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 On 12/04/2014 at 01:46 PM by KnightDriver See More From This User » |
So, possibly the last set of notes I'll make for Brett Weiss' book The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987. As Bob and Doug Mckenzie might say, "follow along and don't get stuck".
Stampede is my current favorite Atari 2600 game and as Brett rightly says, it's a game much underrated and under appreciated. Its minimalist and colorful design is, like all Activision games at the time, perfectly suited to the Atari 2600. The gameplay is simple but hides plenty of challenge. Let's take a look via a Classic Game Room review.
One thing I learned about the game by reading this book, was that one of the difficulty settings makes the doggies move up and down. You get to see that in the video above. For some reason, I never tried that mode.
In this entry was this quote from designer of Stampede, Bob Whitehead, concerning his opinion of modern video games:
"Too dark and derivative for my taste. The console and computer gaming business is too narrowly-defined by the 14-year-old male mentality and all his not-so-honorable fantasies. It's being driven by what has worked and afraid of what a 10 million dollar development bust will entail. It has lost its moral compass."
That last sentence, "It has lost its moral compass." is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. This could be all be just sour grapes, but it's food for thought.
The web site gamecareerguide.com was mentioned and I checked it out. Very cool site!
What's this game Star Castle for the Vectrex? Oo, another review from Lord Karnage. Let's take a look.
Oh yeah. I've played the arcade version of this. Pretty cool game. It's interesting to note that Howard Scott Warshaw, game designer at Atari, was tasked to come up with a Star Castle for the Atari 2600, but found it too difficult. So he convinced Atari to make a similar game he made called Yars' Revenge, which became one of the best selling original Atari games. This little story was revealed to me in this book in the Yars' Revenge entry.
New ending in Super Mario Bros, arcade version? Gotta see that. Start this video at minute 39.
Let's compare it to the original on NES. Start at minute 7:20.
Interesting, but not that different. It's neat they did an arcade version of SMB. I don't think I've seen that available on Virtual Console, but maybe it's there and I didn't notice it.
Maybe one more note. Turbo gameplay for the Colecovision. Here's a video that also showcases the driving wheel expansion module.
Pretty darn cool! I love the camera placement in this video. Well done! The perspective of the game reminds me of Road Rash for the Playstation. Turbo is much simpler graphically though. Still, Turbo looks like a great game for the Colecovision.
Finally for this page of notes. There's this commercial for the Atari 2600 game Turmoil that's supposed to be fun. Let's take a look.
What a perfect commercial for a video game! "It's good enough to make you. . . AHHHH!" Love it!
Let's see if I can finish this up in page 10 of these notes.
My favorite Atari 2600 game is Pressure Cooker. it's surprisingly deep for a 2600 game. Check it out.
I actually played Super Mario Bros. in the arcade long before I played it on the NES.
I always thought Turbo looked really cool graphically as a kid.
I played Pressure Cooker recently and didn't quite understand what to do. Watching a gameplay video though made me realize how to play it, so next time I'll give it a fair shot.
Never saw the Super Mario Bros. arcade machine in my area as far as I can remember but I think there was a Mario Bros. one though.
I had to read the instructions to figure out how to play Pressure Cooker, too. But once you figure things out, man is it a fun game!
Stampede is indeed a great game. Never had it when I was a kid, but when I collected systems in my 20's I discovered it. Fun game. Another good Atari game is "Hero". Very cool.
I only played H.E.R.O. a few years ago. Neat game!
You know I never heard of a Vetrex until I saw one on Youtube. Interesting concept of having the console built into the monitor.
I might have sunk in a couple of quarters into that arcade SMB, probably at a Pizza Hut with the folks. I'd like to see that version of the game available on the Virtua Console. Speaking of, I need to finish the SMB I bought on the Virtua Console.
I have SMB on virtual console for Wii and 3DS. Still haven't finished it. I find it really difficult, plus I hate repeating levels more than a handful of times.
I remember playing the arcade version of Super mario. I found it to be much harder than the NES version. it may have looked the same butr some level designs were changed and I had a hard time trying to use the joystick given how I was use to the dpad of the NES back in the day.
I wouldn't mind getting this version of Mario on the VC. too bad if it did come out we woudn't see it on the Wii =(
Great! Even harder than the game I can barely get past World 1 in. Geez!
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