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Another OT: Old games...

S U N risr

1/13/2012 4:17:00 PM

Last night, I had the house to myself for a couple hours. I ran a
couple dungeons and then looked and saw the family was due home within
the next 1/2 hour or so and didn't want to be in the middle of an
instance when they came home. So I logged out an set up a present I had
gotten from a relative on the big screen in the living room...An "Atari
Flashback" system, which looks like a mini Atari 2600, comes with two of
the regular joysticks and has 40 or so built in games. I figured "what
the hell...why not". So I set this up and am playing it with memories
coming back to me, when my 9 yo comes home. She see's this and the
conversation goes:

her: what is THAT!?"
me: These are the video games daddy played when he was your age. The
graphics are bad, but they're still fun
her: Oh...your right, they look like baby games..What do you have to do?"
me: "Baby games?!? Ok smarty - it's simple...In this one, that's your
spaceship and you shoot the big color things floating around...those are
asteroids. You turn left this way and right this way...Up moves your
ship, down makes your ship disappear and brings it back somewhere
else...Use that in emergency.
her: that's it?
me: that's it.
her: how do you win?
me: when you shoot all the rocks.
her: That's so baby-ish!!
me: Hah - OK - here you go...do it then...

Long story short, after many deaths she didn't think it was so easy
anymore...lol

With a rather large smile, I took the joystick back and proceeded to
kick her butt, as she particularly loves to remind me all the time every
game of "Mario Cart"....or any of her DS or Wii games for that matter...

I told her the games back then were simple...you could explain a game or
figure out what you were supposed to do in 15 seconds and get right to
the fun. There was only one dang button and a joystick....Yea the
graphics were real bad, but we played a few more games of Asteroids and
then Yar's Revenge for an hour together before bedtime.... lol

Yea, Yea....give here a little while to get used to it and she'll be
wiping the floor with me....But at least give me the satisfaction for a
few days... :)
27 Answers

Neil Cerutti

1/13/2012 4:48:00 PM

0

On 2012-01-13, IYM <"S u nrisr"@optonline.net> wrote:
> Yea, Yea....give here a little while to get used to it and
> she'll be wiping the floor with me....But at least give me the
> satisfaction for a few days... :)

Awesome!

I tried a similar exercise with a nephew of mine. I set up
Nesticle, and installed a couple of good old Nintendo games. I
gave it to Adam to play Legend of Zelda 2,, and he said, "Oh,
yeah. I've played this before."

Apparently he was totally into retro gaming, even though he was
just 11. We chatted about how hard Contra was, and laughed about
watching videos of old games on Youtube.

The difficulty level in most old games is filled with major
spikes and long, boring vallies. I never owned an Atari 2600, but
I had some friends who had one. I spent more time on an
Intellivision, though.

--
Neil Cerutti

John Gordon

1/13/2012 5:04:00 PM

0

In <jepl5j$b1l$1@dont-email.me> IYM <"S u nrisr"@optonline.net> writes:

> me: These are the video games daddy played when he was your age. The
> graphics are bad, but they're still fun

There are several games for the Atari 400/800 and ST that I'd enjoy
playing today. Spelunker, Shamus, Necromancer, Time Bandit, Oids...

--
John Gordon A is for Amy, who fell down the stairs
gordon@panix.com B is for Basil, assaulted by bears
-- Edward Gorey, "The Gashlycrumb Tinies"

Catriona R

1/13/2012 5:18:00 PM

0


On Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:17:28 -0500, IYM <"S u nrisr"@optonline.net>
wrote:

>Last night, I had the house to myself for a couple hours. I ran a
>couple dungeons and then looked and saw the family was due home within
>the next 1/2 hour or so and didn't want to be in the middle of an
>instance when they came home. So I logged out an set up a present I had
>gotten from a relative on the big screen in the living room...An "Atari
>Flashback" system, which looks like a mini Atari 2600, comes with two of
>the regular joysticks and has 40 or so built in games. I figured "what
>the hell...why not".

Sounds like fun! I keep meaning to dig out my ancient Sinclair
Spectrum ZX, which is nearly as old as I am (I inherited it as a child
from older cousins who'd had it first) - been a few years since I
tried it but a fair number of the games still worked last I tried
anyway.

Simple concepts, many of them, but very hard to actually beat, at
least for me... I'll admit I've never been that good at gaming in any
form though, WoW is by far the most successful I've been in any game
since it usually gives me thinking time to react to things, and I've
trained myself how best to react to different scenarios. Most games I
just fail dismally at, lacking in coordination/quick reactions I
think.
--
EU-Draenor:
Sagart (85 Undead Priest) Tairbh (85 Tauren Druid)
Buinne (85 Troll Shaman) Eilnich (85 Blood Elf Warlock)
Ruire (85 Blood Elf Paladin) Balgair (82 Human Rogue)
Dubh (80 Orc Death Knight) Rosad (73 Human Warlock)

S U N risr

1/13/2012 6:08:00 PM

0

On 1/13/2012 11:48 AM, Neil Cerutti wrote:

> The difficulty level in most old games is filled with major
> spikes and long, boring vallies.

Yes and no...A lot of the games on the 2600, you had a physical switch
on the console for normal and hard. Hard may have had some additional
missles or made the alien ship you have to shoot smaller. Most of the
2600 games simply made each level (each time you cleared a screen for
example) maybe have more of something, but usually it was just a
fraction faster, and faster, and faster. You knew it had gotten fast,
but you never realized *how* much faster it got until you died, and you
reset the game (no saves back then) and played again and realized how
slow it had gotten...

That reminds me, I never explained to my daughter about the games
having no saves...Wait until she finds that out. That'll blow her
mind... lmao

I never owned an Atari 2600, but
> I had some friends who had one. I spent more time on an
> Intellivision, though.
>

heh..I hear you....Intellivision was the one game system I never had. I
had (and still have) a working full size Atari 2600, Colecovision (with
expansion module), Sega Genesis, original Nintendo (NES) and a Super NES
(at least they were all working the last time I set any of them up, as
those are all still in the attic)

I stopped game consoles after that and switched to an Apple IIe (of
which still is over my parents house somewhere), then a 286, 386
486....Played Warcraft 1 & 2 on my Pentium II, the switched back to game
consoles with a playstation 1 & 2, then back to PC's. Now the kids have
a Wii.... Sheesh...listing them out like that makes me realize I spent
way too much time on games.... But still managed to play outside
building go-carts, forts in the woods, etc, all day as a kid...Man I was
busy..Guess I never stopped back then... :)

Neil Cerutti

1/13/2012 6:15:00 PM

0

On 2012-01-13, IYM <"S u nrisr"@optonline.net> wrote:
> heh..I hear you....Intellivision was the one game system I
> never had. I had (and still have) a working full size Atari
> 2600, Colecovision (with expansion module), Sega Genesis,
> original Nintendo (NES) and a Super NES (at least they were all
> working the last time I set any of them up, as those are all
> still in the attic)
>
> I stopped game consoles after that and switched to an Apple IIe
> (of which still is over my parents house somewhere), then a
> 286, 386 486....Played Warcraft 1 & 2 on my Pentium II, the
> switched back to game consoles with a playstation 1 & 2, then
> back to PC's. Now the kids have a Wii.... Sheesh...listing
> them out like that makes me realize I spent way too much time
> on games.... But still managed to play outside building
> go-carts, forts in the woods, etc, all day as a kid...Man I was
> busy..Guess I never stopped back then... :)

My true gaming confession:

My first computer was a TI99/4A. I learned to program simple
Basic scripts on it, and felt like a genius. The only game of
note on it was Parsec, a 2D horizontal scrolling space-shooter
with the only innovation being that you had to navigate a
progressively more angular tunnel in order to gas up.

There was a voice recognition module for this computer, and you
could use it to play the baseball game. I never did, but had a
friend who named his players things like "schmuck." You'd call
out, "Throw to Schmuck!"

My 2nd was an Aquarius. It had an interesting game called Utopia,
a neat precursor to what became the Civilization series.

I finally got a Commodore 64 in 1983, and still have it, plus an
extra. I played most of the great 8-bit games on it, and a lot of
the garbage, too.

This was upgraded to an Amiga 500 in 1989, and I used it until
graduating from college in 1994. I didn't buy my first PC until
1996. The Amiga had a unique look to its games, and probably the
best ones written for it were by Cinemaware. Some of the first
best-selling PC games were ported to it eventually, but you
needed rare addons like a hard drive.

My role playing game history started with The Treasure of Tarmin
on the Intellivision. I'm now happily stuck with WoW, and should
stay a long time as this stuff has a lot of staying power with
me. ;)

--
Neil Cerutti

ting

1/13/2012 7:14:00 PM

0

On Jan 13, 11:17 am, IYM <"S u nrisr"@optonline.net> wrote:
> ...An "Atari
> Flashback" system, which looks like a mini Atari 2600, comes with two of
> the regular joysticks and has 40 or so built in games.

My favorite setup is Mame, which lets you play nearly any arcade game
(if you have the roms), along with something like the X-Arcade
joystick (I have a discontinued Hotrod that I modified with better
joysticks).

1980s and early 1990s arcade games, using real arcade joysticks/
buttons, on a big screen TV in your living room? Hella good time.
--
// T.Hsu

Neil Cerutti

1/13/2012 8:04:00 PM

0

On 2012-01-13, ting@thsu.org <ting@thsu.org> wrote:
> On Jan 13, 11:17?am, IYM <"S u nrisr"@optonline.net> wrote:
>> ...An "Atari
>> Flashback" system, which looks like a mini Atari 2600, comes
>> with two of the regular joysticks and has 40 or so built in
>> games.
>
> My favorite setup is Mame, which lets you play nearly any
> arcade game (if you have the roms), along with something like
> the X-Arcade joystick (I have a discontinued Hotrod that I
> modified with better joysticks).
>
> 1980s and early 1990s arcade games, using real arcade
> joysticks/ buttons, on a big screen TV in your living room?
> Hella good time.

That would rock!

--
Neil Cerutti

| || ||| ||||| || |

1/14/2012 12:14:00 AM

0


"IYM" <"S u nrisr"@optonline.net> wrote in message news:jepl5j$b1l$1@dont-email.me...
> I told her the games back then were simple...you could explain a game or figure out what
> you were supposed to do in 15 seconds and get right to the fun. There was only one dang
> button and a joystick....Yea the graphics were real bad, but we played a few more games
> of Asteroids and then Yar's Revenge for an hour together before bedtime.... lol
>
> Yea, Yea....give here a little while to get used to it and she'll be wiping the floor
> with me....But at least give me the satisfaction for a few days... :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgDemIjjaEk&featu...

Rogue, hack, rogue-like games
as riveting as wow, on 80x24 character terminals
before carrot-on-a-stick subscriptions

They had many of the elements of wow , see the pixels flash :-),
some were even multiplayer at $10 an hour comms costs


burt

1/14/2012 1:29:00 AM

0

In the early 80's (yikes, that is 30 years ago now!), I started
collecting arcade stand-alone games. I had a game room set up with 6
pinball machines and 8 arcade games (robotron, joust, etc).

We have no kids ourselves, but have two nephews (one now 30 and the
other 18) and one niece (now 15). They used to love to come over and
play our games for hours, trying to get my name off the high-score
board.

They never succeeded... :)

We finally gave all the games to a couple of high-risk kids groups in
2006 when finances required us to start renting that space out as an
apartment. The kids are now all grown, but that bonding experience has
lasted.

--
- Burt Johnson - MindStorm, Inc.
Gallery: http://www.mindstorm...
Blog: http://mindstormphoto.square...
500px: http://500px.com/mind...

Hari Seldon

1/14/2012 4:22:00 PM

0


"Burt Johnson" <burt@mindstorm-inc.com> schreef in bericht
news:1kdtkbv.113zpqu1kw7hfxN%burt@mindstorm-inc.com...
> In the early 80's (yikes, that is 30 years ago now!), I started
> collecting arcade stand-alone games. I had a game room set up with 6
> pinball machines and 8 arcade games (robotron, joust, etc).
>
> We have no kids ourselves, but have two nephews (one now 30 and the
> other 18) and one niece (now 15). They used to love to come over and
> play our games for hours, trying to get my name off the high-score
> board.
>
> They never succeeded... :)
>
> We finally gave all the games to a couple of high-risk kids groups in
> 2006 when finances required us to start renting that space out as an
> apartment. The kids are now all grown, but that bonding experience has
> lasted.
>
> --
> - Burt Johnson - MindStorm, Inc.
> Gallery: http://www.mindstorm...
> Blog: http://mindstormphoto.square...
> 500px: http://500px.com/mind...

Joust brings back fond memories. Never played another game were flying felt
just so spot on.