Atari with a 2-year-old

[CaptainBreakout]

Speaking of the cold war, I just watched Wargames 2 tonight, while I was wrapping Christmas presents. I found it enjoyable. Lots of nice fan service. Also nice to see flip phones again.

 

I'm doing the CTW and kids controller extravaganza over Christmas, so hopefully will have some cool stuff to add here. Also my daughter turns 2 right after Christmas so the subject title is accurate again.

[CaptainBreakout]

Anyways, so now there have been a few days where we've had some gaming nights. Here's a few things I've learned.

 

My daughter does not respond the same way to Polaris as my son did. In fact I figured out fairly quickly that the game was causing her some distress.

 

The second scene where the sub must navagate through the underwater caverns held her interest, but as soon as we got back to the surface levels she started wincing and making uncomfortable sounds.

 

I asked her, "You don't like this game?"

 

My three year old son looked at me and said, "I think it's 'cause you're shooting at stuff."

 

Wow. Poignant observation.

 

We finally got to the Sesame Street games... We started with Alpha Beam with Ernie.

 

Very successful aside from discovering one of my two Kid's Controllers was factory defective. Slight hitch there. Thankfully I had two.

 

Ernie was a big hit. My son figured out how to load up the rocketship in about fifteen minutes. The payoff is really good and something that was genuinely fun as a dad to witness and participate in. It was also nice too since he started out by saying "I want to see rocket move." ...

 

(cont.)

Edited January 12, 2019 by CaptainBreakout

[CaptainBreakout]

... and low and behold it did.

 

Yioe running out of energy to write. Had to have a discussion with my wife about which preschool we're trying for...

 

I wanted to write a few things about how Oscar's Trash Race was a complete error filled mess. There was more then met the eye tho. The fact that Oscar was pink should have tipped me off.

 

It also did really horrible things to the display if I attempted to use my A/V modded 7800. That should have tipped me off too, but I haven't had the console for very long so I'm still getting used to it.

 

It turned out I had a PAL cart of Oscar.

 

I found this out after trudging through some really confusing visuals for a half hour with my kids.

 

I doubt this will ever happen to anyone else ever, but yeah... If your copy of Oscar's Trash Race contains a pink Oscar and looks and plays horribly, and your cart label is surprising clear of acti-plaque, you have a PAL cart! Do not play it. Your kids will be distraught.

 

As far as carts go, I don't have many doubles. In fact I have almost none. But for Some reason, I remembered I had another really crusty copy of Oscar's Trash Race at the bottom of the box of spare Atari stuff in the closet. I dug it out and plugged it in after the kids went to bed. Sure enough. I think "I'll be damned" was what I said in response to a title screen I could actually read... Or it might have been in response to Oscar being green. Can't remember now. I'm tired. I've been having dreams about being rejected from preschool. Take it easy on me.

 

PS... I couldn't resist telling my kids... "You know Oscar's Trash Race, and how you kept asking me why he was pink? I fixed it."

 

"You fixed it?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Why?"

 

...

Edited January 12, 2019 by CaptainBreakout

[Flojomojo]

I love these stories.

 

Do your kids have an affinity for the Sesame Street characters? I would think that would be less common nowadays since it's no longer on public TV. Though I would guess Elmo is still on a certain brand of diapers?

[pacman000]

I thought it was still on PBS, just HBO got to air it first.

[CaptainBreakout]

I love these stories.

Do your kids have an affinity for the Sesame Street characters? I would think that would be less common nowadays since it's no longer on public TV. Though I would guess Elmo is still on a certain brand of diapers?

Yes... Check out the curtains in their bedroom!

 

 

.. yep those are Sesame Street characters playing, basically, Pac-Man.

 

The thing is tho, as much as my wife and I love Sesame Street, but we both kinda hate Elmo. We just think he's annoying. It sucks that he took over the show around 1990.

 

So the challenge is finding Sesame Street material prior to about 1985 or so. Since I frequent flea markets, that's doable.

 

And we've found a ton of cool sesame Street stuff sans Elmo. My daughter's favorite character is Prairie Dawn. And Im proud to say my kids can name even those more obscure characters (Sherlock Hemlock for example), but have no idea who Elmo is.

[Flojomojo]

My kid got me a tiny Guy Smiley from the thrift store. Takes me back.

[StanJr]

Love every part of it! Thank you for continuing to share! We also value old Sesame Street and despise the new stuff and soulless marketing ploys like Elmo and the move to HBO. So I feel your pain. Crazy curtains, love them!

 

Colors being way off is a sure tell of a PAL cart. I've had that a few times myself.

 

Seamus is 6 now and has moved on to platformers like Super Mario Bros., but his sense of wonder and excitement is still firmly in place! He's on the brink of being able to read, and once he does that, the world of RPGs and story driven games will open up and that will be an exciting time as well!

[eddhell]

great stories here, i don't have kids myself, but nephews who are all game fanatics now....

 

cap'n breakout: maybe you can throw in some 3- and 4- player games to get you and your kids all playing at the same time, they might really get a kick out of that!

Warlords was always the 2600's best multi player game to me, 1 to 4 players...(with 2 sets of paddles), also Video Olympics (it has tons of game variations and i think i remember some being 3 or 4 players as well) I can't remember many others right now, but these were the earliest simultaneous multi-player games of my youth.

 

another "co-op" style game you could share controls with is Star Raiders, let your son control the keypad like a co-pilot (this is how we played it in the 80's, gave more of a star trek "bridge command" feel and makes it a hell of a lot easier). of course, with time, Starmaster by Activision came out, and was basically same game but better (and with simpler controls) although it requires using switches on the console to access the starmaps to plot courses....you could have him co-pilot like that as well.

 

I think Asteroids and Defender had the easier "teddy bear" levels in their variations, and speaking of bears....your daughter would probably like crystal castles just for the artwork...Bently Bear!!

[CaptainBreakout]

I love the star raiders co-pilot suggestion! I think I'll give it a try! And warlords too... Another great idea. Thanks!!!

[Rogerpoco]

My Grandson-he was about three:

 

 

Max Out, woo!

 

Always fun to play with the young'uns!!!

Edited January 15, 2019 by Rogerpoco

[Greendude]

My half brothers started playing games 7 and 8 years old. Of course this was the late 80's the era of the nes. I was from the era of the atari 2600. It was summer 1981 I was 10 years old by then even tho I could had started sooner I wasn't introduced to gaming until then. Its cool you are now showing a new gen the gaming experience.

[eddhell]

great stories, glad you like the "co-pilot" idea, for us it was also good for C-64/PC flying combat simulators that had tons of keyboard commands AND flight stick control (star trek sims, tie fighter, comanche), and i think some single player Intellivision games could use either controller simultaneously - so the same effect might work for B-17 Bomber and Space Spartans.....

it's great that you involve the kids with the teamwork aspect....

 

I tried to find more 3 and 4 player (simultaneously) games for 2600, but sadly, they didn't expand on this idea when they should have....there are more games with 4+ players allowed, but they are usually "take turns" - not all playing at once on screen....however, there is actually a few games that allowed 8 players!!!! all the Epyx "games" series - summer games, winter games, and california games all allowed up to 8 to compete, some events are head to head, some are single...but great variety nonetheless...along those lines, Activision Decathlon allowed 4 player competetion, but beware of the 1500 m relay....it's the joystick killer!!! (this is coming from someone who has broken at least 20 atari controllers in my life and i'm not even done yet!!!)

[+Spriggy]

Reflecting the sentiments of many on the thread, the stories are very cool!

Maybe give Fishing Derby and Strawberry Shortcake Musical Match-Ups a try.

 

My kid got me a tiny Guy Smiley from the thrift store. Takes me back.

 

Love the old Sesame Street, Still got an old small Magic Mumford plushy

[CaptainBreakout]

Reflecting the sentiments of many on the thread, the stories are very cool!

Maybe give Fishing Derby and Strawberry Shortcake Musical Match-Ups a try.

 

 

 

Love the old Sesame Street, Still got an old small Magic Mumford plushy

We love Magic Mumford! I wish they made more merchindise of him... He's in our story books tho. Ah La Peanut Butter Sandwiches!

 

I know what you mean about these stories. I love reading them at least as much as writing them.

 

Strawberry Shortcake Musical Mix-Up received kind of a Meh response, but that was a year ago. We should revisit Fishing Derby for sure soon.

Edited January 19, 2019 by CaptainBreakout

[thetick1]

My kid got me a tiny Guy Smiley from the thrift store. Takes me back.

 

Oh I bought a Guy Smiley doll for myself back in the 90's! He sat on my work monitor for decades, but now he's in a big pile of stuffed toys neglected by my son. I think I'll dig Guy Smiley out and put him back where he belongs on top of the mid 90's vintage POWERDISPLAY 20 monitor. He'll be close by my Marvin Martian coffee mug.

Edited January 19, 2019 by thetick1

[CaptainBreakout]

Last night we had another game session. This one was a little unusual tho since it involved... dun dun DUUUuun... The Atari 7800.

 

Thanks to a very generous secret santa and a nifty new composite to HDMI upscanner (called, inexplicably, a "Ratsmart"), my kids and I dug into Atari's (or rather GCC's) reinvention of the video game... As it was touted.

 

Hopefully the moderators don't move this to another sub forum. Please don't mind the system disgression, it's only going to be this one entry. Also, isn't a 7800 kind of a 2600 um... too? I know it's not really, but it sorta is on some level.

 

So anyways... On to the games.

 

While I was loading them into the garage

game room (it was a cold night and I had to carry them one at a time), I left Food Fight on in the attract mode. They didn't seem all that interested. My son kept asking to play "wolf game". This puzzled me for a minute.

 

I stuck in Oink (yay... 2600 qualifier). He looked at it kinda with distain. "No, not THIS game!" I kept asking him what he meant. I eventually realized that he was referring to a muppet show VHS tapes with a 3 Little Pigs bit in it.

 

I was playing Oink while we were sorting this out (mom had given us a 45 minute limit, so every second counts). He started getting into it. At one point he pointed at the screen and said "What kind of wolf is THAT?!?"

 

It was pretty cute. My two year old daughter just watched and absorbed all of this, except for one question. She looked at me and asked loudly...

 

"Is... Is she eating it?"

 

"Oh, the wolf? Yes. I think so," I replied.

 

"Ooooh. Alright."

 

She seemed satisfied with my answer.

 

Anyway, even I got tired of Oink after a couple minutes. Also I think my son started whining for the muppet show. I got up and pulled down my two carefully chosen eBay 7800 purchases.

 

"This one's about a frog, and this one's about a dog," I announced. I handed my son and daughter a boxed copy of Scrapyard Dog and Tower Toppler, respectively.

 

"So, which one first?"

 

They both looked at each other's games, then each other. They both said something along the lines of "Frog one."

 

So Tower Toppler it was.

 

I knew this was a tough game, and I'd played it a decade ago on the Atari800 (or it might have been the Apple II) under the name Castlian. Yes the game is tough. I was dieing pretty much immediately, and since the controls take some getting used to (and all I have right now is the ProLine), my reaction time was strictly bad. I was just watching balls and other floaty bulbous baddies just wander over and kill me.

 

It was pretty embarrassing. Fortunately, my kids were along for the ride with me, and they were watching me get better and better. A half dozen resets later and my kids were right there with me, navigating up the tower and negotiating lifts and bad guys.

 

Both my daughter and son were doing the peanut gallery style cat calls and offering toddler advice while we were trying, over and over again, to get all the way up the first tower.

 

At some point my son started reading the box and saw the screenshot of the submarine bonus level. He asked me about it and I told him that I think you get to ride a submarine when you get to the top of the tower.

 

Just when the top of the tower was within reach, the tension level would build so much. My son would say "I Really Want To See Submarine!!!"

 

This comment was responsible for starting several more games then I expected.

 

Happy to say... FINALLY.... I finished tower one.

 

And yes, there is a submarine level. Its very impressive and looks like something out of Thunder Force III. I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it because my son was asking about a million questions regarding what we were seeing, all in rapid succession. Good thing the level seems to be strictly for bonus points because I'm certain I would have died if it were possible.

 

The next tower pretty much immediately killed me with a disintegrating block as soon as I moved right. Game over. Ok, enough Tower Toppler. That was a positive.

 

I think I'll do Scrapyard Dog as a second post... I'm gonna hit Post now so I don't do something dumb and lose what I just wrote above. If I don't finish tonight I'll catch you all soon.

Edited January 29, 2019 by CaptainBreakout

[jaybird3rd]

Hopefully the moderators don't move this to another sub forum. Please don't mind the system disgression, it's only going to be this one entry.

No worries! Thanks for sharing these stories!

[Syzygy1]

My half brothers started playing games 7 and 8 years old. Of course this was the late 80's the era of the nes. I was from the era of the atari 2600. It was summer 1981 I was 10 years old by then even tho I could had started sooner I wasn't introduced to gaming until then. Its cool you are now showing a new gen the gaming experience.

Do you know who the character on my avatar is without reading the text on it?

Edited February 1, 2019 by Syzygy1

[Syzygy1]

Strawberry Shortcake Musical Mix-Up received kind of a Meh response, but that was a year ago.

How dare your kids diss old-school Strawberry Shortcake? I was born in 2002, and after discovering Cherry Cuddler in a Strawberry Shortcake book from the 2000s, I looked her up and got introduced to the wonderful World of Strawberry Shortcake from the 1980s; soon after, they became the first 80s toys I ever owned and I nearly have the entire collection by now (save for Plum Puddin', Banana Twirl, and the Berry Princess; that's right, I have Peach Blush!)

[CaptainBreakout]

Well shut my mouth! I actually know who Banana Twirl is. I mean, in my case that's because I have a little sister, and I recently transfered all out childhood VHS tapes to mpeg2s. For some reason I stayed in the room while the whole episode runs where she introduced herself. I blame my love of background noise while I'm doing other things, laziness, and curiousity since I vaguely remembered it.

 

There's Berrykins. Also Plum Pudding changes sex. It's true. I remember being a little confused by this at the time. It prompted me to verify this with a Google search, and yes indeed Plum Pudding was a male up until that point.

 

Also the Berrykins get locked into a giant salt shaker and get banged around against the wall for a considerable amount of time. Who wrote this stuff? American McGee?

 

Okay anyways, something hilarious happened with Scrapyard Dog, before I forget. When it came time to pop it in, I showed my son the box, hoping for an entusiastic response.

 

What I got was a sneer.

 

"I don't like this ... Picture."

 

"You don't like it?"

 

"No... It's BAD!"

 

Um, I thought... Yeah it is kinda bad.

 

I started to regret buying this thing. Tower Toppler was cheap, but this one was considerably more pricy. I thought I'd treat myself to a still-sealed box since I couldn't find a loose cartidge. Also it was a bad day at work at the time of purchase. Even though I was fully aware of the quality level of the game when I clicked Buy, I still figured it must still be likable somehow. Here I was with my knife in hand. "Oh... Well okay are you ready?"

 

I, due presumably to a new lack of self-assurance over the situation, raked my knife across the plastic wrap. The dull blade caught on a corner, which drove my knife down into the side of the box, damaging the hell out of it.

 

So, after knocking the resale value of this thing at least 20 bucks in a single swoop, I proceeded to open the top while keeping my cool and trying to retain some false sense of excitement. I gave the freshly extracted cartidge to my son for him to examine. Fortunately my knife blade had missed it.

 

"Eh... I don't like him." He said with a look of disgust, looking at the cartoon guy on the label.

 

"I... I like it!" proclaimed my ever-supportive 2-year old daughter.

 

I held on to that uplifting comment long enough to plop the cart in the 7800 and turn it on.

 

Playing the game was hilarious, simply because my son was exactly right, and very articulate in expressing his distain for the lack of good design and aesthetics. I was forced to agree with him each time. We only played a minute or two.

 

In the game, while going down into the dumpster (which was metaphorical), he said some of his best lines. "This game is bad! This room is too hard! It's yucky. I don't like this room." That's when I shut it off. He was right.

 

So I won't get my money back. But at least it gives me some solice that I can share this experience here. That makes it worth a little more, you know, for the good of the world, dear reader.

Edited February 3, 2019 by CaptainBreakout

[CaptainBreakout]

PS: For anyone else wants to form or express an opinion on Strawberry Shortcake's Parker Brothers game (as far as its current status as appropriate for kids): You are welcome to watch this episode and let me know.

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Strawberry+shortcake+meets+the+Berrykins

Edited February 3, 2019 by CaptainBreakout

[GeekDragon]

I love reading your posts. It's great to see what a 2 and 3 year olds opinion is of 30+ year old games that we all love. Keep the posts coming.

[Syzygy1]

LMAO you need to see the Strawberry Shortcake Live record I got for my 12th birthday. Here's the story:

 

So apparently Strawberry is going to NYC for some reason, and she takes a hopeful journey by snail-drawn cart, making a wish to get there. She does, and when she reaches the city, she finds the Big Apple Disco, and they LET HER IN because she has a "baby face." She doesn't know any disco songs so she sings a song about "all the friends she's made in the city so far" and then goes sight-seeing; they like her song, sign her to a record label, and she performs a glitzy gig at the Big Apple Disco singing the "Strawberry Rap" (she thinks it's a dance.) She climbs the charts. Then she decides to pack it all up and go home, because she's homesick for her berry patch. But she's learned from her time in the city that music is all around you.

 

My questions are: did she take any drugs? She's like 6 years old if the first special is anything to go by. I wonder if she got involved in any gang violence (went to Hell's Kitchen or Harlem) or on the bright side, met Cyborg. (This album was released in 1980. Guess who also debuted in 1980.)

[CaptainBreakout]

Well, my kids are stuck completely dry for a month, game-wise.

 

Allow me to explain my situation...

 

The kids' preschool is "Waldorf-based". For those who are out of the loop of educational trends, the long and short of it means that the kids aren't supposed to have screen-time. Like... ever.

 

Not that I'm abandoning this thread. Far from it. I think this situation actually could make it more interesting.

 

Let's just say that there are some inconsistencies with the Waldorf philosophy in the actual practices of most of these schools, as far as what happens at home at least. I happen to know that the main instructor presiding over this little institution is another animation fan like myself. He's also got kids same age as mine, and I've got a pretty good idea of exactly which movies they've seen from simply observing their behavior.

 

Nevertheless, me and ALL the other parents signed a no-media-for-the-kids contract. This was presented as a social experiment, and the staff is doing it too with their kids. It's also nice that they don't pretend they don't break the rules just like all the parents do. And anyway it's just for the month of February.

 

We'll see how it goes in a month. We're going to compare notes. Maybe I'll conclusively prove whether or not Atari rots your brain after 40 years.

 

Just being facetious. You know what's also great about preschool? Pink Eye!!! My kids certainly 'learned' about Pink Eye this week. AND it's not just for kids!... There's no stoping parents from getting involved in the exciting adventure too!

 

Yep... currently my eyes are glazed over like strawberry poptarts... minus the sprinkles and hundreds of times more horrifying.

 

My wife got it in her throat. Same bug, except in that location it's called Strep (antibiotics have been deployed, but just since this afternoon). If it wasn't for Advil she'd be unable to communicate in any meaningful way. Don't touch us, we're disgusting. In fact you might want to wash your hands after you read this.

 

... Um, Namasty or whatever.

Edited February 9, 2019 by CaptainBreakout