stop_rebel_scum

I've been busy...

I know it's beta already, but if you're still interested in my thoughts on the game.. it's really fun. I definitely want to end up with a copy of it. I don't like emulation very much and am looking forward to trying this on a real machine. I prefer the gorf-shot canceling fire to regular SI and the sprites look great. The powerups add a lot. At first I thought the player ship's shots were a bit too slow, but I've played both Gorf and the original SI since then and changed my mind. What i'm not so into: the whole screen changing colors. I think a border around the screen that was black normally but changed color to reflect the play state would be better? That said, it's actually somewhat of a feature that the screen changes because it's hard to see what's going on then. Maybe it could be kept for one of the negative effects? Also, maybe good powerups could appear a little more often? I find myself mostly just avoiding the special drops as if they were regular shots because they're often negative. Which actually kinda reminds me of arkanoid like terrain mentioned. Silvio, did you have this in mind while working on rainbow invaders?

My second version. Should I take out the pixelly ones? hm. More tries coming up.

here's my finished version

i keep track of how many times i've played gravitar before I smash it and my deck wtih a sledghammer.. four times honestly video games are about fantasy and freedom, even if in a very limited sense. Gravity has no place!

I guess the ghostbusters game irritated me because it was out for so many systems.. I have the 2600, sms and NES versions and they're all pretty much the same thing. It seems a lot more of a 'computer' game than an arcade game, was it out for the c64 or something first?

wow, these are all great games. Except for airlock, and there you're not actually under water exactly until you die. Well, you are.. uh.. but since water vapor is always present in the air anyway, all virtual game worlds from Adventure to Zaxxon are underwater in some sense. Oh. wait, zaxxon is in space.. I thought aquaventure was pretty good too.. it was never released but is pretty much finished, is that right?I just got my copy of Go Fish!.. I definitely prefer it to shark shark! for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being my INTV overheats and crashes if I play games for a long time, so there goes both Utopia and Shark Shark, two of the best. Dolphin is amazing, especially just for using sound cues.. nevermind how good it looks. Shark Attack is frustrating but I actually don't mind getting caught up in the maze as it seems intentional (IE you are fouled in some weeds). Name this game is very good with lots of stuff going on. Atlantis is an ok shooter, but doesn't really capture the idea of being undersea too much to me.. a nice twist on the defend 'earth' aka 'the bottom of the screen', though. I wasn't going to comment on this topic but it started me thinking about how many good games are underwater. OMG GYS HOW MANY GOOD GAMS R IN SPACE THO Connections between space and the deep sea are poetically and scientifically interesting. For some, see "The Deep Range" and "Dolphin Island" by Arthur C. Clarke. Definitely reccomended reading. that is also a great looking dragon you have there mr. spiceware. what's it do? is it secret?

here's a jpg of the first version of my first attempt.. needs a bit of cleaning up which I will try to do later.

I have a gemstick I wasn't too fond of. I hear the slik sticks are great and somewhat similar. It took me a long time to even figure out how to start ghostbusters! this was before I knew about atari age. When I figured out how to start it, I was sorry that I had. Stargate is fun but I never play it. My friend has the coleco defender and that ruined anything else for me.

Ok, gemini up n' running. Thanks all. It may replace my vader as 2600 machine of choice.. but it'll likely join the growing jungle of black wires that is the south corner of my room. Now... finding a powerstrip to plug in all these wallwarts at once. I like the controllers a lot myself, but would only pay about five or so for one for a regular 2600.. the paddle/stick integration isn't that smooth, especially for two player games.

I'm very excited about this and have almost finished my first entry already. It isn't likely to take anything home yet, but It's better than I thought I could do. Any idea where I can lay ahold of the standard atari font? I already searched the forums and got this thread first.

so what exactly is the deal with activision's space shuttle? I've read a little bit about it being so good that it was used as a trainer? is this true? I also read another post which discussed how someone figured out that some kind of auxilliary engines or thrusters could be used to land the shuttle, something that could also bear out in real life that NASA hadn't considered?

They were definitely made on the cheap. Even the button is the same setup as the paddle, really... but I like the feel. I'm getting more response out of the joystick than any other 2600 compatible i've used. And yea, the paddles are grindy (and half of them screw up right now) but they're tighter than the standard paddles I think.. less movement for more result maybe? Thanks for the advice, i'll get this rockin.. I also like this system a lot because it's smaller than anything I have that's comparable. is the atari Jr. this small? That don or ben heck fellow could probably jam all this stuff into a cellphone and put a 2600 cart slot, ac in and video out on the back. The sears arcade seems to be a heavy sixer with some paint changes.. what are the other major 2600 clone systems like?

Subaru brat, you say? http://achewood.com/index.php?date=12012003

Go fish! is delightful, i've just ordered my copy recently. So is the 1k the freely distributed rom and the 8k the cartridge version, or some other setup?

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I threw it out! ARGH! GUMDALLA MAD!! Oh, aj, sorry I never got back to you on that montezuma's - It ended up being a CV cart. Heh. I wasn't disappointed because I actually wanted the cv version anyway. I found frankenstein's somewhere else and love it.

Boy, i'm such a needy fellow. Why is crash dive rolling? why won't matt's coleco work? can somebody tuck me in tonight? Anyway, I love this system. It was 25 bucks and came with a colecovision controller and two gemini controllers. No AC. my friend and I stood around thinking what kind of AC it could use for ten minutes before I got the bright idea that it was probably the same as a genuine 2600. The controllers are weird! I think they might be analog? Anyway, they're paddle/joystick integrated, as you've probably noticed if you've seen one. They're strange inside, halfway between a leaf switch and carbon dot connection system. There are metal brushes with five or so strands, looking somewhat like the little things inside a music box that play the notes or the teeth of a comb, and they make contact between two unconnected points on the board. The paddle also has the brush, it just rolls around connecting two tracks of carbon. We also bought two extra controllers which are marked "dual command" instead of "Gemini game system" which I assume were marketed for the 2600. They're identical aside from sticker. These joysticks are Excellent. The paddles are great (i'm finally in that damn bucket brigade after two hours of owning the controller and my seaquest high score tripled) and 3 of the four work well. They don't work with every game, though. Paddle games where you have to hit the fire button require you to hold the joystick down as well. It's very irritating for, say, GI joe cobra strike (new favorite game) but not so bad for kaboom!. This is not my problem. My problem is that the joystick port is seated very loosely in the system and not properly anchored to the board. It's not connecting well, so you have to push the joystick plug down or put a weight on it to get a good connection. I already put some JB weld on the anchor points and it doesn't move around now, but the connection still isn't very good. Is there something I can just drop on this, like a solder or conductive glue, or do I have to desolder and resolder the whole thing? I'm not in a hurry, because I mostly play on my vader system, and the joysticks may just replace my 500xj. I say that now, but (ain't it just like coleco) they also dig into your hand with a nice sharp corner. I also have the packin games it came with, mouse trap and carnival. I think they're neat because they have the sticker that says not for sale only comes with gemini foo'

I have the intv 1 and 2, although the 1 will stop working after a few hours (overheating no doubt), and the 2 won't turn off anymore (i have to pull the cart out, hit the button, put it back in, hit it again, hit it again, etc before it'll turn off). Anybody know how to fix that problem? I don't mind the controllers for most of the games on it, it's well suited to the type of game the intellivision has. I enjoy the version of commando, I think it's the second best behind the 7800 version (machine gun! yea!) and better than the NES vers. I also love Utopia and the dnd games. The imagic games are all fantastic, except for microsurgeon, and I tolerate the rest. For me, it's hard to find the rarer intellivision carts and there are too many common carts around. That's not really fair, though, because you could accuse any classic system of that problem. I guess I just look at combats and air sea battles as ambient decor rather than useless clutter. Anyway, I thought I loved the intellivisions, but because of the problems with them, and the others i've owned in the past, I don't bother with them too much. It sucks to be doing really well and have it crap out. Also, of course, the buttons are awful. How Are the tandyvision and sears intys? It is sears, right? how are the third parties? there's a wico, and wico kicks so much, so hard in general, so..

Airlock. Awful game though.. My kool-aid man cart Died! I have no idea why. instead of the sweet wall-busting action it just shows the wall with a few mutilated pixels.

wow, a live human baby. That's awesome. Chris Onstad (www.achewood.com) has a baby now and so his brilliant webcomic is suffering much like the Krok cart. My friend has considered kidnapping said child to speed up work on the strip but that seems unethical to me.

Genesis? Genesis? .. don't get me wrong, I like the system.. but I paid literally two bucks for mine, CIB. I paid 5.99 and 10.00 for my OTHER TWO, thinking some friend would want one since they were coming cheap, but no, nope. Nobody wants one.

in order of importance: me, girlfriend if she's here, mother(OUCH THIRD PLACE), Cat #2, Cat #1, 7" rekkids, lp rekkids, box o' complete activision 2600 carts, box with third parties like spectravision/parker bros, other atari carts, horror comics, cd collection, my dad if he's around, NES collection, system consoles. The 5200 and intellivisions burn. too big for not enough gameplay. Oh.. wait. only one thing?

wow.. how'd the alligator from frogger manage to get into pitfall? hehe These are quite cool. Are they expensive, as a rule?

Thanks a lot for the advice. These are the shots.. the insert cartridge screen looks normal to me and so do the startup screens for any normal coleco cartridge game, so I didn't post those. Frogger has no startup screen, so.. the blue/brown/green garbage is what you get about half of the time you power the system with frogger in it. The correct screen with the green covering the bottom is the other half of the time. The zaxxon, dk jr. and cosmic avenger startups look normal, as do their blue screens.. when you start a game, the graphics are normal for 1-3 seconds before they go wonky. They always screw up in the same way.

haha.. Tomarc was going to be be Thundarr.. Amusing. Very Cool! thanks for sharing.