Psionic

Didn't I almost buy one of these from you a couple years back? Regretting that sale already, or am I thinking of someone else?

According to this page, there were some bugs in the original Japanese release that were fixed in the international version. It's strange that they didn't catch this. Did anyone download the Japanese version of the ROM and see if this glitch is present?

Lots of favorites on the NES. Too many to list, really. You won't hear his name mentioned very often and the games he worked on won't win many awards, but I always enjoyed the soundtracks of the games that Hirohiko Takayama did for Atlus (Gotcha!, The Karate Kid, Xexyz, Friday the 13th).

According to this video, Howard Lincoln is quoted as saying: "It creates derivative works. It not only alters Nintendo games, infringing on copyrights, but can make them less fun, too easy to play." Ultimately, I think the real reason is twofold... 1. Nintendo didn't think of it. 2. Codemasters, like Tengen, was a developer of unlicensed NES games that use a workaround to bypass the 10NES lockout chip.

I've heard that Nintendo made attempts to lock out the Game Genie on front loading NES systems made after 1991. Codemasters/Galoob may have altered the Genie software in some way to get around this, but I'm not aware of any changes to the interface. As far as I know, they are all functionally identical with the same code screen. Honestly, I think the changes were mostly if not completely cosmetic and due to cost (i.e. cheaper black plastic vs. gold). The Genesis Game Genie was officially licensed by Sega but there are two version of that one too. The second one lacked the shiny metallic label and came in a much smaller box.

Actually, the very last MD releases from 1995 (Alien Soldier, Pengo, et al) did come in hangtag boxes. Go figure.

I was looking at Sega Genesis games just before I posted that link, which would explain that. But yes, I most definitely agree.

It's interesting that the cartridge in the eBay auction that I linked above has the label applied upside down, at least in comparison with mine and all the others I've seen. Are there any others out there like this?

Some rando British dude claiming Star Raiders? Yeah...I don't know what that's all about. In this case, I wasn't implying that Joe Hellesen or anyone else was lying about Gyruss. I would just attribute it to a faulty memory. It happens. We're going back 35+ years here. My point in all of this was simply that a major fault in these interviews is the lack of questioning and/or follow up when people say things that just don't make sense. This is not the first time this has happened.

I can only speculate as to how and why this ended up being sold in Canada as a cartridge release, but there's no reason for me to suspect that it wasn't a normal boxed retail release, given the fact that a box and manual do actually exist. Only one or two boxes have turned up, but that's not too surprising given how rare the cartridge is. If anyone is keeping track, a loose 8-bit cart just sold for 355 CAD (280 USD) on 1/4/22 via eBay.

I would doubt that, given that Joe Hellesen was in Chicago and Jack Verson was out in California. If Jack had any help with the 8-bit version, it probably would've been from Cameron Shaffer. But the only way to know that would be to ask him. According to Dutchman2000, Joe Hellesen was indeed responsible for the C64 version of Gyruss, and this can be confirmed by looking at the source code. On-Time Software subcontracted Windy City Software (which was Joe's company) to develop this port. This makes sense and matches up with what Hellesen told me ten years ago.

MegaMania and Theshold were both basically ripoffs of Sega/Gremlin's Astro Blaster coin-op with slightly different implementations, although neither one was as good in my opinion. Most versions of Threshold include the laser temperature gauge like Astro Blaster but this was jettisoned in the VCS port, so it just kind of ends up being a less polished version of MegaMania. I haven't played this version in along time...I'll have to give it another go sometime.

Reiner is Editor-in-Chief of the current iteration of Game Informer according to their website.

Actually, quite the contrary. Different versions of the exact same game being programmed by different people to actual or near completion is very uncommon. In the rare case of Gyruss for the Atari computers, there is indeed an alternate version. But that was developed by Anthony Weber and we already know the story with that version. This isn't a question of alternate versions existing. It's a question of a programmer telling me he worked on the Commodore version of a game and then apparently telling someone else he worked on the Atari one. And then a second programmer telling that someone else that he did the Atari version. These guys were all working together, so someone's memory is off. Something is clearly amiss here, but until I said something, no one (including you) seems to have picked up on it. You apparently still don't. What the hell are you talking about? Both of the individuals in question have already been interviewed. There should be no speculation at this point. The questions I'm asking (which are obvious ones that any thinking person would ask) should already have been answered in the podcast interview.

You claim that Jack programmed the Atari version of Gyruss, but you said the same thing about Joe Hellesen when you interviewed him back in 2018. It's worth noting that several online sources attribute the C64 port of Gyruss to Hellesen, which he confirmed when I spoke with him personally back in 2009. I brought this to your attention back when you posted your interview with him and asked you to follow up with him and clear up the confusion, but you never did to the best of my knowledge. Now would be a good time to contact one or both of these guys and straighten this out once and for all. It also would help to ask Verson straight up which version of Mr. Do!'s Castle he worked on, instead of us just speculating.

Actually, now that I'm really thinking about it, I must correct myself. It was actually the standard case version of Piece o' Cake that I missed out on that time, and I haven't seen another one since. The standard Raft Rider is almost as rare, and I can probably count on one hand how many times I've seen one. But admittedly, no...I haven't been actively looking this whole time.

He's still around somewhere, but he's never shown up here that I know of. A couple of people including myself got in contact with him back when the first copy of RSC was found. He answered some basic questions about the game and it's development but that's about it. He thought it was bizarre that people were still interested in the game (which was hardly a success) all these years later. He claimed that he might have some unsold copies of the game or related materials buried away in storage somewhere, but I doubt he ever had the will to actually look for them.

I've only ever seen two copies of the standard case version of Raft Rider. The last time was several years ago, probably over a decade at this point because I know I didn't have a smartphone yet. I remember I had it on my eBay watch list but forgot about the auction. When I got home later on, I saw that it had sold for like $15 or something, maybe even less. It was so long ago I can't even remember, but I'm still pretty sore about that one.

I assume this was sourced from Roklan? The released version of this game has been credited to David Johnson at Western Technologies, but is that actually correct?

I've also contacted him in the past, and he was not particularly cooperative.

Most if not all of the Atari silver boxes (including the Atari Club exclusives) were glued and shrinkwrapped. I believe Atari started wrapping their games in late 1981 or early '82.

Ed actually sent me the source code to Nitro back in 2019, but the disk copy he sent seemed to be corrupted and would not resolve to a text file. I never did get to the bottom of the issue but it's good to see this stuff was able to be rescued regardless. He did show me his original notebook sketches from the game's development plus some other stuff.

Details and pics were originally posted here. Looks legit to me. Assuming he's telling the truth about where and when it was found, I'd say the chances of it being a fake are basically nil.

SQ WaterWorld ended yesterday at over $6k.

I had issues like most others did on my desktop but finally decided to give it a try on my phone and was able to snag what turned out to be the penultimate copy. ...or Wilf Paiement.