HH, the other games could be argued to be Adventure games although I would classify them as Action games with some puzzle elements (how Undertale is an RPG with action combat mini games). The 4th element was probably added as a way to differentiate it from D&D style role-playing games that traditionally require you to build a team of adventurers with disparate skills and involves combat based on tables and dice roles. (interestingly, Steven Jackson’s Sorcery series(digital) is a blending of a Choose Your Own Adventure story with a simplified combat system of an RPG, so there are games that blend genre lines)

The best games for the 2600, are those that you can play together at the same time. The 2600 has a bunch of great simultaneous 2-player games. If you have Paddles Demons To Diamonds - The skulls that get created when shooting the wrong color makes this game a blast. You need to dodge their shots while cleaning up on blasting diamonds and demons from opposing sides of the playfield. I Personally avoid Game 3 / Game 6, since it is more fun to create skulls closer to your opponent that kill them, than directly shooting your opponent. Difficulty switches can help handicap expert players by making skull shots faster towards them. Steeplechase - Up to 4-players at once can play this simple reaction / QuickTime events game. In the game, you adjust the height of your horse’s jump and press the button to jump over small / medium / large obstacles. If you use the lower jumps, you recover quicker and get a speed boost. If you miss a jump, your horse gets slowed down. Two game variants with uniform/random distances between obstacles and CPU difficulty. Game automatically gets harder for expert players, since they advance closer to the oncoming obstacles and have less reaction time. Warlords - Up to 4-player simultaneous play. Rotate your shield to protect your castle walls. Only 2 real variants (catch / ricochet) and (fast / slow) with all the combinations with #of players. Argued by many as the best (non-homebrew) 2600 game on the system. If you have Racing Controllers Indy 500 - Only driving controller game to be released for the system. Several different tracks and fun variations like racing to collect the dot, tag, ice tracks. If you have two CX40 controllers Quick Step - A 2-player push your luck game. You score points by jumping on trampolines so that they turn your color, and score when they scroll off the screen. This mechanic makes you want to hang out near the bottom to ensure your color trampolines are scrolling off, but additional mechanics like white trampolines that give you the power to freeze your opponent, the ability to remove a limited amount of trampolines, and single column speed sections push you to balance the safety of the top of the screen with point scoring near the bottom. Maze Craze - Lots of laughs and variety with this. Definitely print out a copy of the Game Matrix to keep track of all the game variants. Personally I get lots of laughs out of the crunching noises of the Wounds variants. It’s funny when you get trapped an continuously smashed by the CPU unable to break out of your wounded state. Sky Diver - Another game with satisfying crunch sounds. A push your luck game that rewards holding off till the last second to pull your shoot to score the most points. Several game variations and wind that can affect how easy it is to land on the target. The first post in this thread lists most (if not all the simultaneous 2600 games), plus (my previous suggestions)

You really “install” the Nexus files. Yea, Nexus is a collection of emulator executables, rom files, launching scripts, box art, and game description text. You remove the firmware image file from the ISB thumbdrive and copy the contents/folder structure of the Nexus files to the USB thumbdrive. When you boot the AFB 50th the startup.sh script will run and display the new list of consoles that are emulated. Launching those will run other scripts that display the games for that specific console. I recommend Nexus Pure, because it only includes Atari consoles and would play best with the single button controller. (Nexus was also compiled to work with the Legends Flashback product that comes with a 6-button controller).

Yes. The AFB 9, X and 50th anniversary editions all can play/install emulators for a wide variety of systems (pre-PlayStation) This thread is specifically related to the 50th anniversary edition, and this post specifically talks about the Nexus content. You are probably looking for Nexus Pure.

@newtmonkey, I look forward to your review of June 1993 VG&CE magazine. This was my first issue of the magazine, due to the insert with a $20 year subscription ($1.66/issue). I liked the writing (and that particular issues game selections, which seemed to have a high number of hits). I just quickly glanced over the issue and didn’t see any glaring errors. Just the normal inflated scores that are typical of video game magazines due to their close relationship with the software publishers / their ad department and early access to games. I think you misunderstood VG&CE’s stance on reviews of games. I think they were conveying that they don’t do in-depth previews in the sense of a 1-2 page article about an upcoming game (they only get 1-2 paragraph blurbs in the news section). Additionally, they don't expect their preview copies of the games to be much different than than official gold-master release copies. When they do get supposed differences, and the company warns things like, “the sound isn’t complete,” VG&CE mentions that.

Going to score better on HERO, but getting on the board. Miner 49er (L2) - 1804 HERO - 101910 Thunderground - 283080

Not sure I will get to any more games this weekend. 59,200 - Crazy Climber Bld4 challenge

Unless the US Copyright office has changed their position from ten years ago, I don’t think so (maybe Boulderdash could be argued, limited-run, but doesn’t go through an “art-market”)

This is reminiscent to the way the NES Classic and SNES Classic products unfolded in the 2016-2017 Christmas season. Nintendo didn’t realize how hot the NES Classic was going to be for the 2016 Christmas season. The systems quickly sold out at $60 and were being resold at twice the price or more on eBay or other resale sites. Nintendo learned its lesson the next year. They released the SNES the next year for $80, and announced that significantly more would be produced. (But didn’t commit to additional shipments in 2018+). It instantly sold out, and Nintendo almost immediately announced additional shipments. Any scalpers intending to resale a scarce resource were out of luck. (And Nintendo also announced more NES Classics in 2018+) Optimally, every homebrew developer would like to collect the highest price for their game from every buyer. If one person would pay $1000 for a ROM, and 10 would pay $100, and 100 would pay $20, and 1000 would pay $1, and 100,000 would pay $0.01, it would be best if you could sell it at that price to each of those buyers. The problem only comes when people make comparisons to what they paid compared to other people. All those prices, ($1000 to $0.01) are fair, since both parties are willing to exchange at those prices and everyone is better off.

Used to work for a GameStop when the controversy hit. We destroyed them. A million dollar company isn’t going to hold onto anything that would cause a legal controversy. Traci Lords did some work before 18 by faking documents. Don’t know the legal ramifications of owning anything like that, but I wouldn’t want to find out.

@FibroFreak78, you cannot sell that game. You might need to destroy it.

That song would be from Ballblazer, by Lucasfilm Games. They also did Kronos Rift, which contains a Rotofoil hulk, that when looted gives you a module that plays the tune (damaged, so slightly off key)

That would be Dimension X http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-dimension-x_6568.html

Just wondering what you ended up with for your emu box.

Yeah, I don’t remember the Day One Purchase that far back. I can only think of Super Mario Bros 3 having a NA country wide release date, or Mortal Monday for MKI. But back then, I don’t think game purchases happened much outside of Christmas or birthdays. I think I remember a website that had references to either Nintendo (or video game market sales in general) from approximately 1987-1997. It broke down the number of games sold per console, and it wasn’t very high (maybe 4-5 games per year). These days, games are practically free, and even the AAA titles will be 50% off in 6 months, or the next Spring/Winter Steam sale. I think a lot of people are so spoiled with so many forms of entertainment (Netflix (et. Al. Streaming), Spotify (et.Al. Music), YouTube, free monthly Prime Gaming (Epic Games, et.Al.), freemium mobile games, etc that few people really want to pay the day one premium price. (COD: Black Ops 32 million sold, first 5 days ~10 million sold, “Only five days after its release, sales from the game worldwide reached US$650 million, surpassing the previous record achieved by Modern Warfare 2 which earned $550 million in five days.”)

I doubt that the issue was the parents didn’t know any better and were paying full price ($30) for the shovelware games. The problem was, the shovelware games were considerably cheaper, because the companies that were selling them to the retailers with promises to buy them back if unsold were going bankrupt. (And unable to complete those promises) I remember at GameStop when the PS2 shortage was announced, that many parents did by the Dreamcast ($50) for their kid’s Christmas present because no one was going to get a PS2 ($300) (even if they had reservations for one, only about 50% got it on time). Sometimes quantity can be better than quality, since you might get a good game from the bargain bin, and you only need a 1:6 ratio if you are paying 1/6th the cost. Sure bad games were a contributing factor for why the ‘83 crash occurred in NA, but it wasn’t the only cause or even the main cause. 1) Computer prices were being slashed, so for kids that were into video games, a computer seemed like a better investment in your kids future (you can program your own games). 2) If the company’s with the shovelware weren’t going bankrupt, the retailers wouldn’t have to sale their games for clearance prices. 3) If so many different game consoles with incompatible software weren’t an option, and consumers didn’t have hesitation on which one to buy (like the PSX, Saturn, 3DO, ‘95-‘96 etc market dip), the market may not have crashed.

@zzip, I think I understand your point, that the top publishers of good games needed to account for bad publishers flooding the market with shovel-ware and bargain-bins affecting the sales of the good games. I don’t think it addressed my point (or I didn’t state it clearly) If all the top 20 games on a console all came out the same year, it wouldn’t be “bad games” that killed a market/industry it would be market saturation. Ie people only have so much disposable income or time. If all the best games come out in the same small time period, some publishers, even if their games are amazing are going to suffer. Its like how the movie industry (used to, when people actually went to the movies) likes to time their summer blockbuster movies to not release the same weekend as each other, so as not to affect each others sales.

This is extremely vague.

Hard disagree. If all the top 20 games for each of the retro consoles were all released in the same year, it might affect sales of the other games, but no one would claim that bad games killed the industry.

According to who? Wikipedia says this, and it barely mentions bad games. There technically isn’t an official narrative, but people making claims like you don’t seem to have sources to back up your claims. It sounds more like a myth that there ever was an official narrative that bad games caused the crash.