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12/4: 45 Reasons Why I Had An Atari 2600/7800

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kkktookmybabyaway

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• Here we go again. Another red diaper doper baby telling the rest of the country how their lives should be run … um, actually, I’ve always wondered how blind people figure out what bill denominations they are giving out during a purchase.

 

The look and feel of money is about to change ... thanks to a lawsuit.

 

Yesterday, a U.S. federal court judge ruled that the Treasury Department is denying blind people meaningful access to money by keeping all U.S. currency the same size and texture.

 

According to its ruling, the federal government is in violation of the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. The landmark decision comes after a four-year legal fight.

 

• I guess Playstation3s are in such high demand that even cops are killing people to get their hands on these things.

 

A young man accused of robbing a fellow college student of two new Playstation 3 video game consoles was shot and killed _ possibly while holding a game controller, his roommate said _ by officers sent to arrest him.

 

Peyton Strickland, 18, was killed Friday at a house he shared with three roommates, Sheriff Sid Causey said.

 

"If this boy would've come to the door, opened the door, we probably wouldn't be talking," the sheriff said Sunday.

 

Roommate Mike Rhoton said Strickland was unarmed when he got up from playing a Tiger Woods golf game but may have been holding a controller when he went to the door as officers bashed it in. Strickland's dog, a German shepherd, also was shot to death.

 

The sheriff said Strickland was shot by members of a specially trained team who went to help university officers serve arrest warrants. Causey said officers considered the arrest a high-risk situation.

 

"Anytime that someone beats a person severely and commits an armed robbery, I certainly would consider him a risk and a danger," Causey said.

 

Authorities promised Monday to fully investigate the shooting. "No one is above the law and no one is beneath its protection," District Attorney Ben David said. He declined to discuss details of the case.

 

I’m a bit of an odd bird when it comes to my video game history. Hey, what better way to transition into something that could be worth a day’s entry, and maybe more? As a kid, video games were my passion. Well, maybe not my “passion,” but I sure played them enough. Even now I spend way too much time in front of a television or computer monitor killing some demon or scoring a go-ahead touchdown. Well it beats being out on the street causing trouble or spending quality time with the wife. Let’s take a stroll down my video game history, shall we?

 

The Atari 2600 was my first video game console, and of course I played the hell out of the poor thing. Later on when my first system went to video game heaven, it was replaced by an Atari 7800. However, I don’t recall a single 7800 game purchased other than Xevious. After my 2600 playing days were over, I moved on to the … hey, wait a minute. I still have my 2600/7800 games. What better time than now to look in my Rubbermaid container that’s in the walk-in closet in the room from where I am currently typing and take a trip down memory lane? There we go. Now it’s time to see my Atari 2600/7800 game collection and note that all the money spent on these games could have went to purchase Microsoft stock. I have these games ranked by the company that made them, or something of that nature. You'll figure it out.

 

Activision Games: Commando (I have two of this title. I must have broken or stolen one of them), Decathlon, Dolphin (more on this one below), Keystone Kapers (I always laughed when I made the cop duck because it looked like he was going to the bathroom; when I got a “best of Activision game” a year or two ago one of the first things I did was play this title and, sure enough, made the cop duck just so it looked like he was pinching a load), River Raid (loved this one, even though I was, and still am, terrible at it).

 

I have no idea what posse the following games were from. They were funky cartridges that were long, thin and black with a slanted top saying the game’s title. None of these have any artwork. Astroblast, Football, Kool-Aid Man (!), Soccer. Here’s a little more background on the above-mentioned football game. One Christmas my cousin had his uncle figure out how to control his team’s players, and I proceeded to get slaughtered something like 100-0. I got my revenge next year when I learned how to run and pass, but I think that was also the same Christmas when I got the air hockey table and my football glory was short-lived. While playing air hockey, my cousin was cheating (or something) and I was calling him on it. I think our house rules was that a player wasn’t allowed to go beyond the table’s middle stripe, and he was constantly violating this rule. I then proceeded to get yelled at by my mom and aunt for my enforcement of these ever-so-strict guidelines because I was beating him anyway (what I lacked in other facets of my life I more than make up for in air hockey, believe you me). My cousin said something smart-ass to me and I replied, “OK, DICK FACE!” and wailed my air-hockey paddle at him, much to the horror of all the adults that were in the room (except my dad; I think he found the whole thing funny as hell). Memories.

 

Imagic Games (the ones with a sorta slanted top and this fancy silver label): Cosmic Ark, Demon Attack.

 

EPYX Games (mostly white labels; I can’t describe these games any further than to point out I didn’t play these titles a lot): California Games, Sea Hunt, Summer Games, Winter Games.

 

US Games (white background label with a blue background with a white lettering to the cartridge’s top). Eggomania (I can’t begin to describe this one), Gopher, Name This Game (It was a contest and was sorta like a Sea Hunt-type game, only better; you had to fight off a shark that got faster with each passing level and this big, black octopus.)

 

Other: Amidar (I have no idea what this is but an ape, pig, painter and Indian with a bone in his nose are on the cover; I think I may have been a Pac-Man-like game where you had to fill a screen with something before the bad guys get you), Blueprint (no idea) and this cartridge with the label ripped off. I think it is “Frogger” because I know I had this game and can’t find it elsewhere. Now that I think about it, I know it’s “Frogger” because that game used to piss me off to the point where I got so mad I would take the game out of the console and BITE IT!!! Eventually the saliva dissolved/tore off the game’s label. What in God’s name is wrong with me?

 

Now time for the basic Atari cartridges: Adventure (you’re a square and have to fear the green/yellow/red dragons, unless you have the sword that looks like "-->"), Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede (once I found out you were an elf with a hippie wand, my opinion of this game declined; I thought for quite a while you were in some cool spaceship blasting away), Berzerk, Combat, Defender, Donkey Kong, Golf, Joust (one of my favorites), Jungle Hunt, Kangaroo, Mousetrap, Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man, Real Sports Baseball, Space Invaders, Superman, Vanguard (I don’t remember much about this game other than it was one of my favorites), Video Pinball, Yars Revenge (loved that cover).

 

IPB Image

 

Hey, aside from Xevious I also had Choplifter for the 7800, along with Pole Position (or was it Pole Position II?)

 

Here’s another memory of the 2600: There were some games where if you got to a certain score you could win a prize if you took a picture of the game with a camera and mail it in. One of these titles was Activision’s Dolphin. As a kid I could never achieve this score (I think it was 100,000). Believe me, this was frustrating, especially since I really wanted that hippie Dolphin patch. Years and years later while a college student I dusted off my 7800 to play some old games. One of these games I put in the 7800 was Dolphin and began playing. And playing. And playing. It wasn’t until I was about 90 percent of the way through the game when I noticed how close I was to accomplishing what I gave up so long ago doing. Then the pressure hit. Although I lost a few dolphins to that bastard squid, I eventually beat the game. The best way I could describe the feeling is to compare it to that day when you are finally able to beat your old man in a one-on-one basketball game. So you’re now better than your father at something you spent years trying to best him at. Big deal. You don’t feel any different and your dad knows his glory days are behind him anyway, so it’s not like he cares much either.

 

One final note. Just to embarrass myself even more than I already do, I would like to say that I took pride in owning every game that was on the Pac-Man Fever album: Pac-Man, Frogger, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Defender, Mousetrap and Berzerk. And yes, I do remember them in order. However, I didn’t remember the actual titles to all the games, just the games they represented. Now if you will excuse me, I got a pocket full of quarters and I’m headed to the arcade.

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I only got an Atari (this version) because I wanted an NES (my friend across the street had one), but my parents probably didn't want to drop too much money on something I might not like, which was probably a good idea. It was always stuck down in the basement on my mom's old b&w TV, so whenever I got to bring it upstairs to the living room and play it in colour, it was a big deal. I think it came with Pole Position, and some other games I remember getting were Q-Bert (which was a bit harder to play when the squares were grey), Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac-Man, Boxing, Crossbow, and Vanguard.

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I was one of those Intellivision weirdos. I didn't see what an Atari game looked like until we'd had it for a few months, and when I finally saw it, I couldn't believe anyone would ever want to play it over an Intellivision. I think we had 60 games or so by the time we upgraded to an NES. I remember we had Donkey Kong, Q*Bert, Burgertime, Astrosmash, Pac-Man, and the AWESOME baseball and football games.

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