Atari 2600 Game By Game Podcast

[+Ripdubski]

 

 

Next episode is about E.T. You know that guy. If you'd like to share your thoughts, please send them to 2600gamebygame@comcast.net. Thank you!

Did!

[Inky]

Loving the ET episode

[ferghead]

TWO episodes out this week! First is the rather lengthy E.T. episode, which was made a whole lot better by all of the great feedback I received!

 

110_-_E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial.mp3

 

The second is a short halloween special episode about my favorite pinball table, Haunted House. I am not very good at talking about pinball, so it should be great! I did make up for it with a little zombie dancing, so there's that.

 

Happy_Halloween_Haunted_House_by_Gottlieb.mp3

 

Thank you!

[adamchevy]

TWO episodes out this week! First is the rather lengthy E.T. episode, which was made a whole lot better by all of the great feedback I received!

 

110_-_E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial.mp3

 

The second is a short halloween special episode about my favorite pinball table, Haunted House. I am not very good at talking about pinball, so it should be great! I did make up for it with a little zombie dancing, so there's that.

 

Happy_Halloween_Haunted_House_by_Gottlieb.mp3

 

Thank you!

I have really enjoyed listening to your podcast! Great job! I really enjoyed the length of the E.T. episode. I forgot all of those details about the almagordo dig. I like how you go over the gameplay in detail. It always makes me want to pop the cartridge in . Take care and thanks again. Edited October 31, 2015 by adamchevy

[ferghead]

That is very kind of you Adam, thank you!

[RJ]

"CEM-Atari" Hilarious!!! LOVE IT!!!!!!

[ferghead]

Episode 111 featuring Turmoil and Fantastic Voyage is now available. Thanks for listening!

 

111_-_Turmoil__Fantastic_Voyage_by_20th_Century_Fox.mp3

[+Ripdubski]

Another great episode Ferg!

[ferghead]

Thank you Wade.

[ferghead]

Episode 112 featuring Name This Game and Towering Inferno is now available for your perusal.

 

112_-_Name_This_Game__Towering_Inferno_by_U.S._Games.mp3

 

The next episode will not be until December 16th and will be on Centipede and Ms. Pac-Man. If you have any feedback on these games, or if you have any Christmas Atari memories that you would like to share for a possible Christmas show, please send it to 2600gamebygame@comcast.net by the end of day December 13th. Thanks for listening!

[+Ripdubski]

Ill have you a couple of items this weekend.

[RJ]

(4:17) Peter Benchley

[ferghead]

Ill have you a couple of items this weekend.

???

 

(4:17) Peter Benchley

Did I say Robert Benchley? Darn it.

[+Ripdubski]

I meant I will send you a Centipede and Christmas memory this weekend. I already sent you a Ms. Pac-Man one a while ago.

[RJ]

The thing is, I Googled "Robert Benchley" & learned he was an author/humorist born in the late 1800s & lived about 60 years.

 

So Ferg, people learn things from your show that you barely even mention!

[RJ]

Gammadev's (sp?) story on the '15 Xmas show about his dad learning the XBOX360 reminded me of the time I tried teaching my dad Atari 2600 Video Checkers (2600 GBG ep #47). Sounds like he had better success than I did.

 

But c'mon now. I was teaching my dad ATARI. With a classic joystick. ONE stick, ONE button. So simple.

 

(sighs)

[ferghead]

Gammadev's (sp?) story on the '15 Xmas show about his dad learning the XBOX360 reminded me of the time I tried teaching my dad Atari 2600 Video Checkers (2600 GBG ep #47). Sounds like he had better success than I did.

 

But c'mon now. I was teaching my dad ATARI. With a classic joystick. ONE stick, ONE button. So simple.

 

(sighs)

But there was also a big jump from nothing to a joystick with one button.

[RJ]

True- but by the time I was trying to teach him, Atari had been around for nearly 40 years.

[Dauber]

My dad used to play Atari games with me; once in a great while I'd find him playing Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man by himself. Problem is that my dad is left-handed. (He did force himself to learn guitar right-handed, though, as it was hard for him to find a left-handed guitar back when he learned.) So he really couldn't play any games that required the fire button. He didn't mind the paddle games because he could easily wrap his hand around the controller and reach the button, but not so much on the CX-40.

 

The few times my mother tried were just disastrous....she couldn't play a game to save her life. And she'd almost immediately complain about the controller making her hand sore. Good thing we didn't have a 7800!

[Chris++]

There's nothing "sexist" about Ms. Pac-Man. The character in the first game was male, and GCC created a great, unauthorized sequel that changed the character's sex. What's chauvinistic about that? What if it went in the other direction? Would a sequel called Mr. Pac-Woman also be "sexist," but against men? Or is it simply that every creative vision should begin with a female character, even if that's an artistic compromise that amounts to censorship, simply so the creator isn't accused of "sexism"?

 

And so what if he is? Why be afraid of being called something that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with someone else's baggage? Or being called anything at all? You're not going to get any ice cream?

 

There's also nothing "sexist" about marketing something toward women, depicting a woman being rescued by a man, or pointing out that a particular Atari programmer was female, especially concerning an era when the vast majority of programmers were male. "Woman programmer" is a perfectly valid term. How could it not be? Hardly any women created Atari games. They weren't interested back then. Big deal. Statements of fact shouldn't be confused with any kind of prejudice.

 

As for No Quarter, I didn't like the few episodes I could bring myself to listen to in the past. If I had heard their "sexism" episode, they would have gotten an earful, regardless of whether or not they would have even cared. Carrington has one of the most irritating voices on the planet anyway. I haven't heard any of the episodes with new hosts, but there's some unintentional humor in their recent history: "We want to do a podcast. No, we don't. Well, yes we do. Actually, maybe not. Well..." Granted, the one or two with Rob was probably pretty damn cool, simply because Rob is pretty damn cool.

 

My comments don't directly have anything to do with you, Ferg, or your awesome wife. I love hearing all the laughter when you're on the show together. You always mean well and your show has gotten better and better (and I dug it to begin with!). All of you podcasting ninjas are rock stars. To me, you're the real gaming media.

 

You're just reading the results of a build-up that has happened to culminate with the Ms. Pac-Man discussion during your latest episode. Lucky you!

 

I've grown extremely fed-up with seeing the thinly disguised anti-male sentiment worming its insidious way into every pocket of discourse, entertainment-related and otherwise. Fellas: You don't have to walk around with this automatically apologetic stance for being male. It makes no sense. If your intentions are good when you say something, you're in the clear. If somone gets "offended" regardless, that's on him or her, not you.

 

Seriously, what adult truly gets "offended?" How is that possible? What does it even mean? "Offense" has become some kind of marketing tool for pressure groups. Everyone just lines up and goes along with it. It's not even a genuine feeling. The only person I can imagine being "offended" is someone who's pointedly looking for things to be "offended" by, to which I'd respond, "Get a real hobby" -- or, to really touch some nerve endings, "Make the effort to fix whatever you don't like about yourself that you're compensating for with your hypercriticism."

 

Men tend to have such a capacity for empathy that many of us have accepted this weird, unfounded guilt about simply being male -- you know, the sex responsible for building civilization, keeping all of the electricity, gas and water coming into everyone's home, inventing devices on which women bitch about men, etc. -- from the loudest among the media figures who call themselves "feminist." When we were growing up, the public face of feminism had to do with equality. Not anymore. Now it's anti-male. Equality is merely used as a manipulative tool.

 

Consider the current message: "Treat us as absolute equals, and yet as fragile, easily 'offended' little girls. We'll demand apologies for everything that's not a purely positive statement about women, even though we can say anything we want about men and find their most tragic trevails to be simply humorous. Treat us as absolute equals, even when we cry that we get to play, too, no matter which corner of male community we bully our ways into, and even if we scream bloody murder when the sexes are switched. Treat us as absolute equals, but don't hold us accountable for our own actions. Everything is the fault of men. And don't point out that we lie and say that we're not attracted to unapologetically male sex drives."

 

None of that is equality, and trying to tell people how to talk (and, in intention, how to think) is censorship. Funny how those who consider themselves to be on the "left" are those who demand censorship more than anyone these days.

 

No one tells me how to talk -- and I encourage everyone to adopt the same attitude (male and female). It ties directly into your personal freedom. Allowing this I'm-sorry-that-I'm-Male-and-I-have-male-heroes trash into your mindset will lead to more than your current emasculation. It will lead to a truncating of the First Amendment. If you think I'm joking, just come back to this post in a few years and we'll see what has transpired -- when Ferg is covering, say, Dark Chambers.

 

I won't deny whose fault all of this really is: men's. Men had to enable this nonsense, after all. Stand up for yourself and your good intentions, my friends. Don't be so easily converted into doormats. You're not "sexist" if you simply point out differences between men and women. Differences are good. Take a look at the rest of the animal kingdom: Complementary strengths and weaknesses are what nature has in mind. The sexes shouldn't have everything in common and all the same general characteristics. Where's the attraction in that?

 

Actual chauvinism entails things like believing that a female is inherently inferior to a male in all ways (in which case, again, so what? A lot of people will simply stop wanting to talk to you. Those are the logical consequences, not public apologies...or jail time. Not yet, anyway); trying to prevent women from having access to the same laws or professional advancement as men (when in fact everything's tilted in women's favor now, at least in America -- see below); and hitting your wife, girlfriend, etc. It's wretched to hurt someone who's physically weaker than you. Those are about all I agree with.

 

A lot of otherwise intelligent women are understandably lured by the rhetoric of modern feminism and identify themselves as being in league with it, without stopping to realize how they're being manipulated by a few embittered wenches with agendas, and how much it hurts men and women -- it infantilizes women more than it does anything else. From youth onward, it instills the idea that they somehow deserve equality and special treatment at the same time (nice paradox), and that they're not responsible for their own behavior, as they can blame all of their problems and faults on men.

 

Drop the burden, guys. You don't have to force yourselves to change your well-intended language for a bunch of purely negative, politically driven crybabies. You don't have to say "he or she" every damn time you find yourself using the perfectly valid generic "he." You're men, for christsakes. "He" makes perfect sense when you're being universal or hypothetical with your rhetoric. (Say that three times fast.) Withhold permission from people to use your words as weapons against themselves. If you're a good guy, you know deep down that you're a good guy. You needn't allow yourself to be chastised for being masculine, or for conversing without walking on eggshells.

 

This "every time you mention a woman in anything but a positive light, you're a sexist, and if you're a male, you're automatically guilty of something at all times" nonsense has to go. How is that equality? Talk about double standards. Women are never stupid or destructive or manipulative or whatever else men are also capable of? Try to look at things outside the mainstream box once in a while. You're men and you're awesome. You're capable of invention on staggering levels, and you try your best to do the right thing for everyone who depends on you. You're wired to keep your emotions from controlling you, and you thus have an admirable capacity for rationality. The exceptions prove the rule.

 

And any woman who tells you, "A real man would..." is out of line. Never let a women define masculinity for you. She doesn't know what it's like to be a man any more than you know what it's like to be a woman. Can you imagine the reaction if you were to try defining femininity to a woman?

 

You know what's truly "sexist," if you really want to chew on that overcooked term? The man in a divorce trial being ordered to pay half of his income to a woman who's merely gotten bored with him and his "dull" dependability and kindness, and can even sue for half of his retirement (and win, especially if the judge is male and has been converted into a mangina himself), no matter how many years the male divorcee' works for that money after the split -- even if the marriage ended because she cheated on him. A man being arrested even if a woman has lied to the cops about being hit, because she's feeling spiteful about something inane, and has been taught by her society that she will suffer no consequences for her lie. Rape-accused men not being kept anonymous until proven guilty, and seeing their careers and reputations destroyed even when the allegations turn out to be false, for which the accuser gets a slap on the wrist, at best. A divorced man seeing his kids only twice a month, even if the woman has a drug habit and the man is a good father, simply because he's "not the mother."

 

None of that is fictional. It's heartbreaking how many friends and coworkers I've seen some of these things happen to. I've dodged such bullets, so please don't confuse any of this with some kind of personalization on my part, thus allowing these subjects to be diminished in significance in your thoughts; whether I'm the one making the points or not is inconsequential.

 

It's funny that if a guy did even one of those things, he'd be called "incapable of commitment" at the very least. But a woman? She'd be "discovering herself." Gimme a break. The funniest complaint is that there aren't many "good men" these days. There you go: Spend a couple of generations castigating Ward Cleaver, and then bitch when nobody wants to be Ward Cleaver.

 

I'm aware that everything above has been worded unequivocally, but whether anyone likes my tone or not, it's worth contemplating this stuff, at least, and drawing stronger lines around yourself. It's not as if it's going to hurt to give the non-bandwagon lane a chance. And I'm not even going to believe anyone who claims that he hasn't thought similar things before. That's your self-protective instinct kicking in. Cherish it; never assume that your gut feelings are "wrong," no matter who's browbeating you around the house, in your circle or in some of that popular media you're into.

 

And yes, this is "on topic." It has to do with Ms. Pac-Man. So there.

 

I guess it's possible that a lot of you guys will think, "Yeah, we know this stuff, Chris -- why did you bother?" and maybe even reply with something hacky like, "There's [amount of time] of my life I'll never get back." Fair enough; if I'm preaching to the choir, even better. A dissenting, realistic opinion is good for every barbecue around a strawwoman.

 

Ferg, I hope this doesn't cross any "worthwhile discussions about the podcast" lines in your book (or, more to the point, in your thread). I have a very high opinion of you, I consider you a good friend even though we've never met in person, and I respect your vantage points a great deal. Your easy sense of humor and unassuming nature are wise in ways that I could probably stand to take lessons from, rather than letting things like this get under my skin.

 

It's just that the freedom of expression is being taken for granted more and more, and personal freedom in general should be the one thing in anyone's life that's tenaciously protected and never negotiable.

 

Wow -- I type fast when I'm fired up. Look how long that is. Well, nobody's been held down and forced to read it (even if I wish I could somehow organize such a session -- especially for young kids, before the "women good / men bad" indoctrination starts).

 

Thank you for another awesome episode.

 

[+Rick Reynolds]

My understanding on the whole sexism question WRT Ms. Pacman was the idea that something becomes automatically "female-friendly" by just putting lipstick and a bow on the main character. Like making a toolbox pink with pink tools in it so that "women will like it". Some women will find that insulting, and I can see why. The insult comes from the idea that the game designers think that women would be playing these games if only they came in the right color palates, if the characters carried purses and wore hats, or had red lipstick and a bow in their hair -- or in the case of a pink tool set that they aren't capable of seeing the need for a set of tools themselves if they aren't color coordinated. It's the perceived pandering attitude that is the problem.

 

Now to be sure, some women will like the idea of buying a set of pink tools. And that's fine. So it isn't a one-perspective-is-correct kind of thing. And I'm sure some girls liked the idea of simply seeing a female character in a video game. And because of that, I think Ms. Pacman was an overall net positive. To be sure, none of my female friends were taking an insulted posture when Ms. Pacman came out. But attitudes change with the times, and I can see someone looking at Ms. Pacman today and wondering about a "slap some femininity on it" attitude.

 

Ironically perhaps, because Ms. Pacman was arguably a better/harder game than Pacman the "Ms." prefix tends to denote "sequel" and/or "better version of" in retro gaming (at least that's what it means to my perhaps limited perspective). Programmers at Mattel had the idea of doing a better Night Stalker game and were proposing a "Ms. Night Stalker" for those ideas (http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/credits/action2.html). So rather than being something that was seen as denigration, the "Ms." moniker ended up indicating something better than the original.

[ferghead]

I'll have to get my wife to read these and let me know what she thinks.

 

I think both of you made good points. Making things pink to target girls/women is still going on, as is women getting paid less for doing the same things men do. One of those is more important to stop than the other in my opinion.

 

I think the crux on No Quarter was that they had a hard time playing the game because of their perceived sexism. I definitely did not feel that way, Ms. Pac-Man has much more variety and challenges than Pac-Man did, and I especially like the turbo version (I don't think I was aware of a turbo Pac-Man). I still enjoy the game to this day, I think I felt a little weird after listening to NQ that I never saw that it was sexist. Some of the ads maybe, but I looked at some of the copy from back then and it didn't seem horrible. I did not consider as my wife did that there was actually a female video game character where there weren't any before. I don't think they mentioned that on NQ, but I only re-listened to the sexist part towards the end (as did my wife).

 

Thank you guys for commenting!

[+Ripdubski]

Wow. And I just enjoyed Ms. Pac-Man for being a game. I've never drawn more into it than it was just a female Pac-Man. Now, everybody go chomp some ghosts.

[SoulBlazer]

Agree with what everyone said -- now we can see what they did to Ms. Pac Man as being a bit sexiest, but I don't think anyone saw it that way in the early 80's. Times were different. About the same time period, I've seen a picture of a billboard that was for a car (I can't recall the exact one, a Fiat I want to say) which showed a picture of the car and the caption -- "If it were a girl you'd slap it on the butt!" There's no way in hell that would fly today. But it's another example of how attitudes were different just a short 30 years ago.

 

And I love Ms. Pac Man, I play it on a regular basis and i'd put it in my top 10 list of arcade games. I just never saw it as anything besides 'Pac Man 2'

[Chris++]

More importantly: Yay! A Zappa excerpt!