From The Vault: A Look At Box Art From Classic Sports Games
Classic box art takes its share of lumps among gamers, most often for the generally goofy art. And yes, the neon colors, squiggly ‘90s shapes and abundance of sunglasses-sporting heroes make game covers a fair target. Turn those boxes over, however, and you’ll often see stuff that’s equally as interesting. Whether it’s ridiculous claims in the bullet points, dated screenshots or references of hardware long past their day, boxes offer a fascinating look at gaming’s past.
With that in mind, we’ve dug into the Game Informer vault and found an array of memorable boxes, highlighting points of particular interest. We’re starting off with sports games, spanning the days of the 2600 up to the Nintendo 64.
Link: http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200906/N09.0624.1728.27460.htm
From: http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/
Classic Game Room HD - SPIDER-MAN for Atari 2600
Classic Game Room was the FIRST classic video game review show on the Internet in 1999. Returning in 2008 with new episodes, Classic Game Room HD breaks out a review of SPIDER-MAN for the Atari 2600 video game console VCS. Do you remember the Spiderman comic books from back in the day? Did you watch the Spider Man and His Amazing Friends TV show where he was friends with Iceman and Firestar? Did you like the first Spiderman movie but not the other two? Well, SPIDERMAN the video game is FOR YOU!
This game is a lot of fun and a rare cartridge for you Atari 2600 collectors out there to find in mint condition. You play as Spidey, everyone's favorite web slinger, and climb up the sides of buildings to defeat bad guys and disarm bombs. Watch out for the Green Goblin! Venom does not make an appearance in this game. Although there have been other SPIDERMAN video games and maybe even some for the Playstation 3, PS3, Xbox 360, PS2 and Wii, this game could be the best because of its simplicity and fun gameplay. Be the Amazing Spider Man from Marvel Comics, be the owner of this classic arcade style old school retro video game.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hvlQrME5g4
From: http://newgamefor.com/new-game-for-ps3/classic-game-room-hd-spider-...
No Atari 7800? You missed out on Ninja Golf
Rating: (This game is before the ESRB's time, so it doesn't have a rating. It probably would be rated E, though.)
Score: 9.5/10
"Nostalgic Reviews" is a new series where I review older games. Why? Because there are some games that received less credit than they deserved. Some games were not appreciated as they were considered minor characters in a minor game. Ninja Golf is the third in this series.
Ninja Golf was not a typical or overlooked minor player.
Everyone has played Ninja Golf, right?
Oh yeah, it was on the Atari 7800...a system no one owned. This game had the misfortune of being released on a poor platform. Otherwise, this game was a masterpiece. You took one look at that box art, and you were hooked. I mean, come on! That ninja is loaded with golf clubs. Everyone knows: The only thing worse than a ninja is a crazy ninja with golf clubs.
The story is told in one sentence right before the game. "After many long years of ninja training, you are finally ready for the most difficult test of all...nine holes of Ninja Golf!"
I have no idea why the game designers would choose golf of all sports. When I think of a sport ninjas might be ininterested in, fighting/wrestling (such as the ninja in Virtual Fighter), or perhaps épée (using their talent with swords), but certainly not golf.
But golf is hard, so they might have something after all.
It starts out as a normal golf game: You aim your shot, and you swing. It's after your swing you find out your ninja doesn't have a golf cart; he just runs to the ball.
Other ninjas don't want him to win, so what do they do? Feed him a freshly baked knuckle sandwich, of course. They aren't the only ones who plot this ninja's demise. Gophers, birds, mutant frogs, snakes and even sharks are all trying to stop your ninja. Luckily, you're armed with shuriken, and you can find more shuriken (if you run out), and other potions and medkits on the ground.
So, between you and your golf ball are multiple ninjas and gophers/snakes/mutant frogs/birds/sharks (depending on where you are: Normal course has gophers, bunker has snakes, tall grass for mutant frogs, water for sharks, and birds for forest). If you survive to the green, then you must take down a dragon. You expected your ninja to start putting? No, he shoots shuriken at the dragon to finish up a hole.
The first few holes are pretty easy, but then the game will get harder. Even on the easy setting, you'll probably not make it through the game. Also, this is likely the first game ever to have a "Kamikaze" difficulty. It's one of the most amazing names for an "expert" difficulty for a game.
If you don't own an Atari 7800 (which you probably don't), you're in luck! You can find a remake online under the same title. It's worth checking out, although it doesn't quite do the full game justice. It has much better graphics, and actual music, but it doesn't quite have the solid controls the original did. Considering Ebay is the only place you'll find an Atari 7800 nowadays, you might as well try out the flash version (Ebay prices can range from $1 to $60, but it probably won't work anymore).
This game has it all. Ninjas, sports, sharks, dragons, good controls, and even a great challenge! It's a shame such a game was never played because no one had the Atari. The only chance people will have of playing the original is if (in the unlikely event) it gets released through Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, and the Playstation Network. It's very unlikely, but one can hope.
Matthew Forbes is a 15-year-old writer and gamer from Miramichi.
From: http://miramichileader.canadaeast.com/leisure/article/710446
The 12 greatest arcade machines of all time
Take two steps into your local Chuck E Cheese funtropolis – which, for the record, would be three steps more than we’d actually recommend you take – and it’s obvious that the days when videogame arcades were a beeping, flashing fountainhead of innovation, style and even culture are long gone. But we still have fond memories of the years when game systems were the size of refrigerators and a quarter was worth much, much more than 25 cents.
Why? Because some of those games were fantastic. Some were influential. Some still play well today. And a very select few can still light all three of those lamps. Those are the greatest arcade machines of all time.
Pong
Released 1972
Don’t get us wrong: Pong was not the first video game. It wasn’t even the first video game in which two paddles bounced a ball back and forth. But it was the first one that mattered. It was the match that lit the fuse that set off the bomb that exploded into the industry we love today. And it also happens to be the single most accessible game of all time – we dare you to find a game that’s easier to understand – and remains surprisingly captivating almost 40 years later.
(And 11 more at the link below!)
From: http://www.gamesradar.com/ds/f/the-12-greatest-arcade-machines-of-a...
Atari Jaguar Review: Rayman
The character with no limbs, Rayman, began his legacy on the Jaguar in mid 1995. This 2D platformer was one of the few big third party games for the Jaguar, and the only game from Ubisoft.
Rayman plays like your standard 2D platformer. This game’s hook, is that Rayman himself is limbless. He features hands, feet, torso, and head, but nothing connecting these pieces. His main attack is actually throwing his fist at enemies, which can go quite far considering he has no arms. His hair also spins, and acts as a helicopter, allowing a short time of hovering. He can also hang from ledges and swing from hooks. Rayman cannot jump on top of enemies.
Rayman features 17 levels across 5 worlds. Dream Forest is a forest style level. Band Lands is a musical themed land up in the clouds. Blue Mountain is takes place on mountains and caves. Picture City is some type of giant art world. The Caves of Scope are caverns. The last level (and world) is Candy Chateau.
When you initially start Rayman, you do not have any abilities. As your progress through the the game, a fairy grants you your abilities, (punching, hanging, swinging, gliding, and running). After gaining new abilities, you can go through past levels and discover new areas are now accessible with your new abilities.
From: http://implantgames.com/?p=330
Losing Control
I, like many of you, have grown up witnessing the evolution of gaming controllers. For me it started off with the one button, one joystick simplicity of the Atari 2600. The humble joystick saw more complicated designs over the years, often tending to resemble flight sticks, with trigger and turbo buttons and all other manners of bells and whistles, but the Atari 2600 Joystick is a controller that still serves as an iconic symbol of that gaming era.
(Much more at the following link)
From: http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/2009/06/losing-control.html
The Making Of: Pitfall!
Lengthy article from Edge Magazine. Here's a teaser:
Pitfall Harry is stuck in the jungle. He’s racing through, swinging from vines, jumping on alligator heads, grabbing treasures and looking for shortcuts. For David Crane, the creator and programmer of Pitfall!, one of the first Activision games for the Atari 2600, the hardest part of the game wasn’t avoiding the scorpions or coiled snakes, it was trying to jam a lot of game into only 4K of memory.
I loved the technical challenge of designing games on the 2600,” says Crane of Atari’s first console unit. He and his fellow game developers for the much-loved 2600 were more than aware of the restrictions they were dealing with. They would have to write an entire game, complete with graphics, gameplay, sound effects and all the scoring in just 4096 bytes. You could hardly let your imagination run wild with that kind of memory size. “A lot of the game features in those days were not what you could think of, but what you could actually achieve.” At that time, Crane’s complete design philosophy was to first think of a clever and original technical achievement and then to build a game around it.
The ‘little running man’ was really the technical hurdle,” says Crane. “If you think back to the state-of-the-art videogames of the late-’70s, there were very few attempts at animated figures in games. You controlled tanks, jet planes, Pong paddles and so on because the limited number of display pixels severely restricted the creation of smooth animation. I had developed a realistic-looking human character in 1979 before I had a game idea that needed one. The difficulty was coming up with a game that made sense to have a little running man in it.” For three years, Crane tested the character in different scenarios such as a ‘cops and robbers’ game, but it didn’t work and was therefore shelved.
In 1982, while he was between games, Crane finally decided he would figure out a game for the ‘little running man.’ “I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and drew a stick figure in the centre. I said, ‘Okay, I have a little running man and let’s put him on a path’ (two more lines drawn on the paper). ‘Where is the path? Let’s put it in a jungle’ (draw some trees). ‘Why is he running?’ (draw treasures to collect, enemies to avoid and so on). And Pitfall! was born.” The man became known as Pitfall Harry. “This entire process took about ten minutes. About 1,000 hours of programming later, the game was complete. In that era we said we spent 90 per cent of our time writing the last ten per cent of the game.”
From: http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of-pitfall
Universal Buys Film Rights to Atari Game Asteroids
I don’t know if studios are running out of ideas, but it seems like they are turning to unlikely ideas for movies. Monopoly, Clue, and Battleship are all turning into movies, and now the Atari video game “Asteriod” is going to appear on the big screen. Universal just outbid three other studios for the film rights to the game. The script is to be written by Matthew Lopez and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
This is craziness. It is hard to imagine a group of studio execs fighting over the film right to this game. Do they have the most amazing story to go along with the game? I can’t imagine they do. The game is simply controlling a triangle ship through an asteroid field. I don’t see why they couldn’t base a film off of the same concept and skip the bidding war part. I am mostly against this because I fear they will turn it into total crap.
Link: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=56844
From: http://screencrave.com/2009-07-02/universal-buys-film-rights-to-ata...
The Top 5 Atari 2600 Games
The Atari 2600, revolutionary, ahead of its time and most importantly loads of fun. No longer did we ask mom and dad for chutes and ladders, parcheesi or hungry hungry hippo. Now we had an interactive experience in the palm of our hands, literally!
#5 River Raid – Activision – 1982
#4 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back – Parker Brothers – 1982
#3 Pitfall – Activision – 1982
#2 Enduro- Activision – 1983
#1 Keystone Kapers – Activition – 1983
Complete with video!
From: http://www.perezstart.com/retro/the-top-5-atari-2600-games/6875/
Donkey Kong Easter Egg Discovered 26 Years Later
Last year, the coder who wrote the Atari 400 port of Donkey Kong revealed it had an Easter Egg but it’s “totally not worth it.” Someone has gone to the trouble of finding it. Donkey Kong for the Atari 400 and 800 was one of the best early ports of an arcade game, and its writer, Landon Dyer, detailed how he built it practically by himself , with no support, reference code, or anything one would expect in a licensing deal. He also revealed the existence of the Easter egg, but incorrectly described how to get it (”something like: Die on the ’sandpile’ level with 3 lives and the score over 7,000,” he writes.) Don Hodges, who earlier fixed Pac-Man’s notorious kill screen , set to picking apart the Donkey Kong code and finding the egg. He did. It’s rather underwhelming, but for posterity’s sake, he found the conditions for achieving it. • Play a game, setting a new high score that is either 37,000, 73,000 or 77,000. The digits for hundred thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones may be anything. • Kill off all of your remaining lives, but your last death must be by falling. • Then set the game difficulty to 4 (press the option button 3 times.) • Wait for the game to cycle through the demo screen where Kong jumps across the screen, then at the title screen, the programmer’s initials, LMD, will appear. (Pictured above) That is a set of conditions so specific I can’t imagine anyone discovering the egg without prying apart the code, much less knowing how to repeat it. Hodges shows how he found it in the code, using an emulator. I think the only question remaining is why Dyer made the egg so hard to discover. Certainly other Atari-programmed games of the time had Easter eggs that were not only easier to find, their methods were widely known and circulated.
Link: http://kotaku.com/5307375/donkey-kong-easter-egg-discovered-26-year...
From: http://www.gameguru.in/general/2009/04/source-code-for-atari-7800-g...
