Activision Anthology ROCKS!

[tillenterprises]

im going to try to rent it tongiht and go to one of my friends houses and try it out.  

 

When the local Funcoland, Best Buy, and Circuit City didn't have it in stock on Wednesday, as promised, I tried Blockbuster to at least try and rent it, since I couldn't wait to try it out. The young clerk said that Blockbuster probably would not carry it for rental, since there's not that much interest in retrogame collections for rental. I did try another Funcoland yesterday, and got a copy that was just shipped. Again, the young girl behind the counter was ignorant of Atari. I think we should all go out to stores this weekend and request a copy, and show the Xbox generation that we mean business!

[MegaManFan]

im going to try to rent it tongiht and go to one of my friends houses and try it out.  

 

When the local Funcoland, Best Buy, and Circuit City didn't have it in stock on Wednesday, as promised, I tried Blockbuster to at least try and rent it, since I couldn't wait to try it out. The young clerk said that Blockbuster probably would not carry it for rental, since there's not that much interest in retrogame collections for rental. I did try another Funcoland yesterday, and got a copy that was just shipped. Again, the young girl behind the counter was ignorant of Atari. I think we should all go out to stores this weekend and request a copy, and show the Xbox generation that we mean business!

 

I'll go to Best Buy tomorrow and if they don't have one I'll ask for it. If enough of us do the same maybe they'll wise up.

[CPUWIZ]

I was at Best Buy today during lunch and they didn't have it.

[MegaManFan]

I was at Best Buy today during lunch and they didn't have it.

 

Did you bug a clerk about it though, or give up in disgust (as I sometimes do myself) and just walk out?

 

I vow to BUG somebody if they don't have it.

[CPUWIZ]

I did, I did the same when Ratchet & Clank came out, it seems they are alway a couple of days late.

[sku_u]

I was at Best Buy today during lunch and they didn't have it.

 

Did you bug a clerk about it though, or give up in disgust (as I sometimes do myself) and just walk out?

 

I vow to BUG somebody if they don't have it.

 

That's why Amazon's pre-ordering rocks! I can't remember the last time I walked into a department store to buy electronics of any kind.

[Tempest]

EB has it in stock.

 

Tempest

[Albert]

In general, I've found that places like EB and Game Stop will have new releases first and that large stores like Best Buy and Fry's will get them several days later. Sometimes a big chain will actually make an effort to have a game in stock on a certain day, but I've seen those efforts fall apart as well.

 

EB also lets you return a game if it sucks, which is next to impossible at a larger store.

 

..Al

[tiggerthehun]

Is it a fifty dollar game - or did they give us a price break? Just curious.... Thanks!

[NE146]

It's 35 bucks at EB/Gamestop. It's 30 bucks at Toys R Us.

[tiggerthehun]

OOHHH! That's doable! Seems I have a new Saturday morning destination!

[Agent X]

I just want to say that this disc does indeed ROCK! Many thanks to all who were involved with the project for bringing it to fruition!

[TeeJay]

So far I'm pretty impressed, too. However, I've encountered two problems so far:

 

1.) Pitfall II gets very jittery. Was the original like this (has it almost been 20 years since I last played it?) or is it a glitch in the emulation (or, for that matter, perhaps my PS2 or ACTIVISION ANTHOLOGY is the problem)?

 

2.) The controls in KABOOM are wild, in that they're moving without my prompting. Perhaps going through the manual tonight will allow me to adjust settings somehow, but so far it seems unplayable. It seems like my analog sticks weren't centered, but that shouldn't be the case.

[rolenta]

I think this disc is great also. I forgot how much I used to love Enduro!!

 

I only have two qualms:

 

1) I like the idea that the patches can only be viewed once you have reached the required score. However I wish that the commercials didn't have to be viewed that way. Is there a back door to get to the commercials?

 

2) I don't have any idea how my handicap switches are set. For instance I only knew that the handicap was set when I played Freeway and the chicken returned to its original spot. But going into a game, I don't know which setting I'm on.

 

I had a third qualm whixch I can't remember now (it's nealy 3 in the morning!) Overall, a great, great disc!!! Thanks Ken!

[Eckhard Stolberg]

This looks like a cool product. I wish Activision would release it in PAL format too. I'd like to see how Bill's emulator compares to ours.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[Thomas Jentzsch]

This looks like a cool product. I wish Activision would release it in PAL format too.

Your wish may come true.

 

I'd like to see how Bill's emulator compares to ours.

So you know who wrote the emulator? Can you give some more information about it?

[SS]

I was at Best Buy today during lunch and they didn't have it.

 

Did you bug a clerk about it though, or give up in disgust (as I sometimes do myself) and just walk out?

 

You can actually FIND somebody at Best Buy to complain to? Best Buy has to be the most under qualified, understaffed store ever.

[Eckhard Stolberg]

Your wish may come true.

 

Cool, I hope it'll have a PAL60 mode. I'd better start saving for a PS2 then. Or is the release date so far in the future, that I'll be able to trade some unwanted Christmas gifts for it?

 

So you know who wrote the emulator? Can you give some more information about it?

 

On the first page of this thread Tempest said that the emulator was written by Bill "Burger" Heineman. That's all I know. I suppose Tempest got this information from the game's credits text. I think Bill Heineman wrote some games for Avalon Hill back in the day, so I'm sure he knows enough about the 2600 do create an acurate emulator for it. He has also been on the Stella list since it's beginnings, where you might have seen him posting before.

 

 

Ciao, Eckhard Stolberg

[sdstuff64]

Well that does it.I knew I wanted this game and after reading all of this and finding out it is only $30,I need it now1

[tillenterprises]

1) I like the idea that the patches can only be viewed once you have reached the required score. However I wish that the commercials didn't have to be viewed that way. Is there a back door to get to the commercials?

 

If you can suffer through a game of Boxing, and beat the computer (not too hard to do), you will unlock a corporate video, which includes some of the complete commericials. I was happy to see this, since it includes the complete Kaboom! ad. I was worried that I never would unlock that one, since the Kaboom game is pretty much unplayable, due to the Playstation controls. I even tried using my PS2 steering wheel controller to substitute for a paddle, but nothing beats a good old-fashioned paddle controller to play Kaboom!

[gavv]

Bill Heineman in the past few years has been known for doing a lot of excellent mac ports of games for MacPlay, but is probably better known for 'classic era' games by being the lead on The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate, and i believe its quasi-sequel Dragon Wars, for pc/apple/etc.

 

and he also claims to be the national space invaders champion of 1980

 

gavv

[MegaManFan]

$29.99 at Best Buy. They didn't have it on the shelf, and I had to ask two different clerks about it, but somebody finally found their stash of copies and handed me one. He didn't even know what price it was, so when I got to the counter and the girl rang it up I got a MOST pleasant surprise.

[mos6507]

I'm actually rather disappointed with the way this looks like it turned out.

 

I see no mention so far of any sort of interview or history section.

 

Having a history section is the _standard_ way to do emulation CDs as established by Digital Eclipse (last example being the Bushnell interview on Atari Arcade Hits 1). This kind of stuff was sorely missed in Activision Classics, and some reviews of that title did point that out at the time.

 

Sure, you get the manual scans and then commercials and the patches, but that's about it, right? That's like releasing a boxed set without liner notes.

 

I thought Ken was going to do something special in this area, but apparently not.

 

Given the amount of time and research he put into preparing this, I'm really surprised this did not translate into anything more than the games, manuals, patches, and a few digitized commercials. No anecdotes about the game's creation? No articles about certain games' importance to history (like Pitfall)?

 

Is this stuff just not being mentioned or is it just not there at all?

 

I guess we'll always have AtariAge's database...

[Rhindle The Red]

Is this stuff just not being mentioned or is it just not there at all?

My understanding is that Ken had a clear mandate to keep this thing inexpensive to produce. Tracking people down to do interviews, etc. would have been costly and so was not on the agenda.

 

I'm also sorry some of the planned aspects didn't make it (thanks, Sony!), but I still think it's a great package overall.

 

Say, that's a terrific outfit you have on. What is it? Whale fox?

[Flojomojo]

What a nice little gift for myself. On a pass/fail basis, this passes, no problem. I had to go to Funcoland to get it, as the Babbages and EBgames in the mall didn't know what the game was, not did they have it in yet. I thought that was unusual for these places that usually get stuff on the first day. Maybe it was the pre-holiday crowds that did it?

 

Anyway, what I liked (which outweigh any of my gripes):

+ The soundtrack is great! I wish there were even more tracks, but this is fine, not to mention representative of the era without getting into overly cliched pop.

 

+ The emulator is great! Everything runs at full speed and with accurate colors. The option for both digital and analog support is appreciated. I also like having the Atari RESET button mapped to SELECT on the controller, but I had some problems hitting the Atari SELECT mapped to L1 at first.

 

+ I like the way the patches are "triggered" when you reach a threshold score. You don't need to stop to see if you made it.

 

+You rewrote the instructions to reflect the PS2 controller. Smart.

 

What I didn't like so much (minor points):

- Pitfall II, which I was excited about playing, doesn't seem quite right. Or was the music always that horrible in the original version? There's a voice in it that is WAY flatter than I recall.

 

- Those blanks in the carousel bother me. I with Cosmic Ark were on this collection.

 

- The blue labels for the Imagic games. The absence of other Imagic games. Maybe they're unlockable?

 

- The instructions don't always say what score is needed for a patch. This is a minor point because when you reach the score, it's triggered automatically.

 

- No high score list. That would have been nice, but would have required more work than a simple "trigger" for the patches.

 

- No XBOX version so we can add custom soundtracks and more 80s tunes ourselves. I would love to add Thomas Dolby, B-52's, and more to the mix. I guess I have Stella and WinAmp for that, eh?

 

Can the JogCon be used as a paddle controller? I'll hook up the NegCon sometime and test that ... Kaboom! isn't super playable for me with the analog. Then again, I'm old now...

 

I'll be playing this one for quite a while. I hope that other developers look to this as a good way to release some oldies. Hey Digital Eclipse, let's have another Atari Anniversary "labor of love" pack with lots of games on it, OK?