PixlBit

I finally pulled myself away from Army of Ruin and got through all my Atari games. I packed them all up and will be digging into NES next week. 

Army of Ruin

This is one of my crazy captures. Get the right weapons upgraded and the screen just explodes

I finally got fed up with it playing higher difficulty Ruin levels. The one thing I can't stand with difficulty spikes is messin' with the randomization. Add more enemies, make them stronger and faster, add more traps, do all of that but don't mess with the cards delt me. As you level you get cards to choose from which can give you new weapons and trinkets. The trinkets enfuse elements into the weapons to enable them to evolve when they hit level 5. What happens is that you choose a weapon and then the elements you need for it never show up even after rerolls. I hate seeing this kind of manipulation as a way to add difficulty. So I stopped playing and I'm grateful because I could finally get to the retro Atari stuff. 

To make things more interesting, I wrote down my scores for each game I owned and played on my Atari 2600 Junior. 

First things first though, I had a bent pin in my controller jack I had to fix. One pin down and you suddenly can't move up in any game. MK fixed it and I moved on. 

Scores (all on the first game variant on easiest difficulty)

Breakout - 71. My old paddle controller is a little wonky making the on screen paddle wiggle just enough to make it hard to be precise. 
Breakout (Plug 'n' Play) - 279. I got this brand new Plug 'n' Play and so the the dial controller is accurate and without fault. I could control play like I used to back in 1980 and actually cleared a screen. 
Bowling - 148. I only played it once being a little bored of it. I can do better. 
Sky Diver - 50. A new discovery for me. I really like the gameplay of this. You have to open the chute at the right time and judge for wind to hit that target. Simple yet challenging. 
Golf - +5 on a 9 hole, par 36 course. Weirdly, I got an eagle on one hole with a shot angle I had never considered before. There's something new to learn even in this simple game. 
Ice Hockey - I lost 8 to 9 in a 3 minute game against the AI. Surprisingly fun and even better with a friend. 
Stampede - 1921. One of my favorite AVCS games - a cowboy cattle rustling game. 
Tennis (Activision) - I got only one point in the six game set against the unbeatable AI player. I seem to  remember this being the case way back too. It's always better against a real player. 
Super Breakout - 74. My bad controller again. 
Super Breakout (Plug 'n' Play) - 418. I can manage it even when the paddle shrinks and the ball speeds up because of the brand new Plug 'n' Play controller. I don't think I've lost my touch. 
Cosmic Ark - 5990. I love this game but the screen where you fend off asteroids is tense as heck. The ship is very big on the screen leaving very little time to react to asteroids coming from every direction. You have to just react instantly. I'd like a smaller ship or more screen for this part.
Starmaster - This is a surprisingly complex game for the AVCS, and I'm not even sure which number is the score. Why can't you choose any sector of the galaxy to warp to anyway? I need a little more time with this to start making headway. 
Berzerk - 2220. A lot of times when you enter a new room, it's right next to a robot who shoots you dead and then keeps shooting. That part always makes me laugh. They're rage robots. 
Frogs and Flies - I won 30 to 24 against the AI. Surprisingly fun game, a port of Frog Bog from Intellivision. 
Venture - 1200. Surprisingly difficult! I remember loving the arcade game. This is a good port of it but enemy movements are too fast and unpredictable. With more time, I could probably start making better scores. 
Galaxian - 5800. I got to the mother ship, which I never did on the arcade game. It always interests me the way you can't take a second shot until your first hits something. So miss and you'll have to wait longer to reload. This mechanic didn't carry over into Galaga. 
Phoenix - 9420. Enemy movements are really unpredictable making this pretty challenging. If I play more, I might start seeing some patterns and make a better score. 
Solaris - 3080. I still can't believe I'm seeing these graphics on an AVCS. Quite an achievement. Just like Starmaster, I'm having some trouble navigating the star map. Where do I warp to again? I got to read a manual or something. Nah. 
Dark Chambers - 5850. Part of the evolution of Dandy to Gauntlet. This is basically Gauntlet on AVCS. I really don't like the samey screens that make navigation a chore just like in Adventure. I kept going down levels without a notion what I was doing. Am I collecting challaces? I got to read somethin'. Nah. 

And that's all I got. Afterwards, I went back to Xbox and played Puzzle Quest Immortal Edition. I rolled up a new character, a Warrior named Lucius, the main character of The Golden Ass (ancient Roman novel) I'm reading. I'm randomizing as much of it as I can and seeing how far I get. So far so good at level 10. 

Next week I'll be breaking out the NES games at MK's place and the Game Boy at home. I'm excited at least.