End Boss Friday: 'Atari Adventure' (Atari 2600)
This week's boss isn't particularly difficult, but I believe that it deserves mention. The story involving his relationship with the hero of the game is deep, difficult to tell, and emotional.
I am speaking, of course, of the dragons from Atari Adventure for the 2600, Grundle, Yorgle, and Rhindle. No, I am not kidding, it's Grundle.
The whole story begins thousands of years ago, when the Chalice was first forged. Three dragons, Rhindle, Yorgle, and... ::sigh:: Grundle are tasked with defending the Chalice at any cost. What people don't know is that these dragons had lives, and families. Rhindle was very active in his community, having directed the local production of "Paint Your Wagon" weeks before he was tasked to protect the Chalice. Yorgle was a big brother to the orphaned dragon Mindla, who was legendary for helping Loch Ness become famous. And then there's...Grundle. He was the black sheep of the group, mostly known for eating villagers at will, and burninating cottages before a certain beefy-armed dragon did so.
In short, defending the Chalice was the biggest community service sentence in the history of dragonkind. The two dragons were so active in community service that they volunteered, but Grundle.. was forced.
The presentation of the dragons is one of the hallmarks of the Atari. They look like geese missing their feet, with a hole in their stomach. If you don't pay attention to the slow-moving dragons, you will end up in that void in their belly, devoured by the ire of Grundle, the dedication of Yorgle, or the love of Rhindle. Just so you know - Grundle's green, Yorgle is yellow, and Rhindle is red. So creative! And I'm making fun of Duke Nukem!? So as far as defeating these fearsome dragons go, you need the Sword of Destiny, aka an arrow (second screenshot above). Stab them once, they die and never get to see their families. They're not particularly difficult, but it's always satisfying to shank these dragons.
Especially when the dragon SNEAKS UP on you and ganks you while you're grabbing the chalice!
From: http://www.examiner.com/x-6939-Philadelphia-Video-Game-Examiner~y20...
From Letting Him Win to Getting Pwned by an 8 Year-Old
I remember the day that I was finally better than my father at video games. It was the first day we had an Atari 2600 and the game was Combat. Up to that point, the only video games I had played were in the arcade, and I had already proven myself a master at many stand-up games including Centipede, Pac-Man and so on. However, my father would take us to the skating rink just so he could fill out the Top Ten High score ranking on the Star Wars arcade game. You remember this one right? It was all about assaulting the Death Star and done in linear 3-D. Looked like a black and white Geometry test. I know, you are already writing in the comments that the time-line doesn’t fit. The Atari came out in 1977 and the Star Wars game not until the 80’s. I know, but I wasn’t born until 1978. So now it makes sense.
When my father plugged in that Atari though, sometime in 1984, he had been up to speed on the gaming world with the Commodore 64 and so on. He figured he’d have me beat. Not so much. I outscored him on Defender, Space Invaders, Food Fight, Ladybug and even E.T. (the worst game ever.) After that, my father rarely played me in video games, knowing that he’d be outmatched and his time was done. I was growing up in the Golden Age of gaming, though I had a lot to learn about things like humility. While I could easily best my father at video games, my brother had (and still has) a more than natural knack for console gaming. He could pick up a controller, not knowing the game and just slaughter you. I was defeated.
Fast forward to now. I have an Xbox 360 and a Wii. I don’t play PC games anymore, not since the first Age of Empires. I’ve kept up with the Xbox over the years, had a Playstation for a little while and I have a dusty old Atari 2600. Like me, it was the first system my 8 year-old played. He took to it like a bear hunting Salmon, and has turned into quite a gamer. At 8 years old, he’s beating games on his DS quicker than I can raid the used game shelf at Gamestop and the DS is as worn as his baseball cleats. I like to call him a “Tri-Sport Athlete”, as he plays baseball, football and video games year round...
From: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/05/from-letting-him-win-to-gettin...
Collector Spotlight - James Griffith
James Griffith is the perfect example of a true classic gaming collector. I first met James a few years ago, and quickly struck up a friendship with him based on our mutual obssession with old video games. I quickly realized two things; he is extremely knowledgable about his retro gaming, and also hoplessly addicted to everything related to the Atari Jaguar. Speaking with James last week, we setup a time for me to visit him at his home in St. Louis Park to take photos of his constantly expanding collection of Atari Jaguar systems, games and memoriablia for my ongoing photographic record of classic video games. After the photoshoot was finished, I asked James if he would be willing to sit down and talk about how he got started with being an Atari Jaguar collector, and a bit of the history of the system itself...
From: http://www.examiner.com/x-10330-Minneapolis-Classic-Video-Game-Exam...
7 Gaming Systems that Were Epic Failure!
This article is dug from Tom’s Hardware site,which I’d think it was interesting particular for gamers who are conscious on the timeline of gaming consoles/devices.Gaming consoles are made to thrill and perks up human beings,but sadly not every inventions are perfect.Some of them may result drawbacks and negative response from the market.For instance..
7. TurboGrafx-16:
6. Game Gear:
5. Sega CD:
4. Virtual Boy:
3. N-Gage:
2. Atari Jaguar:This is probably the worst gaming system ever made, but
I have my own reasons for putting it number two. The Atari Jaguar was
full of faults. Bad games, poor construction and questions of it really
was 64-bit seemed to plague the Jaguar. I, on the other hand, always
seem to dwell on the controller. The Jaguar’s controller was the
most insane controller I have ever seen. I am not a 100% sure on this,
but I believe it had somewhere near 9,000 buttons. It was so beefy
that you could kill anyone that questioned you for owning it. The Jaguar
went on to end Atari’s claim in the home gaming industry and left
the company’s legacy in pieces.
1. Neo Geo:
Runner-ups to this list included the 3DO and Apple Bandai.
Link: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/satire-toms-hardware-news-reviews,...
From: http://skychinstudio.com/?p=695
New Version Of The 8bit Atari Emulator Atari++
This Atari 400, 400XL, 800, 800XL, 130XE and 5200 emulator has seen an update so let’s dive in and see what’s what shall we?
# Fixed parsing the preferences. No longer gets stuck if one of the modules
failes initialization.
# Fixed error handling in the full module - could crash.
# Fixed initialization of the FMS. The previous version wasn´t able to
to run the DUP if the DOSINI vector was populated.
# Fixed memory reservation of the emulated 850 interface.
# Fixed complation issue on latest g++ compilers.
Link: http://www.xl-project.com/
Link: http://www.emuhq.com/download/3449/
From: http://www.emuhq.com/emulators/console/5200/atariplusplus/news/2009...
Atari Computer Enthusiasts of Columbus 2009 Swap Meet Announced
GREAT NEWS ATARI FANS!!!
The Atari Computer Enthusiasts of Columbus will be holding the annual vintange computer and video game swap meet on Saturday September 12th 2009. It will be held at the same place as last year. As you might notice, we have a new name. This year we are going to include all vinatge and classic computers and video games, systems, accessories, games, and software.
Oakland Park Community Building
980 Lenore Ave.
Columbus, Oh.
Right now the time for the swap meet is from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
We have something new this year!
Admission is FREE! FREE! FREE!
That is right, it is free for both vendors and shoppers! Vendors, please contact us to reserve tables. As it will be first come first serve. We may have to limit the number of tables for each vendor.
Please check back often for updates and further information.
Link: http://www.angelfire.com/oh4/acec/acec.html
From: http://www.atari.org/
Classic Video Gamer Magazine Premier Issue
A new classic video game magazine has arrived on the scene, Classic Video Gamer Magazine (Classic VGM). ClassicVGM covers all retro console systems, from the Atari 2600 to the Sega Dreamcast (and everything in between). The first issue contains great content regarding batari Basic, a report on the Midwest Gaming Classic, The Playstation Underground, various reviews of classic games, and other game related topics we all love to discuss. AtariAge user triverse has posted a review of Classic Video Gamer Magazine's first issue. You can learn more about ClassicVGM by visiting their website at www.classicvgm.com, where you can purchase a digital copy of the first issue for $1.95, or pre-order the full-color, printed release of the magazine coming soon! A PDF sample of the cover and several interior pages is also available at the ClassicVGM site.
Link: http://www.classicvgm.com/
From: http://www.atariage.com/
SNDH archive v3.0 released
To celebrate the biggest Atari party of the year (Outline in case you wonder), we have released a new update of the SNDH archive. v3.0 of the SNDH archive brings 35 new or updated SNDH files. It's a mix of brand new (even from the Outline compo!) and really old game tunes.
Link: http://sndh.atari.org/
From: http://www.dhs.nu/
New Atari crew born
Morden of Reboot writes:
"reboot" is a new group consiting of four individuals, coming together to create new software for the Atari Jaguar, ST and Falcon. We have loads of enthusiasm, and lots of project ideas for future titles, so please stay tuned into our website. For starters, we have a preview video of our upcoming Jaguar game. The footage was shot roughly 3 days into development, so we expect it to improve vastly (especially when our artist gets to work on it!) Once completed we will be releasing full source code, and also hopefully porting it to the Falcon and then the Atari ST. Please, come and visit our site. Many thanks to atari.org for the domain registration, and to D-Bug for kindly donating us web hosting.
Link: http://reboot.atari.org/
From: http://www.dhs.nu/
Updated No Fragment CD's
Lotek Style of .tSCc. writes:
Lotek Style of tSCc has released two new CD-Roms from his NO FRAGMENTS series. This it's archive ONE and TWO refixed! Archive ONE has lots of new demos on it as it is a 700 MB CD this time (first one was on 650 MB) and many of the MSA files have been repacked using compression ON! So there are over 200 new files on there now. Archive TWO has just some replaced MSA files that were damaged before.
Link: http://no-fragments.atari.org/
From: http://www.dhs.nu/
