Atari 2600 Surprise!

No, you haven't skipped ahead a day and arrived on Box Art Wednesday, dear reader. As I stated yesterday I had planned on reviewing Dead Rising 2 after I picked it up at my local Gamestop at midnight. However that was not to be. I arrived at the store to pick up my collector's edition to learn that they were delayed and wouldn't arrive until this afternoon. I did get my copy today though so perhaps I'll write up a quick review for a bonus Box Art Wednesday post.

What you see posted above, rather crookedly, thanks to the scanner here at the vault are Atari 2600 titles I purchased today at my local Vintage Stock...still in box and miraculously still containing their instruction manuals. Good friend and loyal reader, Jon B., spotted these as they came into the store and was kind enough to send me an e-mail.

Jon, we here at the Victory Pellet Vault salute you! Expect one of my best Radium Chimps as a present...just keep it away from small children and pregnant women.

Box Art Wednesday.

For today's Box Art Wednesday we are focusing on three games that I've been enjoying on X-Box Live's Arcade. Two of these titles have been reviewed by myself last year...but I'm on low output today so I'll beg you to indulge my laziness for this post.

I've held no secret of my admiration for Dan Kitchen and Steve Cartwright and their amazing work with Activision back in the glory days of the Atari 2600, you can play any of these three titles presented today and find yourself challenged as much as any recent release on the store shelf.

Steve Cartwright (MegaMania, Seaquest, Plaque Attack) programmed both Frostbite and Barnstorming for Activision in 1983. Frostbite has you donning the fur lined shoes of Frostbite Bailey as he attempts to cross ice flows, avoiding various animals that are bent on pushing him into the frigid waters, each successful jump adds one block to his Igloo and he needs to move fast as the temperature is quickly falling.

Barnstorming puts you in the pilot seat of a Biplane as you navigate obstacles in a bid to reach the finish line with the lowest time possible. You must contend with geese, windmills, and flying through a set number of open barn doors.

Crackpots was programmed by Dan Kitchen in 1983 (Ghostbusters) and has you aiding Potsy the rooftop gardener as defends his building from an invading swarm of insects that are dead set on eating the entire building. By dropping potted petunias on the creepy crawlies he is spared watching the insects eating his home one level at a time.

If you find yourself on X-Box Live, look me up in the Arcade, my gamertag is Unicron2005! Thanks as always to Atari Age for the great signed box art pics posted above.

The Girl At The Videogame Store - Parry Gripp

Jail Break.

It's been a little too busy here at the Victory Pellet Vault the last couple of weeks but yesterday I was able to put in a couple of hours playing X-Box Live. I decided to check out Game Room on Live and was very happy to see that they had updated the arcade with quite a few new title choices as well as a ton of Activision Atari 2600 titles.

The game that I spent the most time playing yesterday was a little gem released by Konami in 1985 called Jail Break. The premise of the game is that a mass riot has broken out in a Federal prison, the inmates have captured the Warden and are holding him hostage, while they also roam the streets terrorizing its citizens and killing any law official they happen to see.

Jail Break is a side-scrolling game where you are in control of a lone police officer called in to deal with the riot, starting off with merely your service revolver you can obtain two more weapons (a bazooka and tear gas launcher) by saving the civilians you come across, I was stuck with the revolver most of the time as my run and gun method unfortunately didn't lend itself to civilian safety.

This is a pretty tough game as the inmates do not just merely walk towards you, they swarm you while at the same time throwing Molotov cocktails at you and using their own firearms to try to kill you. I wasn't able to get very far in the game during my limited play time but I definitely had a blast playing it. You have to be pretty careful on how fast you advance on the screen as more often than not you'll end up walking into an oncoming bullet.

At one point I shot a barrel with my bazooka and a shirtless Batman appeared...smiled at me and then disappeared. I'm not sure what that was all about but at least it gave me a pretty hardy chuckle.

A little research shows that this game was inspired by John Carpenter's Escape From New York and that there is an Easter egg of sorts...a type that I've not heard of before...if you use your tear gas gun on the first sniper in the window it will reveal a brief glimpse of a pixelated topless female. I am going out on a limb here and saying that Microsoft made sure that was removed before it was released on X-Box live.

Thanks to the Twin Galaxies scoreboard, the high-score holder for Jail Break is Martin Deem with 265,450 points, recorded by referee on February 21st, 1985.

Universal Theme - Nigel Godrich (Scott Pilgrim Original Score)

Numb Thumb Hall Of Fame.

Make sure to click the above pictures to make them readable!

Many of you loyal readers have seen my countless posts where I've talked about my longing for the famed and much coveted Activision patches that were offered back in the day for reaching a certain set score, taking a photo of it, and sending it in to await the arrival of said prestigious patch.

I was not aware however that another great game company of the time, Imagic, had their own patch award...not to mention the chance to win t-shirts and jackets. I wish I had because from the scanned magazine page provided by Atari Age above, from the Numb Thumb News back in 1983 I believe I would have been able to secure a Dragonfire patch!

Make sure to check out that last article where Bob Smith is interviewed, he also was the programmer on one of my fave Atari games, Riddle of the Sphinx. Which was way ahead of its time! I wish there was a vast archive for interviews with these programmers of the golden age of video games because I know I cannot be the only gamer who longs for more information on what it was like back in the game making business!



Here In My Heart - Al Martino

Box Art Wednesday.

Today's Box Art Wednesday is brought to you by the letter I for Intellivision!

Really busy today here at the Victory Pellet Vault so all I have time to add is that Stampede by Activision was the best cattle rustling title to be released for a console until Red Dead Redemption hit the shelves last week.

Roxanne - Sting

"It's gonna drive you insane."

Back in 1982 in my youth my first introduction to the Atari 2600 title Megamania was through the TBS aired Starcade during a commercial break. The advertisement is reminiscent of MTV videos of the 80's with music provided by The Tubes, I'll post the commercial below for your enjoyment.




Unfortunately I was not able to get my hands on Megamania until the Activision Anthology was released for the Playstation 2 in 2002. I found it to be an enjoyable but very tasking title. The gameplay is a riff on Space Invaders where you control a ship and must fire a shot upwards to hit moving targets as they descend upon you, however in Megamania the objects move much faster in a cascading effect and will reverse direction which can easily result in the loss of your ship by collision.

To add to the difficulty of the game you have an energy bar that depletes the more shots you fire but at least you can control your fired shot, move it just a little to the left or right so that it helps connect with the fast moving objects above you.

The enemies in Megamania are a little odd. You are not fighting an alien invasion in this title but are stuck in a nightmare where you must defeat bow ties, hamburgers, and steam irons. I'm guessing that Steve Cartwright must have been having sleepless nights when he was designing this title.

I've come to play this title again quite a bit just recently as the X-Box Game Room has added it to its available Atari 2600 titles. It's worth the 240 points because while it may not have the next gen graphics we've grown accustomed to it still has an outstanding and challenging game play. Feel free to look me up by my online gamer tag, Unicron2005, if you want to spend an evening blasting 8-bit foes!

Thanks to Atari Age for the pictures above, check out the box cover, the creator of the title Steve Cartwright signed it!

Sure you were good at games...

...but were you good enough to get a sew on patch for your efforts?

These patches, which were offered on quite a few of the classic Activision games, were one of the things that really set Activision apart from the rest of the game developers. In your manual you would have a set or sets of scores to achieve and then with your Polaroid camera you took a picture of the television screen and submitted it...then in a few weeks you would get back an awesome bragging right to sew onto your silver Atari jackets!

The only one that I seemed to have a knack for was Robot Tank, kind of a swiped version of Atari's own Battlezone...though Activision improved upon it. You had four parts of your tank that could be damaged, your treads, speed, radar, and of course the view screen. It also had varying weather patterns to cause all manner of havoc on you, especially in fog when your view screen is rolling and sparking out.

How good did you have to be in Robot Tank? 4 Squadrons/48 tanks for the Medal of Merit. 5 Squadrons/60 tanks for the Cross of Excellence. 6 Squadrons/72 tanks for the Star of Honor.

These were not easy things to achieve and to this day I long to be able to buy someone's collection of Activision patches...as well as one of those silver Atari jackets.

Oh, to get the Explorer's Club patch? You needed to get 20,000 points in Pitfall. Yet again, no easy task back in the day. There were a total of 32 treasures and to achieve this score you needed to not die, not get 'hurt' like landing on fire or touching the rolling logs, falling into a pit, etc.