Colecovision RPG

An RPG for the Colecovision. This is a mock-up.

Alien

An alien. 

Frenzy Poster

This particular poster is for the Colecovision version of Frenzy, but this artwork originally came out with the arcade version in 1982. That 2 years before George Cameron would make skeleton robots famous with The Terminator in 1984. This particular drawing is obviously inspired by Star Wars, as the R2-D2 unit can testify.

So Star Wars inspired Frenzy which likely inspired The Terminator.

Fat Warrior and Skeleton

Pixel art. Orange and green remind me of CGA graphics.

2013 Houston Pinball & Arcade Expo

I saw a Berzerk machine for the first time. It was sitting next to Ghost 'N Goblins and Robotron: 2084. I was at the 2013 Houston Pinball and Arcade Expo.

Over 200 machines filled the bottom floor of the Crown Plaza. The first was dark and blasting '80s tunes. The second was brighter and half filled with machines. The other half consisted of arcade junk vendors, a pinball tournament, and arcade tournament, the Atari Age booth, and kitsch vendors.

My girlfriend and I had driven in and arrived just an hour after opening. It had already been in full gear since Friday afternoon, with the hardcore partying until 2:00a.m., and undoubetly past that for the truly hardcore.

Every machine at this place, except for the pinballs, is from the '80s and '90s. Asteroids, Donkey Kong, 2x Robotrons, Berzerk, Star Wars, Tron, I Robot, Virtua Fighter, Centipede, Battlezone, Tempest, and others.

Atari Age (.com) had a huge booth with about 20 Monitors. Each had an Atari System or classic computer. 5 or 6 Homebrew titles published by Atari Age were on display with their boxes and information about the title. Frenzy, Space Rocks, Ixion, Seaweed Assault, and Stay Frost saw constant playtime, and it's cool that the homebrews were displayed so well. Also, there were Colecovisions, Commodore 64s, an Apple ][ and a Dreamcast. I set the high score on the Apple ][, which was was running Galaxian all day. Samiorigami discovered Adventure II on one of the 5200s and beat it twice.

I found a weird looking machine, Major Havok. It's a vector based shooter/platformer with minigames in between stages. It's one of the best arcade games of all time, and I've never even played it before this week! I'm hooked on this machine, and I probably spend about 1.5 hours of the day playing it.

But I couldn't stick to one machine, there were the pins, of course. Xenon, Stars, Centaur, Demolition Man, The Wizard, Kiss, The Black Knight 2000, Terminator 2, Pinbot, Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Mnemonic, and dozens more. There were new machines as well: Wizard of Oz, Metallica, and Star Trek are all new and play very well. Wizard of Oz is the flashiest thing in the universe. The Metallica machine was camped out for hours by a pair of friends with pinball tattoos. Also I met Steve Richie, the famous pinball designer and he talked a little about his new Star Wars machine from a rules perspective.

Someone else brought a Vectrex and Virtual Boy. And the Vectrex was totally wicked. Vectrex was released into the public domain in the '90s, the system OS and the ROMs, so you should go download ParaJVE (http://vectrex-emu.blogspot.com/) right now and check out the Vectrex. It's free and you have nothing to lose. Dark Tower is especially fun, and Frogger plays like it's arcade perfect. The Berzerk port surpasses the 2600 by a mile. Awesome vectors.

After 10 hours we had to leave, but I scored 8x $1 Star Wars Action figures, 2x $1 He-Man Action figures, and 12x $1 untested Atari 2600 Carts.

I'm going back next year.

Arcade Music

What's your perfect arcade playlist? Not talking about music from arcade games, just the heavenly tunes that permeate those dark flashing smoke filled computer temples of the past.

I've got a few suggestions to get your personal Arcade playlist started, but to get an authentic feel we need to move beyond the obvious "Come On Eileen's" and "Billie Jeans's."

So let us build a list of the best sounds for your own personal arcade. Or for a 10 hours M.A.M.E. binge. No judgements.

1. The Clash - Death or Glory
2. The Police - Walking on the Moon
3. Flock of Seagulls - Space Age Love Song
4. Flock of Seagulls - I Ran (So Far Away)
5. The Alan Parson's Project - Games People Play
6. David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes
7. Blondie - Atomic
8. Paul Engemann - Scarface (Push it to the Limit)
9. R.E.M. - The One I Love
10. Talking Head - Psycho Killer

What else we got? Post your own additions, suggestions, etc.

Asteroids Atari 2600/VCS

One of my favorite games on the 2600, Asteroids uses the hardware well to create an addicting game with a fun premise. Everyone like space shooters, and the idea of being a rogue fighter pilot is classic. It's almost as if the display could actually be a representation of a futuristic ship, something of a remote-control Ender's Game type situation. 

After a few practice runs, I managed to roll the score over twice and get 247,940 points tonight. My strategy is pretty basic: I never fly around, just spin and shoot the closest asteroid. Getting the angles right is key, but the game remains challenging. I never have more than 10 lives stored up, and when one life is lost, a few more tend to follow. 

Asteroids is reason enough to own an Atari, and it and Missile Command are available on most of the Atari reproduction consoles and collections.

In some ways, I like this version better than the arcade original. The arcade game tends to be about keeping 1 asteroid on the the screen and farming UFOs. That's not how you play the one on the Atari, and in that sense it's a much better game. Having to farm UFOs (or spiders in Centipede) can only hold one's attention for so long, and I think that's the reason game with progressive levels (Missile Command, Galaga, Galaxian, Pac-Man) continue to be more popular.

There is no reason to ever be bored if you own Asteroids for the Atari 2600.