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Bentley Compu-Vision (1983)

Now gang, believe me when I say I’ve been wanting to showcase this retro video game oddity for quite awhile, and today is the day. Folks into vintage electronics and/or thrifting will almost certainly be at least vaguely familiar with the portable black & white TVs put out by Bentley in the 1980s. They were (and are) cheap and ubiquitous, and while I can’t find a scan online right now, I recall seeing ads giving them away free when you bought RVs back in the day. I would guess you could get them free any number of ways; buying cars, opening a bank account, and so on and so forth. That’s just a guess on my part, but considering how common they are and have been for many, many years, it makes sense.

Or maybe they were just incredibly cheap to purchase from the beginning. They weren’t exactly high end, but they did their job and looked (look) cool enough. I’ve related this anecdote before, but I still recall taking mine on a camping trip back in like 1999, and staying up late watching Terminator 2 on Big Chuck & lil’ John with it (by the end of the broadcast, the power of the gigantic size D batteries had been sapped sufficiently enough to basically render the film a silent). Granted, there’s not much you can do with these TVs nowadays, not without jumping through some hoops at least, but the point is anyone who has been into vintage electronics for some period of time should have a passing familiarity with ’em, even if only by sight.

WELL, it turns out lil’ itty bitty televisions weren’t the only things Bentley (not to be confused with the car company, near as I can tell) put out back in the 1980s. The most well-known and common, sure, but in addition to that, they also put out a similar-looking portable all-in-one Super 8 projector, which was, if nothing else, cool in concept; some of the reviews I’ve seen online don’t exactly give it high marks. (I have one of these, but it’s still new-in-the-box and I never had the heart to crack it open – especially since I don’t do much, or anything really, with Super 8.)

Also put out by Bentley back in the 1980s? A video game console!

“Oooh, what does it play?!”

The Bentley Compu-Vision (though it’s often spelled “Compuvision,” no dash, online – which is my preferred personal spelling, though I’ll be technically correct here in hopes of staving off snotty comments) was released at some point in 1983, and is a compact, elegant little beast. The black casing with woodgrain trim (which extends along the sides) obviously recalls the Atari 2600, while the built-in controller bays and usage of “vision” in the name puts it on the same turf as the Intellivision and ColecoVision (plus, hey, ColecoVision, Compu-Vision, CV – coincidence???).

Woodgrain was probably a little passé by 1983, even the then-current iteration of the 2600 had dropped it by then, but nevertheless, this thing just looks cool. From the onset it comes off like a 2600/ColecoVision hybrid. It’s a relatively small, lightweight console, attractively designed and with the shiny gold lettering of “Bentley Compu-Vision” lending it an additional touch of, I don’t know, techy class or something.

“That’s all well and good, but what does it play?!“

What’s more, the usage of “compu” in the name unmistakably plays into the then-emerging popularity of home computers. Computers were still a relatively-new thing to consumers – in a general, widespread sense – at the time, but their popularity was increasingly growing. Spearheaded by the Atari 8-bits and Commodore 64, and with the video game crash of 1983/1984 hitting consoles – and retailers – hard, the emergence of home computers as an ever present part of daily life (which continues to this day, right down to the smart phones we have in our pockets) can probably best be traced to the era we’re talking about right here. They certainly existed before, but it was at that point that their popularity with the general public really started taking off. Or at least that’s how I see it.

Of course, where the Compu-Vision is concerned, that’s just fancy-namin’; this thing is a computer in only the barest of senses. Oh sure, it’s electronic and does electronic things, technically you could call it a computer, but functionality-wise, it was hardly a substitute for an Atari 800XL.

Nevertheless, from name to design, there’s little doubt as to what era this hails from. From outside appearances alone, it’s tough to imagine this thing coming from anywhere but the 1982-1984 timeframe.

“SO WHAT DOES IT PLAY ALREADY?!?!”

So what does the Compu-Vision play, you ask? Pong. It plays Pong. And variations of, say it with me, Pong.

Quick background: in the 1970s, General Instruments produced the AY-3-8500 chip. Easily acquired, this chip led to a glut of Pong-based consoles from a variety of manufacturers in the late-70s. Of course, since the chip played the same set of Pong variations across the board, this meant there was little difference between the consoles beyond outside cosmetics. Indeed, we’ve already seen one such example with the Wonder Wizard a few years back.

With so many consoles being basically identical beyond their case design, not to mention the emergence of cartridge-based systems (and yes, even home computers were beginning to make the scene), it stands to reason Pong-based units had sorta petered out by 1978/1979, though in retrospect they still remain interesting examples of video gaming, based solely on how they look (unless you just really, really like Pong).

The Compu-Vision here plays four Pong-based games. In order of my screenshots, there’s handball (called “practice” on the console itself), squash (often called jai alai on these consoles, which I wish was the case here cause then I could reference the “Killshot” episode of Miami Vice, which I guess I just did anyway), soccer (also often called hockey), and tennis, which is just your standard, classic Pong.

Besides the expected power, reset and game variations, switches on the console also let you adjust the angle of the ball, the speed of the ball, and the size of the paddles, so these could all be made quite a bit tougher than you may first expect. The ball really zips on the fast speed, for example. This could make for some really fun, competitive matches, though I’m just surmisin’ here cause it’s not like I can ever get anyone over to play this stuff with me. Except for practice, these are all two-player only; my superfluousness has come back to haunt me!

Because this Bentley came out so much later than other Pong-based consoles, it shares some traits with other contemporary machines: sound is piped through the TV rather than the console itself, and unlike the Wonder Wizard nonsense I had to deal with, the Bentley uses a standard RF cord and switchbox. It also takes a 6V DC adapter, which I didn’t have available (or maybe I did and just wasn’t aware of it; I’ve got enough junk laying around to where that’s a distinct possibility). In a nod to Pong past, the console also uses batteries, though in this case it’s not several hundred (loose approximation) behemoth batteries, but only four AAs. Cheap and readily available, the convenience factor was/is off the charts!

All of this meant that getting the console to display on my PC and taking real, actual video/ screenshots was pretty easy. Yes indeed, those screencaps above were taken by yours truly, from this very console. Of course, given the AY-3-8500 used, the graphics (such as they are) are identical to any number of other Pong units, but I promise you, these here are from the Bentley. I mean, why would I lie about that?

Some (but not all) Pong consoles had the paddle controls built right into unit, meaning players had to sit right up on the machine and hunch over it for the duration. But since the Compu-Vision wanted you to think it was more than it really was, the controllers, while ultimately hardwired in (always a danger: remember the Arcadia 2001?), are at least removable from the unit. The cords aren’t super duper long, you still need to sit pretty close to the console, but at least you can lean back on the couch some.

Here’s the deal with the controls on these old Pong systems: decades of dust and dirt accumulate in them, resulting in them being pretty jittery on-screen. This is generally an easy fix, the potentiometers simply need cleaned. This is common enough that I automatically assume the paddles will be jittery whenever I bring a new old one of these things into the collection.

But you know what? This is actually the second Compu-Vision I’ve added to the collection (the first, my “collectible one” as it were, is boxed away safely), and in both cases, I’ve found the controllers to be excellent. Not only are they pretty comfortable, but they performed wonderfully without my attempting to clean them in any way whatsoever. Now you could argue that because this thing was so obsolete upon arrival (something we’re going to talk more about in just a moment), no one played it enough to get the controllers dirty, but I really think they’re just well-made in general. My first Compu-Vision, the controls were silky smooth, and with this one here, while they could probably use a bit of a cleaning, things are still entirely playable as it is. (Looking at the picture, you may be tempted to think there’s a bunch of grime in the base there; while there’s a tiny bit of debris, that’s actually the color of the nut used that makes things look uglier than they are.)

I never would have guessed it beforehand, but the controllers on this are some of the best I’ve found on a Pong console. Whoda thunk?!

Wanna know the most interesting thing about the Bentley Compu-Vision to me? It’s not the name, or the design, or the controllers. Rather, it’s the fact that it was even released when it was. I mean, 1983! 1983!! It may not mean much now, but it’s unbelievable just how antiquated this thing was upon arrival in ’83. I’ve seen more than one reference to it retailing at $25, a ridiculously cheap amount even in 1983 dollars (if accurate), but even if you could get it free with the purchase of a car or whatever, as I’m surmising, no kid was going to really want this in any serious gamin’ capacity. Video games, both at home and in the arcades, had hugely evolved by that point.

What’s more, the first flowerings on what we now consider the 8-bit era proper were in play. The Japanese versions of the Nintendo Entertainment System (as the Famicom) and Sega Master System (the Mark III) came out that year, and the Atari 7800 was in development here and slated for a 1984 release (which ultimately didn’t really happen, aside from a test market that year; we’d get that, along with wide releases of the NES and SMS, in ’86), but even the stuff already on shelves here in the U.S. was just miles ahead of this thing. Heck, it would have been outdated in 1979, never mind 1983! The fact that it was cosmetically made to ‘fit in’ just makes it all the more intriguing.

In a way, it makes a weird bit of sense though. I imagine the AY-3-8500 was still readily available, and video games were big business, so why not try to get in on the gravy train with an uber-cheap offering? Plus, it’s one thing to look at the console itself, but it’s not like the box (which I don’t have) made false promises. Aside from ignoring the fact it played wildly obsolete games, there was little doubt you were getting Pong with this thing. And aesthetically it fit in with home entertainment set-ups of the time, so I guess for a kid just trying to get the most consoles he could, it worked as filler if nothing else.

Plus, Pong may have been old hat by 1983, but don’t underestimate how fun and competitive a simple oldie like it could, and can, be. Indeed, when this came in, I had to unhook the Atari Video Pinball unit I’ve been noodling with, the versions of Breakout and attempts at basketball on it having kept me fairly occupied lately. There’s something to be said for twitch, hand/eye coordination type games. So while it may have been ancient even in 1983, believe it or not there was still some fun to be had.

Nowadays, the Bentley Compu-Vision isn’t exactly unknown; there’s plenty of info on it out there in internet land. But conversely, it’s also not that well-known, either. The Atari/Sears Pongs and the Coleco Telstars and the Magnavox Odysseys will continue to get more press in retro gaming circles, and rightfully so. That said, I think I’d say the Bentley is my favorite *proper* Pong console; the games are tried and true, and cosmetically it’s attractive, but the fact that it’s so ‘wrong’ is what puts it over the top for me. (Though when it comes to Pong consoles in general, I think the Telstar Arcade still tops it for me, even though that one was quite a bit more advanced and played shooting and racing games in addition. Although, while it doesn’t play any Pong variants at all, I think I like the Atari Video Pinball more than any of them, at least where U.S. consoles in this particular ‘dedicated unit’ genre are concerned.)

The Bentley Compu-Vision isn’t particularly valuable; you can find them relatively cheap and plentiful online. The first one I bought was entirely affordable, and you know how much this one was? $5! Five bucks!! There was shipping on top of that, but even that was incredibly reasonable. I’ve spent more total on old VHS tapes than I did this Bentley! Now granted, it wasn’t perfect; the battery cover was missing, and it was sold as untested, but at that price, I could afford to take chances. At worst, it’d become a neat display piece. The untested part didn’t even concern me all that much; while that’s sometimes seen as dishonest code for “broken,” in my experience these old consoles were built like tanks; I tend to give the benefit of the doubt and figure the seller just doesn’t have the switchbox or adapter or TV or whatever to fully test these. And while there’s a few machines I’ve bought simply for collecting purposes (that is, I never seriously intended to bother hooking them up – and still haven’t to this day), for ones I picked up wanting to at least give a try, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten one that hasn’t worked to some degree.

Of course, that’s just my experience; you shouldn’t use it as your personal guideline. But for me, I’ve had good luck with these oldies. Things back then were built to last.

So, if you’re looking for a Pong console to add to your collection, the Bentley isn’t a bad choice. It plays the same games as so many others, but it has enough then-modern attributes, both in looks and in connections, to make it a better option than some. Plus, it’s got that whole super-late release thing going for it. If this wasn’t the last Pong console released in the U.S., it’s certainly one of the very last. So if you’re only adding one Pong and don’t want to break the bank, hey, you could do worse!

Messin’ Around with an Emerson Arcadia 2001

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Friends, believe it or not, this blog is now 10 years old. 10 years old?! It’s true; I started it in March 2013. Back then, I was able to post a whole lot more frequently than I am now, but hey, I’ve stuck with it, and you know what? I WANT ACCOLADES! Gimme my accolades! Now! I mean, if you want. Please?

The earliest post here is this terrible old article from March 30, 2013 (don’t bother reading it), but there were a few posts before it that I no longer have up (I do that sometimes). As with anything else, the more you work at something, the better you become at it, and frankly, I don’t think I found whatever constitutes my groove here until, I don’t know, 2015 or 2016. Even then, there were things I did then that I’d do different now, but none of this really matters, so who cares?

ANYWAY, I don’t really have a big 10th anniversary extravaganza update planned, I guess I could have done one, but as previously stated, none of this really matters, so who cares? Nevertheless, our subject today harkens back, somewhat, to an article from those early, unformed days. Perhaps you’ll recall (though I doubt it) this old, old post from August 1, 2013, in which I detailed an uber-obscure old video game console by the name of the APF M1000. Despite the rough nature of that early effort (that one would look quite different if written nowadays), it’s done pretty well views-wise. Probably because no one had one of those things back in the day.

So what say we go back to the same wheelhouse, with another obscure video game console no one had back in the day, either. Although comparatively, fewer people didn’t have it than they didn’t have the APF. (In other words, it’s not as obscure.) Ladies and gennelmen, dig the Emerson Arcadia 2001!

Actually, design-wise the Arcadia isn’t dissimilar to the APF – right down to the uncomfortable, hard-wired controllers! But whereas the APF featured mostly rudimentary, first-generation type games, the Arcadia’s library was much more in line with the arcade scene of the early 1980s. There were a few actual ports of coin-op games, albeit mostly obscure ones, but don’t worry; much of the rest of the library was made up of shameless rip-offs of popular arcade games! Don’t think for a minute this doesn’t appeal to me.

Released in 1982, Emerson’s Arcadia 2001 was pretty much a flop. Ostensibly it was competing with the era-defining Atari 2600 and the 2600’s arch enemy, Mattel’s Intellivision. If those were its only two adversaries, it still wouldn’t have won the war, but it may well have made more of a splash than it did (especially with an introductory price of, supposedly, only $99, which even in 1982 dollars was still a pretty decent price for a video game console – if true, that is).

Unfortunately, the Arcadia launched not long before the ColecoVision, which promised to bring the arcade experience home and did a pretty good job of doing so. Furthermore, Atari also dropped the 5200 in 1982, which was supposed to fight the Intellivison but ended up going head-to-head with ColecoVision, and beyond even that, home computers – no slouches at playing games themselves – were gaining in popularity as well. Released into this climate, the Arcadia just never stood a chance.

Nevertheless, while it never made much of a dent in the U.S., an impressive number of officially-licensed clone consoles exist throughout the world. And, even though the library wasn’t exactly gigantic or, you know, great, there’s still a sizable number of titles aping real, big time arcade hits. While it’s more of a curio than something you’d give more playing time to than a 2600, that doesn’t mean there isn’t still some fun to be had. Right out the gate, this thing has more vested interest in it for me than the APF ever did/does.

You’ll have to contend with some relics of video game past, though. No, I’m not talking about the cartridge format (I consider that a good thing), but rather, the antiquated, uncomfortable controllers. I’m not just talking about them being hard-wired into the console, although that’s annoying too (this is a factor that will come back to haunt me; you’ll see later in the post), but rather, the elongated shape sporting a numeric membrane keypad, a joystick and fire buttons on the sides. It’s not particularly comfortable, and certainly not suited to long play sessions, and it’s a design seen over and over again in early video game consoles. From the Intellivision to ColecoVision to, well, even the APF, manufacturers sure did love to make kids’ hands cramp up! You think you’re such hot biscuits, takin’ on galactic invaders and whatnot? That may be true, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a price to be paid for such a wild, unchecked ego. Playing this for long periods of time could have dire ramifications for yours truly. “Hey man, how’d you get carpal tunnel syndrome? 10 years of blogging?” “Naw bro, it’s from playing my Arcadia 2001 too much!” “Your what?”

I will say this though: with its joystick rather than pad and still-mushy-but-not-AS-mushy fire buttons, I’d give the edge to Arcadia’s product over the Intellivison controller, anyway. Dubious honor? Well sure it is!

Okay, now listen: Arcadia consoles and games tend to be pricey. I had to drop a not-unreasonable-but-still-healthy chunk of change just to get this system. And even then, it took awhile before one showed up with a price that didn’t make me turn to an imaginary camera and shed a single tear like Iron Eyes Cody. (And yet, altogether this was still way cheaper than what I’ve currently spent on getting a working Commodore 64 set up – a set up that, as of this writing, still isn’t optimal but at least I can play Ghostbusters.)

As for games, some of the rarer titles have asking prices higher than what I paid for this console itself! And while some of the more common games aren’t particularly exorbitant price-wise, very often you’ll still have to drop a decent bit to get some of the (relatively?) better ones. Don’t get me wrong, you might be able to nab an Arcadia cartridge for single digits or low double digits, but those tend to be less exciting titles – and that’s not a very wise usage of your Emerson Arcadia 2001 investment, is it?

(An additional aspect to consider: the risk of buying untested cartridges is higher here because no one had an Arcadia 2001. It’s understandable a reseller isn’t going to have a console on hand to test that random copy of Funky Fish they picked up somewhere. While carts are hearty and durable – of the hundreds and hundreds I’ve owned over the years, I can literally count on one hand the number of games that have refused to work no matter how much I cleaned and/or pouted at them – the fact remains that you’re still goofing around with 40+ year old stuff here.)

This has been my longwinded way of saying I don’t have a ton of games for this thing. Oh I’ve got a handful that we’re about to look at it, but when it comes to adding titles to this particular collection, I have and will continue to pick my battles wisely. Well, as wisely as possible considering I’m talking about an obscure 1982 video game system. (We call this a first world problem.)

Here’s what we’re about to see: in delightfully alphabetical order, we have Alien Invaders, Cat Trax, Escape, and Space Attack. Those are, uh, what you’re seeing here. Each game was inspired by (read: a rip-off of) a real big time arcade title. What’s aping what? See if you can guess before I reveal the contents to you! See, this is an interactive blog! To get the most out of it, you have to pay attention to whatever stupid thing I happen to be saying at any given moment!

Take note that Alien Invaders is a smaller cartridge while the other three are notably taller. Arcadia games were manufactured in both cartridge styles. Why the size discrepancy? No one knows. In the end it doesn’t really matter, except that the taller carts look slightly silly when plugged into the relatively small Arcadia console.

These are the only four games I currently have for the Arcadia. Well, technically I have five: I have doubles of one of them. Which one? I’ll never tell.

Before we go game-by-game here, I just want to make special mention of the instruction sticker on the back of the cartridges. They’re amazing.

These things are pretty obviously, erm, grammatically problematic. Awkward phrasing is the order of the day here, along with really odd bullet points describing respective “features” of the game. And as you can see here, there can be flat out typos: “Be hurry,” folks! My guess is whoever put this together wasn’t a native English speaker – or at least that’s my hope. But hey, look, it’s “Fun for all the family” – well, I’m sold!

As fun as these instruction stickers can be to read, they also point to one of the, for lack of a better word, endearing aspects of Arcadia 2001 collecting: that is, the sort of strange, off-kilter feel of the whole thing. This console just wasn’t ready for prime time, but that didn’t stop it from jumping into the coin op-centric arena of early-80s gaming anyway. This may not have been ideal for some kid back in 1982, but in retrospect it’s one of the things that makes this all so, weirdly, appealing.

Okay, let’s play some games! Like my adorable picture above, we’ll go in alphabetical order here. Oh, and while I could have gone through the hassle of getting screenshots up here via a video capture card, the Arcadia features RF output only; this is to be expected of a 1982 console, but the result was that the hassle of getting it hooked up for ‘proper’ screencaps was an annoyance I just wasn’t prepared to undertake. Instead, I turned the lights off and took pictures of the actual Sony Trinitron TV screen playing these games. While there are a few screen abnormalities that you would expect to see when taking pics of a CRT TV in this manner, this still had the dual benefit of 1) mimicking the dark din of an early-80s arcade and 2) keeping my frustration levels lower. Trust me, the latter is more important than the former.

Alien Invaders – If you guessed this was Arcadia’s clone of Space Invaders, you were correct. Granted, this wasn’t exactly a puzzler; no respectable early-80s console would be caught dead without at least one of these. As such, the standard rules of Space Invaders apply: there are rows of marching aliens descending, fire at them with your cannon till they is all dead. Not gonna lie: I like Space Invaders, but only selectively. The arcade original was certainly revolutionary, but I’ve always found it a little too slow and clunky for my tastes; I much prefer the faster, smoother Atari 2600 port, and actually, my favorite version is the Atari 8-bit computer conversion. It added some original elements to the gameplay that not everyone may like, but it’s those very elements that make it more appealingly intense for me.

Arcadia’s take on the game doesn’t look bad; the white background doesn’t do it for me, but the sprite are sharp, it plays smoothly enough, and I like the city skyline in the background. Unfortunately, the game is crippled by one big, big flaw: there’s only one wave, and it’s timed. Clear all the aliens, and you’re left picking off motherships continuously until the five minute timer runs out. Man, that was a bad, bad idea; the whole point of these kinda games is to go for the highest score while seeing how many waves you can complete. Implementing a single, timed wave completely destroys those ideals. It may not be bad for a few rounds with a buddy, just seeing who can score the most points, but even then, that aspect is severely limited by the completely needless decision to make the game like this. Alien Invaders is bogus.

Cat Trax – In the early-80s, if a game wasn’t a Space Invaders knock-off, there was a good chance it would be a Pac-Man knock-off. That’s an over-generalization for sure, but hey, that’s just my way of saying Cat Trax is an Arcadia dot chompin’ maze game. Was that your guess??? Maybe it’s not fair to call it a rip-off; Crazy Gobbler more fit that particular bill. But like so many other games from that time, it was clearly inspired by the Pac-Guy.

I tend to run hot and cold on maze games. I can get as addicted as anyone to a well-done iteration, but I can just as easily let my eyes glaze over upon playing one that isn’t up to my arbitrary standards. Fortunately, Cat Trax is a goody. In fact, it’s terrific! It doesn’t do anything too different from Pac-Man, but it plays so well that of all the games we’re seeing today, it was the one I was most addicted to.

Basically, you’re a cat running through a maze, eating dots while being chased by three dogs. Occasionally a fish will appear in the middle of the maze; nab it, and your cat will turn into a dog catchin’ truck, which will allow you to chomp (well, catch) the dogs instead of the other way around. Clear all the dots from the maze, and you’ll advance to the next, ostensibly harder round. (Hear that, Alien Invaders?!)

I was a little concerned at first because your cat seems to move kinda slowly, but it’s actually not so bad, and speeds up once you grab the fish besides. I don’t have a lot more to say about this one, because it really is just your standard maze game from the early-80s – but rest assured, it’s a good one!

Escape – Looking at my picture of all these cartridges earlier, you might have been tempted to figure Escape was the token Pac-Man clone. After all, the character used on the artwork looks like a poor man’s Pacs, and the monsters and maze-like images in the background do little to dissuade you from that thinking. As such, you’d be forgiven for not guessing this was actually Arcadia’s take on Berzerk!

Actually, my understanding is that this was the Arcadia’s second take on Berzerk; the first was a game called Robot Killer, which is apparently pretty much the same as this one except with graphics that even more closely mimic those of Berzerk. Here, the robots have been replaced by monsters, and there’s a spinning…thing in the middle of the screen that occasionally speeds up and then shoots off in some random direction. But really, this is just Berzerk: run through mazes, fire at enemies, escape to the next screen.

Now I can get down with some Berzerk, but there’s a glaring problem here: man, this game moves S-L-O-W. Simply moving your character across the screen is nothing less than a slog! And to make matters worse, the stiff joystick on the Arcadia controller does you no favors; it’s uncomfortable and makes it easier to die by a mistake on your part than it should be otherwise.

Escape is interesting, and I like the idea behind it, simply because I like Berzerk in general, but yeah, this one is more of a clunker than it should be. Speeding your man up would have made a HUGE difference here.

Space Attack – Based on the title, you’d probably think this was another Space Invaders clone. Well, kinda sorta; it’s actually a Galaxian clone. I’m gonna tell you straight up: I loves me some Galaxian. If there’s a port of it, I want it. Despite all the reasons I shouldn’t, I even prefer it to its higher-regarded sequel, Galaga. As such, while I won’t go as far as to say this was my killer app for the Arcadia since it took me forever to get a copy (and 3D Bowling was also a big selling point, even though I still haven’t picked that one up), I will say this was my #1 most wanted title for the console for quite awhile. I just had to wait for the right deal to appear! It did, and so here we are.

The good news: the graphics are sharp and the game moves pretty fast. The aliens look appropriately Galaxian-ish and swoop down accordingly. The programmer implemented a fuel gage that progressively depletes during a round, which was kinda jive but not a deal breaker (it doesn’t totally ruin the game like Alien Invaders); it adds a sense of urgency the game didn’t really need but is okay…I guess.

Here’s the bad news: I fire the game up, it looks sweet, I start hammering on the controller, and nothing really happened. Okay, a quick look reveals that, flying in the face of conventional video game wisdom, Space Attack inexplicably uses the right controller rather than the left like every other sensible game in existence. That’s okay though, I can live with that, the controllers are hard-wired in, remember. So, I grab the right controller, the game starts, my ship is moving from side to side…and not firing. What a time to discover my right controller doesn’t work correctly! Maaaaan, the one game I was anticipating most, and I can’t even really play it! Can the controller be opened and cleaned/fixed? Probably. Am I going to go through the trouble? Naw. It’s really not that big of a deal; it’s not like I was planning on keeping the Arcadia continuously hooked up anyway, and besides, I’ve got plenty of ways to play Galaxian on thousand-year-old consoles if that’s what I’m feeling. Nevertheless, that’s the danger of hard-wired controllers; if something goes bad on one, the solution isn’t always an easy one.

Of course, this wouldn’t be an issue had Arcadia not gotten cute and decided to use the right controller unlike every other game ever. And yet, strangely enough, Space Attack is still more playable than Escape – even though I can’t even really play it!

See, told you those big ol’ carts sticking out of the console look sorta silly!

Disheartening controller mishap aside, I really am glad I picked Emerson’s Arcadia 2001 up. I’m not really sure what I was expecting with it; I didn’t have super high “imma game all night” hopes for it – I don’t exactly do that even with good consoles. This was more about finally adding a neat, forgotten piece of early-80s gaming to my collection. It’s an era in video games I’m everlastingly fond of anyway, and to have such an arcade-centric-but-not example of it, I just find it…appealing. Considering the prices of consoles and games, not to mention the game selection, if you’re into retro gaming, you probably shouldn’t go for one of these over a 2600. But if you’re a collector, there should be enough to interest you here.

And hey, small-ish, derivative library aside, for some kid in 1982/1983, maybe this was all his family could afford. It supposedly debuted cheap, and you have to imagine it didn’t take very long for even that price to begin dropping. For that hypothetical, game-obsessed kid, would any of the Arcadia’s faults even matter? It’s not hard to figure that scenario actually happened somewhere back then, so, I don’t know, this might be a case where the era it came from and what the console represents, even potentially, sorta outweighs what it, you know, is. Or was.

I think I kinda garbled what I was going for at the end of that paragraph, but it’s been 10 years, cut me a little slack already, okay?

Wonder Wizard Television Sports Games Console (1976)

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Like everyone else, we’re still under pandemic alert here, but the majority of places have reopened, and that means thrift stores. Oh I’ve been making up for lost time with a vengeance alright – albeit with a face mask on and an ~~antisocial~~ social distancing attitude at the ready. (It’d be nice to think that everybody realizes we’re all in this together, but considering I’ve encountered more than one person who just doesn’t seem to “get” it, well, it kinda astounds me. I mean, is it really that important to you to stand only a foot away and incessantly babble about inconsequential nonsense to a perfect stranger? We’re not friends, I don’t know you, lea’ me alone. Though truthfully, I’d feel the same way even if there wasn’t a rampant virus afoot. Oh, do I sound cranky? GOOD.)

Anyway, I’ve brought home a buncha good stuff since being back in action; lotsa new additions to my music library, some great old mugs/glassware for that particular collection, a multitude of miscellaneous items that pique my interest; plenty o’ stuff I’m happy with. BUT, as far as things that I can really get fired up enough to write about here, frankly, not as much as I’d like. Seriously; I came close with a big ol’ bag of early-to-mid-80s erasers that held several cool objet d’art within, but after some preliminary writing, I decided there probably still wasn’t enough to hold the attention of all four of my regular readers. (Though, fun fact, most of that introductory paragraph was ripped from that otherwise-cancelled article.)

I don’t know if the drought has passed, but if nothing else, I was recently given a brief respite as far as blog-worthy material goes, and it’s our subject today. (“Gee, no kidding!”)

Behold! It’s the incredible Wonder Wizard “Television Sports Games” console, released by General Home Products in (according to this site) June of 1976 – a whopping 44 years ago this month! What constitutes “Television Sports Games,” you ask? It’s, uh, Pong. Or rather, “tennis” because non-name brands. But really, it’s Pong. Well, that and some other games that go by the names of other sports but are really just slightly-modified Pongs.

Yup, this Wonder Wizard (model number 7702) is one of many, many “Pong clones” that made up the first generation of home video games. No joke; there were a ton of these that eventually saturated the market before developers figured out swappable game cartridges just might lead to a longer lifespan of console sales. (“Yeah, sure, uh huh!”)

(Because I know someone will jump all over me if I don’t specifically point this out, the well-known famous Pong wasn’t really the first Pong, either; there was a ping pong game for the first-ever-console, the Magnavox Odyssey, that Pong was “inspired” by. Nevertheless, it was Pong that really gave a jump start to the video game industry. Also, I’ve now grown tired of typing the word “Pong.”)

I hope you’ll agree that the 1970s aesthetics of the Wonder Wizard are just fantastic. As you can see, woodgrain was the order of the day, and as such, the console evokes its era in a way that practically reaches out and paints a leisure suit on you.

Hopefully this side-view pic above gives you an idea of general size of the system. Unlike many of these clones that could be on the small/cheap/etc. side, there’s some real bulk to the Wonder Wizard. Not that it’s heavy; it’s not. But size-wise, it’s decent. Hey, more real estate, more woodgrain! And like said woodgrain, the general design of the shell is very 1970s, and thus very cool. It’s hard to imagine this coming from any other decade!

So, just where did I find the wonderful Wonder Wizard 7702, you ask? Frankly, I’m hesitant to give up the location because the last thing I need is more competition, but rest assured, it was a thrift store I hit up frequently. And trust me, the Wonder Wizard really pushed the limits of the term “thrift.” That word implies something budget-conscious, and while Wonder Wizard wasn’t (alliteration) prohibitively expensive, it came a little too close for my comfort. I mean, it wasn’t like it was the equivalent of a PS4, and indeed, it cost less than the average brand new PS4 game. Still, for someone who balks at dropping more than $10 per thrift visit, the price tag wasn’t ideal, especially since I had no sure way of knowing if it worked. (More on that issue in a bit.)

As I approached the electronics section in which Wonder Wizard was residing and it became increasingly obvious that whatever I was looking at was an uber-old console, my first thoughts were of the aforementioned Magnavox Odyssey. Had I been thinking clearly I’d have recalled that the original Odyssey featured wired controllers, but obviously all questions were dispelled once I actually picked the thing up and saw the name.

Though, while I didn’t know it at the time, I actually was in the Odyssey wheelhouse. See if you can follow this, because it can be a little confusing: the original Magnavox Odyssey came out in 1972 and used “game cards” to access different types of games (these weren’t ROM cartridges though; scroll back up to that Wikipedia link for a better description), and that system gave way to a line of dedicated Odyssey consoles in 1975 and which continued for a few years until the Magnavox Odyssey 2 superseded the whole lot of them. As far as the line of dedicated consoles goes though, this Wonder Wizard is internally a Magnavox Odyssey 300, and externally a modified shell of the original Magnavox Odyssey. Well, at least the base is identical; here, let this site tell you more about it.

Put simply, the Wonder Wizard is a re-badged Magnavox Odyssey 300 console. Though truth be told, I think the Wonder Wizard looks much cooler. Check out the Wiki link and compare for yourself! (Also, reading that page on the dedicated console series, MAN did they have a lot of superfluous entries in the line. Minute-at-best modifications would apparently warrant a whole new console release!)

The Wonder Wizard wasn’t the most feature-heavy Pong clone ever released; there’s really not a whole lot of options at your disposal here. We’ll take a closer look at the games themselves momentarily, but for now, here’s what you get: hand ball, which is tennis played against a solid wall. Tennis, which is just Pong but not really but actually is. And hockey, which is tennis with more paddles and smaller “goalie” areas. (It’s only the sport of hockey in the most rudimentary sense.)

Curious about the difficulty options seen on the right side of the panel here? Why? They’re kinda self-explanatory, aren’t they? Oh alright, I’ll explain: “beginner” is supposedly the easiest setting, with larger paddles and a somewhat slower ball – it plays pretty much how (I guess) people would expect a Pong-type game to play. “Intermediate” shortens the paddles, and “pro” puts the paddles back to their original length but speeds the ball up considerably.

I probably would have changed the labeling of the difficulty settings somewhat, or at least renamed “beginner” to “normal” or something.

The underside of the Wonder Wizard is pretty barren, with only two things worth noting as far as I’m concerned. (In other words, y’all don’t need a pic of the whole bottom of the console.)

First, there’s this label, amazingly still affixed to the beast despite the 40+ years that have elapsed since the original, uh, affixation. See, 7702. Did you think I was lying? I wasn’t. And look; FCC approved!

I don’t really have much more to say about the label (what more can I say?), so I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that this particular Wonder Wizard wasn’t the only one released by General Home Products. Nope, according to this site, there were several other machines under that name. From the little bit of research I’ve done since acquiring this machine two days ago, it seems like the 7702 gets the most “press” online due to the Magnavox connections – and I assume because it strongly looks like it should be played by someone with oversized lapels – but I’d still say it falls more on the obscure side of the Pong clone spectrum overall. (Though truth be told, beyond Atari and their Sears Telegames rebrands, the Magnavox Odyssey and the Coleco Telstar lines, the vast majority of these Pong systems seem, to me, to fall on the obscure side.)

Here’s the other thing of note on the underside of the console: the battery compartment. Now, the Wonder Wizard 7702 does accept a power adapter, but such things were not included with mine. That’s okay, I’m used to it, and besides, as was common with these Pong clones, the option to use batteries was often (always?) included as an alternative. This was beneficial, because while I could have dug up or otherwise found a replacement adapter, I’m generally leery of such things, having once fried an Atari Jaguar many years back. (The subsequent ‘pop’ and wisp of smoke that arose from the Jag told me I probably did somethin’ bad to it. It was obviously my fault for not being more careful looking at the specs of the machine and the adapter, but hey, live and learn. I wound up getting a ‘good’ Jaguar later down the road anyway.)

So yes, if I was going to play this thing, it was going to be via six big ol’ size “C” batteries. Unfortunately, the sole issue regarding the condition of the Wonder Wizard – and I was cognizant of this while still at the thrift store – is in regards to that battery compartment. The problem? Look at the top right of this picture, and you’ll see that the plastic around the battery connector (is that what it’s called?) has broken. The connector itself isn’t broken, just the plastic (hey, it is over 40 years old), and as such, I knew there was a strong possibility that I’d have to play Bob Vila and do a little repair work when I got home. Fiddling with some new batteries and the connector later that first night, I did get the unmistakable beeps and boops of Pong to emanate from the system, so I had a good idea that the system worked in some fashion. So the next day (yesterday to you), I opened the whole thing up, used a roll of adhesive (that’s tape to you), and began the process of sturdily taping the connector back in place just enough to make adequate contact with the batteries.

I discovered while having the Wonder Wizard opened that except for the battery compartment, the thing was in exceedingly decent, clean shape. (Same goes for the outside of the unit; it sure appears to have been well taken care of!) Due to the wiring inside, it was tougher to get a decent view and/or my big meaty paws in there than I expected, but eventually I prevailed to the point of “good enough.” Remember, this wasn’t a big time restoration job; the batteries just had to make decent contact.

We’ll get to the fruits of my labor momentarily, but long story short: I was successful. It was an achievement worthy of me stomping around the neighborhood and hollering “I is MacGyver!” over and over. I didn’t, because that would have drawn the consternation of my neighbors and I generally try to avoid them. But I could have.

(This battery compartment picture was actually taken after all was said and done, and as such you can see some of my expert professional tape job in it. I had it taped into place better than it appears here; I accidentally pushed the thing back out when removing the batteries. “These pics aren’t in sequential order in regards to the story at hand?! Say it ain’t so!” That black tape to the left was there when I got the thing, and I just noticed the relatively minor cracking in the bottom left corner a moment ago. If I ever do much work with this thing again, it’ll be via an actual power adapter, lest I make things worse than they already are.)

There was one other issue regarding the hooking up of the Wonder Wizard to a TV, and though I didn’t fully quite recognize it as such at first, it was actually a far more pressing issue than the battery compartment. If I didn’t get that thing going, I’d just find an adapter. But if this other issue didn’t work out in my favor, I was in some actual trouble.

The Wonder Wizard has the RF cable hardwired right into the console, which is all fine and dandy. But, because this was actually made by Magnavox, the Wonder Wizard is subject to the same trappings as the Odysseys, and that could cause issues nowadays.

How so? Look at this RF plug here; doesn’t look like your usual RF plug, do it? Magnavox used what was, I believe (correct me if I’m wrong), a proprietary format for their Odysseys. That’s to say, unique. In other words, you need the appropriate switch box that matches with this plug before you can connect the thing to your TV. I consider this to be decidedly “whack.”

(Could someone do some splicing/soldering/etc. and make this relatively more compatible, i.e. with a more common set-up? Probably, but I have no such skills, and besides, I’d be worried about messing up my one and only example of the console.)

Fortunately, I had just such a switch box, from a Magnavox Odyssey 2000 I got at a different thrift store many many years ago. That 2000 is in somewhat iffy condition so I never even attempted to use it, though coincidentally, that Wiki link says it’s basically an updated Odyssey 300. I just can’t get away from that thing!

The 2000 has just been floating around my basement since acquiring it, so it’s nice to see that it’s finally earning its keep by providing the original Magnavox switch box for me to use here. And in a pleasant change of pace, I didn’t have to go through a laborious search to unearth it! It was grimy enough to make me wonder if it even still functioned however, providing me with yet another “I ain’t know” in regards to whether I’d ever get the Wonder Wizard displaying on a real TV or not. But, at least I wasn’t completely out of luck. Yet?

So, everything’s hooked up, and while there was some trial and error and aforementioned battery compartment-fixin’, the results eventually yielded were…

…An earthshaking success! I am the man! I. AM. THE. MAN. Time for a bizarre touchdown dance? Maybe!

Remember my cool 1975 RCA portable TV seen both here and then here? It was the only relatively-accessible TV with the old school screwy RF antenna jack things in my immediate vicinity, so as you can see, out it came. Plus, playing a Pong clone on that TV feels right; the Wonder Wizard displaying on that uber-retro television set, I mean, it just looks cool. The woodgrain of the console, contrasting with the sleek, smooth 1970s-ness of the TV – the old school gaming vibes are strong with this one! Though, I did have to remove the protective face cover on the TV before taking pictures, since it was apparently made of the most reflective substance in the universe and I didn’t need y’all inadvertently seeing the look of utter awe and/or joy on mah face.

Like I said earlier, when messing around with the batteries, I did get sound to emanate from the machine (this is one of those old school consoles in which all sound effects come straight out of the system and not the TV as you’d expect), so something somewhere somehow worked. Nevertheless, it was a moment of sheer exhilaration (or at least relief) to see that the money wasn’t wasted to bring the Wonder Wizard home.

(I would have liked to get some actual screenshots of this console in action for this article, as opposed to mere pictures of it playing on a TV. Now that I think of it, I guess I could have screwed this unique switch box into a common, generic switch box, and then screwed that into the back of a VCR, and then plugged that into the VCR I have connected to my PC. But boy, that sure sounds like an awful lot of work for an article only three people will look at and only half will actually read.)

What you’re seeing displayed above is tennis aka Pong aka ping pong aka still tennis. It, uh, acts exactly as you’d expect it to. It’s Pong, what more can I say? I did discover that the paddles are pretty jittery on the Wonder Wizard, so actually playing the thing isn’t really feasible. I fully expected this, such things are very common with these dedicated consoles; cleaning the knobs would solve the issue, should I so desire.

This here is hockey, or rather what is purported to be hockey. I mean, technically I guess it is. You’ve got your goalies, and, uh, other guys. I have no idea why the right side features three players while the left side only has two; maybe the right side had a power play?

No matter, cause guess what, CPU? My superior 2020 intellect and advanced game playin’ skillz are about to take you down! Let’s rumble!!!

…Oh wait, the Wonder Wizard is two players only. Yep, in an annoyingly endearing trait of early video games, the option to play by your lonesome is, erm, not an option at all. Don’t have anybody to play with? Guess you’re playing you, then! First one to 15 is the victor! Hey look, I won!

And here’s the hand ball variation. Tennis/Pong and hockey may hold more gravitas in comparison, but had the paddles not been so jittery and I felt like browbeating someone into playing with me, I could see this one being potentially pretty fun.

As it stands though, it’s, uh, hand ball. You slam a ball against the wall and, I guess, hope the other person misses it? Are those the rules? Hey look, I won again! 15 to 1!

This raises the question though: was there ever a legit Pong variant of Jai Alai? Or, dare I dream it, Bocce Ball? (Those two sports don’t really have anything to do with each other and I’m not very familiar with either one; I’m just writing filler here.)

While taking pictures for this article, I thought turning the light off might improve the quality of the shots my phone was taking of the television screen. The difference was negligible, but I did get this really cool pic of the Wonder Wizard illuminated by the light of said screen. it evokes, I don’t know, bell-bottomed kids staying up late into the night playing this wonder of technology or something. “It’s far out, man!” Wait, were people still saying “far out” in our Bicentennial year of ’76?

So there you have it, the Wonder Wizard Television Sports Games (aka Magnavox Odyssey 300) console. Is it antiquated in both looks and gameplay? Well, yeah, I guess. But you know, I absolutely love the overt 1970s look of the console. And the gameplay? I hate the thinking that just because a game is old or graphically challenged (or another apparently popular one: pre-NES), it can’t possibly be any good. Yes, the game variants here are all primitive to the max, but I can absolutely still see some potential head-to-head fun being had here.

And really, this is pure gaming history. Okay, sure, in comparison to other Pong systems it’s probably a relatively minor piece, but nevertheless, the Wonder Wizard is still a part of that de facto first generation of home video games. (You thought the Atari 2600 was first gen? Sorry ace; that and consoles like it are actually second gen.)

Is the Wonder Wizard my new favorite Pong clone console? Well, I’m definitely fond of it (for what it cost, I better be!), and I do indeed collect these consoles in general, but it still doesn’t top my two favorite dedicated consoles from the era: the Coleco Telstar Arcade, which is so (relatively) advanced that calling it a mere “Pong clone” seems like a serious understatement, and Atari’s Video Pinball console, which isn’t even really a Pong system at all.

Still, the Wonder Wizard is neato, man. You know what it sorta recalls to me? Lemme see if I can explain this: due to the look of it, it just seems like something that was bought and played, and then just sorta became ‘part of the scenery.’ Not relegated to the basement or attic exactly, but just sort of there, kind of more like a piece of furniture than something anyone ever really thought of playing by a certain point – especially once more advanced consoles started coming out. Maybe it was dusted and kept clean fairly clean (this example is still in very nice shape), but was paid little attention to otherwise.

Does that make any sense at all?

I don’t know, maybe I’m putting too much thought into this. Anyway, the Wonder Wizard 7702: it looks neat and cool and strictly of its time, it plays fine (well, except for the jittery paddles), and it’s now part of my collection. What more could a vintage gaming system ask for?

Memorex Video Information System (1992)

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When I woke up today, I had no idea what a Memorex Video Information System was or that such a device ever existed. Had you shown up at my house to inform me of such a product, I’d have reacted with utter confusion and then told you to get out of my messy abode. Seriously, what were you thinking?

But oh how quickly things can change! Just a few hours after waking up (I won’t tell you when I woke up, but it was probably unacceptably late), I found myself at Goodwill, as I so often do. I waltzed out with an old piece of local glassware (does anyone remember Welch’s Saloon of Akron?) and a two-VHS Godzilla set I didn’t really need but actually kinda did.

Found during the same visit was what appeared to be an old CD player, shoved on their electronics shelf and with a big $4 price scrawled on it via china marker. An introductory glance revealed that this was indeed a CD-based contraption, but something called a “VIS.” Clearly a closer inspection and look-up on my phone was warranted and granted. Turns out this was something called the “Memorex Video Information System.”

It was neat, it was interesting, and yet, I didn’t buy it!

Nope, I actually checked out with my treasures and went home sans VIS. I only had a few bucks on me anyway. I’d gotten the VIS bug though, and as soon as I got home, I did a bit more research, realized I had passed on a pretty rare item, grabbed some more money, and made a really hasty retreat back to Goodwill. There the VIS still sat, seemingly untouched by anyone since I had been bothering it probably less than an hour before. And so, here we are.

It looks like a cross between a VCR and a garden-variety CD player of the period, dunnit?

The Memorex Video Information System was actually a Tandy/Radio Shack innovation, originally releasing in 1992 and operating in the same “interactive multimedia” wheelhouse as the CD-i but evidently flopping far worse than that thing ever did (which is really saying something). It probably wasn’t really a video game system – I’m not sure any legitimate video games were even made for this – but it did originally come with video game-like wireless controllers (I looked, and they were nowhere to be found; I imagine they were loooong gone before this showed up at Goodwill).

It seems that the majority of software releases focused more on “edutainment” titles (*shudder*), but still, I find the CD-i (and Commodore CDTV) comparisons intriguing. I collect obscure gaming and gaming-related things like this, and when it comes to the early-1990s, the VIS is an obscurity of the highest order. Like I said, I had no inkling of such a thing existing beforehand.

Wikipedia has an informative entry on it, and according to them it retailed for a whopping $699 (!!), sold only 11,000 units (!!!), and ran on a modified version of Windows 3.1. There were actual VIS discs created for this thing; I’m not sure if it will run any regular PC games of the era or not, but I’m guessing that it won’t.

Look, it’s basically a circa-1992 computer in a console-ish shell and with its own brand of discs to run, not unlike the original Xbox except nobody owned the VIS.

As you can see above, the front of the unit is pretty minimalist; only power and disc drawer open/close buttons are immediately evident.

But look here: a little slidey panel on the bottom-right reveals a few more options. Here’s where the cartridge input is located, though to what extent software was found in cartridge form for the VIS, I cannot say. Also, microphone and headphone inputs and a volume control, because hey, it was 1992. The headphone jack and volume knob are self-explanatory, but I can’t fathom what a microphone would be needed for here. Did this thing do some kind of recording? Or did something on the VIS beat Hey You, Pikachu! to the punch by several years?

The only other aspect of the front that ‘does’ anything is, needless to say, the CD drawer. It, uh, opens and closes. Unlike my roughly-10-years-old Blu-ray player, the drawer of the pushing-30-years-old Video Information System opens and closes pretty fast and smoothly. Hey, for 700 bucks, you’d sure hope some lastin’ quality would be built-in!

(I’m not sure how well my pictures show it, but this particular VIS unit was in exceptionally good shape. Of course I have no way of knowing how much use it did or didn’t get back in the day, but it appears to have been well-maintained.)

Since I have neither software nor controllers for the VIS, what I can and can’t do with it is pretty limited. (Go figure!) Still, being a CD-based electronic, there are ways of testing it beyond merely plugging it in and seeing if the power light comes on.

Well, that’s a good sign! At least I get a start-up screen upon pressing power! I wish I could insert a disc or cartridge, VIS. One made specifically for you, I mean.

Now, I’ve got a ton of old PC games in my collection, but only so many within the immediate vicinity. As such, the copy of Mad Dog McCree I picked up fairly recently and thus was still in said immediate vicinity became my test subject. I questioned whether the VIS would run it or not, though even if it did, I had no way of actually playing it.

It was a moot point however, since the game wouldn’t run. I guess I didn’t seriously expect it to, but there was a small hope nevertheless.

I could have called it quits right there and been satisfied; it’s not like I’d be throwing such a rare item out even if it was entirely nonfunctional anyway, but the fact that it powered up and gave me a starting screen was enough for me to label this find a full-fledged cool winnin.

Still, I wouldn’t be an efficient time waster if I didn’t research just a bit further, so like I did with the Kodak Photo CD thing I babbled about a million years ago, I grabbed an audio CD I had lying about and loaded it up.

Not only did I get a specific “CD player” screen, but the VIS automatically started the disc playing! Obviously I had no way of skipping tracks or pausing or what have you, but for the brief time I had music going, it sounded really nice, and without any skipping/distorting. Pretty cool for something some 27-years-old! That’s not to say the entire disc would have played flawlessly; who knows how the VIS would have operated once really heating up or something, but in this day and age, is it even important? Maybe if I could play games (“games”) it would be, but as it stands, I’m labeling this all “good enough.”

So in summation, a trip (well, two trips) to Goodwill netted me a pretty cool piece of early-90s tech. The Memorex Video Information System was quite a failure for Radio Shack, though in just the brief time I’ve had it, I’ve read several different viewpoints on just how long it was on shelves. I suppose it doesn’t really matter; if the 11,000 units figure is correct, man, that’s like nothin’. (For the record: there’s no actual date on mine, so I’m going with a generic “1992” notation here, as seen in the title of this post.)

I wish I could give a better demonstration of VIS’ abilities. I can’t, but luckily, Gamester81 has an excellent video review of it that gives you a far better idea of how this thing operated.

I have no illusions of ever coming across controllers and/or software for the VIS, but hey, you never know what you’ll come across later in the day when you first wake up!

Still, for now I’ve got the system, and that’s enough. It kinda has to be, you know?

(And before anyone asks, no this is not for sale!)

Atari 7800 Review: DOUBLE DRAGON (Activision, 1989)

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Double Dragon on the Atari 7800? Time to rock!

Look, we need to get one thing straight right up front: I’m a Double Dragon fanatic. If there’s a console with an installment of the series found on it, I want it. I don’t claim to own every release for every system and/or handheld, but Double Dragon and its sequels do take up a relatively significant amount of space in my not-inconsiderable video game collection.

The series should be immediately familiar to anyone that was into video games in the late-1980s and early-1990s; the original 1987 arcade game basically launched the beat-’em-up genre. You know, side-scrolling fighting games in which you fought numerous enemies, typically but not always on a 3-D plane (that is, a foreground and background you can walk between). It was a smash, and naturally sequels followed. The original entries were eventually ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, though they were only ports in a technical sense; they used the same street fighting motif and general plotlines, but basically did their own thing. Nevertheless, Double Dragon and its sequels, particularly those NES conversions, were seemingly ever-present on the video game scene of the early-1990s, which was when *I* was coming into my own as a young gamer.

Despite popularizing the beat-’em-up genre (though it wasn’t the first such game), looking back, it’s a little surprising how quickly Double Dragon‘s style of walking around and beating up bad guys was superseded by following games in the genre, and not just graphically, either. Only four levels (called “Missions”) and a relatively low number of enemies quickly appeared quaint when compared to longer, all-out fighting extravaganzas like Capcom’s Final Fight some two years later – a template beat-’em-ups largely followed in the early-1990s before the whole idea of a “fightin’ game” was steadily replaced by Street Fighter II and the like.

Actually, despite being wildly unfaithful to the arcade source material, the NES Double Dragon games probably hold up better than other versions nowadays simply because they lengthened and/or added original elements to the ports – additions that help them stand up against the subsequent, more-advanced games in the same genre.

The original Double Dragon arcade machine from 1987. The face that launched a thousand beat-’em-ups!

Still, taken on its own, the original Double Dragon (and at least the first sequel, Double Dragon II: The Revenge) remains a lot of fun today. Aside from some ugly slowdown when too many sprites are onscreen, it’s a fantastic beat-’em-up, though those accustomed to Streets of Rage and such may have a tough time getting into it. Nevertheless, for its time Double Dragon was quite the trendsetter. I mean, simultaneous two-player street fighting action, all in an effort to rescue a kidnapped girlfriend? A bevy of combat moves you could pull off? Colorful, detailed stages to traverse? A variety of enemies to pummel? Of course people would continuously throw quarters at it!

(Even if the period of revolutionary success was relatively short-lived, Double Dragon continued to be a name draw well into the 1990s, eventually spawning, besides the sequels proper, a Battletoads spin-off, a couple one-on-one fighters, an inexplicable board game, those ever-present Tiger handhelds, an animated TV series, and a terrible live-action movie that I, thankfully, only have limited experience with. The brand’s “oomph” sort of tapered off as the second half of the 1990s dawned, but there’s no denying how recognizable the franchise was in the years immediately preceding. A good deal of this popularity can probably be attributed to the series as it appeared on the NES, such was the visibility of both them and it at the time.)

It was also in this late-1980s setting that the 8-bit console wars came about. Perhaps calling it a “war” is a bit of a misnomer since, in the U.S. anyway, it was all about the NES. Seemingly every kid had Nintendo, and growing up, I initially wasn’t aware there even were other 8-bit consoles beyond it. I mean, sure, there were the home computers, but to me, it was basically those and the NES. In actuality, there were three viable 8-bit consoles at the time: besides the NES, there was the Sega Master System, and then there was the Atari 7800. Neither did much comparatively in the States, though the SMS was a force to be reckoned with in much of the rest of the world. (No kidding, the European and Brazilian SMS scene was, and is, fascinating!)

The 7800 was an interesting case; initially intended to right the wrongs that the Atari 5200 had ostensibly committed, the 7800 was meant to come out in 1984, restore Atari’s good name and blow the competition (namely the ColecoVision) out of the water. It was a pretty powerful system for the time, with terrific graphics, a sleek design, and the ability to play Atari 2600 games without an adapter right out of the box.

It didn’t quite work out as planned though. There was a brief test market in ’84, but the combined effects of the infamous early-1980s video game crash and the sale of Atari Inc. from Time Warner to Jack Tramiel put a halt on an immediate wide release. In the aftermath, Atari Inc. became Atari Corp., and the 7800 was placed on the back burner until 1986. The 7800 was still a capable console with an enormous amount of potential, but with a library of older titles and a somewhat-damaged reputation to the name “Atari,” not to mention constant cost-cutting measures regarding new titles and peripherals, well, it was an uphill battle against the Super Mario juggernaut that the NES became as the 1980s wore on. The added competition of the Sega Master System didn’t help matters, either.

Even though the NES, SMS and 7800 were all originally developed around the same 1983/1984 time frame, and all eventually wide released in the U.S. in 1986, due to the specific circumstances surrounding the 7800’s debut and subsequent library, it feels like a console caught between two eras of gaming. To me, it’s like a system from both the early/mid-80s and the late-80s, if that makes any sense. ‘Course, that’s one of the reasons I love it so much; no joke, the Atari 7800 is absolutely in my personal top five favorite consoles.

Anyway, fast forward to 1989. Gaming consoles are again big business, revolutionary titles are coming out left and right, and Double Dragon has already swept not only the arcades but also the NES and SMS. It was in this climate that the Atari 7800 port of Double Dragon, released by Activision, arrived.

The fantastic but ill-fated Atari 7800, complete with Double Dragon loaded!

This was amazing for a few reasons. 1) Nintendo’s licensing agreements with software developers meant that it was hard, often impossible, for the same games to come out on more than just the NES. Thanks to legal loopholes however, there were exceptions, and several titles well-known as members of the NES stable also appeared on competing consoles. 2) The 7800 was great at playing classic arcade ports such Asteroids, Centipede, Joust and Ms. Pac-Man, and had it been released in 1984 as intended, the matter would have been less egregious. But by the late-1980s, new names were needed, and the 7800 was woefully lacking in that area. Rampage, Ikari Warriors, Commando and Xenophobe were welcome exceptions, but that’s just what they were, exceptions.

(The issue of original games was another sticking point with the 7800, something Atari only seemed to truly realize within the last few years of the console’s life. By then it was far too late to save it, but we did get the Super Mario Bros.-ish platformer Scrapyard Dog, the intensely-quirky Ninja Golf, and what just may be the best game on the entire system, The Legend of Zelda-esque Midnight Mutants, starring Al “Grampa Munster” Lewis himself!)

The current homebrew scene has expanded the 7800’s library considerably, but where the original run is concerned, there were less than 60 titles released, and while many of them were/are pretty good, there were few that would have truly raised eyebrows in that late-80s/early-90s video gaming climate.

Enter 1989’s Double Dragon. Simply put, this was the exact type of game the 7800 needed. A modern arcade port, and a hot one at that. The 1988 home version on the NES was a massive hit, and 1989 was also the year a (very loose) port of the sequel arrived for the ol’ toaster. Furthermore, the SMS version of Double Dragon was also an extremely popular title, one which some would say was even better than the NES’.

So yes, in a library that initially only consisted of 59 games (two of which weren’t even released in the United States), Double Dragon stood, and stands, out big time. They came close, but Commando, Rampage, Ikari Warriors and Xenophobe, while more current than most of the 7800’s offerings, and with some late-80s coin-op clout to boot, just didn’t share quite the same name recognition that Double Dragon had. Could any of them touch Double Dragon as far as popularity went? Thanks mainly to the wildly successful NES port, I’d say “no.” Indeed, this release marked the only time that 7800 owners could truly partake in the same then-modern gaming experience as NES owners could. Some of the same games showed up on both systems, but Double Dragon was one of the gaming properties of the late-1980s, in both the arcades and at home. For once, 7800 owners could bask in the same glow as NES (and SMS) owners!

(A cool example of this “phenomenon”: I have a comic book buried in my collection from either 1989 or 1990 – I can’t remember which year for sure – and when it comes to the advertisements found throughout the issue, not only is this 7800 game pitched, but so is the NES original and sequel! I’m going to guess that sort of thing didn’t happen very often!)

A cart with perhaps more fisticuffs than any other 7800 game!

Double Dragon was a Technos Japan innovation, with the NES port released by Tradewest (in the U.S.) and the SMS’ by Sega themselves. Activision, they of River Raid and Pitfall! fame, were still riding the Atari bandwagon in the late-1980s, one of the few third parties to continue do so, and it was they that put out our game on both the Atari 7800 and still-breathing 2600. That’s right, there’s an Atari 2600 port of Double Dragon, too! Given the mega-primitive hardware and one-button limitation of the joystick, it’s actually a pretty impressive piece of programming, featuring some terrific graphics and sound given the console it’s on. It’s not the most playable version of Double Dragon ever released, the difficulty is too high and there are too many moves mapped to the single fire button, but it is recognizable as Double Dragon, and that in and of itself is amazing.

The cart you’re seeing here is, obviously, the 7800 version. The 2600 version looks very similar, with the same plain layout except the colors are reversed (white-on-black instead of black-on-white), and naturally with “for the…” altered accordingly. Considering the 7800 library is littered with dull, black & white cartridge artwork, it’s too bad a more-striking label didn’t show up, but beggars can’t be choosers – I mean, at least the 7800 got Double Dragon!

(Remember, this is an article from a North American perspective; label art and the like varied in other countries.)

The iconic Double Dragon title screen, reproduced on the 7800!

Upon powering up the cartridge, you’re presented with the pleasant surprise that the 7800 received the most arcade-faithful port of all three 8-bit consoles. Indeed, at points it almost looks like someone took the arcade game and “7800-ized” it.

Something is evident on the title screen that’s very, very important. Look down at the bottom of the screen and see what it says: 1 or 2 players.

“Yeah, okay, so what North Video guy? Everyone knows Double Dragon is a two-player game!”

Well sure it is…in the arcade and on most of the home editions. There was one home edition, however, that inexplicably made it two-players alternating: the NES port. Yes, in what was perhaps the most visible version of the game out there, the biggest feature of the original coin-op, the meaning of the very title itself, was stripped out! The NES port, for all the tampering with the levels and moves it featured (more on both of those in a bit), was magnificently playable. But, there’s no doubt that removing the ability to simultaneously beat down thugs with a buddy absolutely destroyed some of the magic that made the game so popular in the first place.

Well, that simultaneous two-player action is indeed present here on the Atari 7800!

Mission One’s “city slum.” That’s a whip in Billy’s hand, and a bat on the ground. Dig the “Scoop Moto” billboard – just like the arcade!

The arcade-accuracy continues into the game proper. Even the (in)famous intro, in which your girlfriend is slugged in the stomach and carried away is here – a shocking and wildly uncomfortable bit of violence that I can’t believe flew even back then.

That short sequence upon the start of a new game is about all the exposition you’re going to get, because there’s really no in-game plot to speak of. Not that you necessarily need one; saving a damsel-in-distress wasn’t exactly a new innovation in video game plots by the late-1980s, but it provides sufficient motivation for fisticuffs, methinks.

The plot was expanded upon in supplementary materials, sometimes exponentially so; Japanese releases place the setting at some point in the then-near future, after a nuclear war has devastated the population and caused gang warfare to rise. I don’t like this explanation at all; it adds an added layer of science fiction to the proceedings that, in my opinion, the game just doesn’t need. U.S. story lines were more straightforward in their telling, with a much simpler tale of a rampant street gang, the two brothers that oppose them, and the kidnapping of a girlfriend by said street gang. That’s all you need; background is nice, but it’s not something generally required in a game of this nature.

The gist of the plot, in both Japan and the U.S., is this: The Black Warriors (the bad guys) have taken over the city, and are opposed by relatively few, save for the twin brothers of Billy Lee and Jimmy Lee (the good guys), who are quite proficient in the martial arts. In order to lure them on to their turf and take them out once and for all, The Black Warriors kidnap Billy Lee’s girlfriend Marian. This is unacceptable, and so Billy (and his brother Jimmy as the second-player) set out to beat down some thugs and rescue her.

To get to Marian, the titular characters must traverse four environments: the city slum, the industrial area, the woods, and finally, the enemy base.

These level layouts in 7800 Double Dragon are far closer to the arcade than either the SMS or especially the NES. The SMS mostly followed the stages found in the coin-op (and included simultaneous two-player action as well), though it diverged in a few spots. The NES port was all over the place, with levels that typically started out somewhat faithful to the coin-op and then just went nuts. Platform elements, a trip up a construction site, into some caves, and so on and so forth. It was fun, and it actually did work, but it wasn’t exactly arcade-accurate. Though as I said earlier, the additions served to lengthen the game and make it more suitable for an at-home experience, which means it has held up better in the long run (the same thing applies to the versions of Double Dragon II and Double Dragon III on the console, as well).

In the 7800’s case however, what you saw in the arcade was by and large ported over to the Atari, and there’s something to be said for faithfulness to the source material. Unfortunately, Double Dragon wasn’t an especially long game as a coin-op, and that carried over here, too.

Mission Two’s “industrial area.” You certainly CAN climb up that fence!

By the way, if you’re totally bored, you may be asking yourself “hey, where’d y’all get these swell in-game screenshots, North Video Guy?” The answer to that is: I took them myself, with an actual 7800 console, cart and CRT TV. Y’see, I don’t emulate, so if these screenshots lack somewhat in the sharpness department, and I know that they do, that’s thanks to the good ol’ RF signal; no, the 7800 I used hasn’t been modded for AV output. Honestly, I actually think this gives a more accurate picture of how the game is meant to be displayed, closer to how kids playing it upon release first saw it. The harsh sharpness of emulation actually makes the game look uglier than it needs to.

And while on that subject, let’s talk about the graphics proper. 7800 Double Dragon isn’t a bad looking game as a whole, but it is a mixed bag.

The arcade-faithful backgrounds generally look pretty nice. The first two stages have sort of a drab color-scheme, but the detail is excellent and the layout is just like the coin-op. The third and fourth levels are terrific, with a richly-detailed forest in the third and foreboding enemy fortress (complete with deadly spike pit) in the fourth. Modern day homebrew games aside, the graphical-detail in the latter stages of Double Dragon are some of the best graphics seen on the 7800.

As for the sprites in the game, well, they’re another story. Simply put, for the most part they look like something the Atari 5200, a full console generation before (and with hardware even older than that), could have pulled off. They’re awfully blocky, and with a minimal amount of detail. Except for Abobo (the big, hulking enemy that has become one of the most popular faces of Double Dragon), the characters don’t really look very good. It’s quite a contrast with the backgrounds!

They may not all look great, but did everyone from the arcade original at least make it over to the 7800? Yes and no. Billy and Jimmy are here, using the same, palette-swapped sprite. The same goes for common thugs Williams and Roper, and 2nd level boss Jeff; they all use the same sprite as Billy and Jimmy, just with different colors. Female thug Linda is here too, but shares the same image as the kidnapped Marian. Head bad guy Big Boss Willy obviously gets his own design, as naturally does Abobo. (Technically, there was Abobo and Bolo in the arcade, both nearly identical save for a few differences, but c’mon, it’s always just been Abobo to the layman).

So yeah, everyone’s here technically, but not without some caveats.

As mentioned, the NES version is one-player only, and can display two enemies at a time, albeit with some graphical break-up. The SMS has two-players simultaneously and up to three enemies, but there’s a lot of flicker throughout. With the 7800 however, one of the strengths built into the system from the get-go was the ability to move a lot of sprites at the same time, without flicker or slowdown.

The richly-detailed forest of Mission Three. Note the number of sprites onscreen, without flicker or graphical break-up! Neato!

This ability is readily apparent in Double Dragon. The game can have up to four bad guys onscreen, plus your one or two players. No graphical break-up, no flicker, and no slowdown either, except for some choppy scrolling when moving to a new screen. This version plays a bit more sluggish as a whole, but it’s not a deal breaker, and the relatively slower, more-deliberate pace of the game actually serves it well.

While on the subject of sprites, one thing about the original coin-op that wore real thin, real fast was its tendency to slow down when the screen became crowded. Yep, the more sprites there were at a given moment, the more the action crawled. Honestly, if you’re able to get beyond the relatively-archaic nature of the proceedings (early beat-’em-up and all), that’s really the only downside to what is otherwise still a terrific game.

The slowdown in the original coin-op often made the use of weapons more of a chore than a pleasure, which is a shame, because the ability to grab a new beat-down implement was another one of the revolutionary aspects of the game. You never saw Thomas appropriate one of those knives from a mindless grunt in Kung-Fu Master, after all!

The arcade featured bats, whips, knives, boulders, barrels, boxes and dynamite, all of which your character could pick up and use in his quest for kidnapped-girlfriend-vengeance. (And of course, they could always be taken from you, as well.) Only the bats, whips and knives made it to the 7800 port. In contrast to the later Streets of Rage, in which a knife could be used repeatedly or thrown at once, in Double Dragon it was always a one-throw deal. The bat and whips can be used repeatedly, though unlike the arcade, they eventually disappear when moving from one section of a level to another (common for home console conversions of the period).

Ah, but it was the attacks, the various combos you could pull off, that really sets Double Dragon apart from other side-scrolling fighters. Not set, sets. Later beat-’em-ups simplified the amount of attacks, sometimes with only a jump and punch button, maybe a special move. Double Dragon was considerably more involved, with a style of game play that more-closely resembled actual martial arts street fighting (I assume; so rarely do I get out to street fight). From the three buttons and joystick, you could pull off punches, kicks, jump kicks, reverse jump kicks, headbutts, elbow smashes, over-the-shoulder throws, the ability to repeatedly knee an enemy in the face, and with a buddy, one player could even grapple a baddie while the other slugged him (which worked the other way around, too). Amazingly, with all of these options at your disposal and relatively few buttons, it worked really, really well.

With only two attack buttons generally available, obviously all these moves didn’t always make it to the home versions intact. The NES port fared better than most; even though you had to continuously “level-up” to earn more of them, in some odd form of RPG-ness, you could amass an impressive range of attacks, including the ability to sit on an enemy and punch them relentlessly in the face. This wasn’t found in the coin-op, but rather in Technos’ prior beat-’em-up Renegade, which was Double Dragon‘s spiritual predecessor in more ways than one.

The SMS version retained a good number of the attacks, though for me, only the punches, kicks, jump kicks and headbutts were consistently easy to pull off. (You can elbow smash and knee-in-the-face, but I could only ever trigger those attacks by mistake!)

Mission Three is lengthy and culminates in a mountainside fight at the entrance of the enemy base…against not one but TWO green Abobos!

The 7800 actually fared pretty well in the translation. The knee-in-the-face and over-the-shoulder-throw options were, disappointingly, excised. (So is the grapple technique, though no home version got that, as far as I know.) But, along with the obvious abilities to punch, kick and jump kick, the reverse jump kick, headbutt, and elbow smash all made it in. Some of the button combos to make these moves happen are a little strange (down + punch to headbutt? What was wrong with double-tapping left or right like the arcade, NES and SMS?), but mostly this all works okay.

However, we now come to the biggest problem with the Atari 7800 version of Double Dragon, and it’s something that’s not even the game’s fault: the painful stock U.S. 7800 controller. Here in the States, we got the “ProLine Joystick,” and from start to finish, it was pretty much a holdover from the early-1980s era of controller-design. Basically an elongated grip with a joystick at the top and a fire button on each side (think ColecoVision or Atari 5200), it was a controller not suited to long sessions of any game, never mind one that requires constant movement and button-pressing like Double Dragon.

Overseas, Europeans got the “ProLine Joypad,” and it’s a far, far superior controller. Basically Atari’s answer to the NES control pad, it’s a continual mystery why it never replaced the joystick here in the U.S. It’s not perfect, but considering the alternative, it’s definitely preferable, and it makes all the difference in the world when it comes to Double Dragon.

Y’see, this game has gotten a reputation for being overly difficult, and in many eyes, not very good. Hey, I’ve been on that side of the fence a time or two in the past, too. When I first got the 7800 port many years ago, I was by no means a novice at Double Dragon. And yet, I could barely make any headway before exhausting all my lives (you get three to start, an extra at 50,000 points, and no continues). I was probably convinced it was either the hardest or most poorly-programmed port 8-bit console port there was.

Fast forward several years, when I decided to get myself some of the European Joypads. After all, I loved the 7800, so why not, you know, fully enjoy it? 2600, or even Sega Genesis, controllers were fine for single-button games, but some of the best 7800 titles, like Commando or our subject today, require two. And what a revelation! A whole new appreciation for the 7800 port of Double Dragon was gained, all because I could finally properly play it! Go figure!

I think 7800 Double Dragon gets a bad rap as far as difficulty is concerned. Don’t get me wrong, it’s on the challenging side; the enemies can hound you and get some cheap shots in. But, it’s really not any more difficult than any other 8-bit conversion, and in fact is probably easier as a whole than the NES port, where you can save all of your lives only to blaze through them in a hurry on the last level.

The controller, I think, is one of the issues with that difficulty perception. Seriously, get the European Joypads. Do what you gotta do to play Double Dragon comfortably, because it ain’t gonna happen using the regular ProLine Joystick. I can beat the game using it, but it’s not exactly an ergonomic experience.

The controller used isn’t the game’s fault, but another key to enjoying the beat-down frenzy is: the punch. There’s a very simple method to avoiding frustration with this game, and it’s this: just don’t punch. I know that sounds weird, but hear me out. When animating the attacks, the punch is given a “wind up.” It isn’t instant contact. As such, there’s a moment of hesitation, and this leaves you open to hits. In other words, you end up taking taking cheap shots and trading blows back and forth.

Some players like to spam the elbow smash (just like the arcade!) and jump kicks here, but in my experience, you don’t necessarily need to do that. When using a normal, ground-based attack, just stick with regular kicking. There’s no animation between the button press and the result, so it’s ‘instant,’ and as such, you can hammer away at baddies without taking too many unnecessary hits back.

Mission Four, with some of the best graphics in the entire game!

On top of that, the enemy A.I. is painfully stupid. Yes, they can be tough, but once you learn their patterns, you can counter them pretty easily. Same goes for most beat-’em-ups, I know, but especially here. Much like the NES version, if you get in ‘close’ to an enemy, especially when coming in from underneath, you should be able to knock them down and eventually out while saving most of your life bar. As such, even the Abobos and Big Boss Willy, traditionally the toughest enemies, can be defeated without too much trouble.

So no, 7800 Double Dragon isn’t too hard. If anything, it might be a little too easy. You just gotta learn the tricks!

Lastly, we come to the music of 7800 Double Dragon. One of the most celebrated aspects of the game, in both its original incarnation and in most of the ports, was the soundtrack. Double Dragon featured an absolute classic score, one that not only fit the scenes you were traversing but also absolutely got you in the mood to beat down some street punks. On the 7800, we got…some of that.

Y’see, the system was originally intended to include a POKEY sound chip, which would have given it the sound quality of the Atari 8-bit computers and 5200, which was pretty good. When it was eventually released however, the POKEY was omitted as a cost-saving measure. The chip could be added to individual carts, though sadly, this was only utilized twice, for Commando and Ballblazer. Both have terrific music, but aside from those exceptions, the 7800 generally features sound identical to what the 2600 could pull off.

Now, it’s beyond old news to rag on the 7800’s sound quality. Compared to the NES and SMS, it sounds particularly bad, we know. It is what it is. It’s funny, I don’t even mind the sound of the 2600, but when it’s paired with the superior visuals of the 7800, well, it just kinda throws you for a loop.

That said, Double Dragon really should have utilized a POKEY sound chip. The soundtrack was so phenomenal that it absolutely, without a doubt deserved the honor. But, it didn’t. As such, we’re left with an incomplete, slightly-shrill score. Two of the mission tunes were omitted completely, meaning there’s some repetition involved. What is included is the famous title-screen track, Mission One’s theme, Mission Three’s theme (in the arcade, anyway), and the boss encounter music, plus the level-ending jingle. You’ll hear the first and third level themes repeated throughout, and not always where they should be.

Incomplete though it may be, at the very least, the music is recognizably Double Dragon.

Does this image practically scream “late-1980s” to you, or is it just me?

So when it comes right down to it, how does the Atari 7800 port of Double Dragon hold up? Better than it doesn’t. The music is a disappointment, and if you’re in the U.S., odds are you’ll have to contend with finding a better controller. Get over those obstacles however, and you’re treated with what I feel is one of the best games in the Atari 7800 library.

True, it lacks the length and extra features of the famous Nintendo Entertainment Version, but it makes up for that with the arcade-accuracy and simultaneous two-player action. And, while the graphics and sound are markedly inferior, I actually prefer this port over that of the Sega Master System, based solely on the gameplay. The SMS version, don’t get me wrong, I like it, but the control has always seemed too loose for my tastes; you’re basically out there swinging fists wildly – there’s no finesse, in my opinion. The 7800 version runs a bit slower, but you can really get into a groove while playing thanks to that.

Perhaps more importantly than how it stacks up against the rival 8-bit ports is what this Double Dragon represents. Think of it; you’re a kid in the late-1980s, you have an Atari 7800, while most everyone else has an NES. Maybe a few of your friends have an SMS. Now sure, there’s plenty of great classic arcade ports at your disposal, and the 2600 library, but that stuff isn’t what’s burning up the video game world at the moment. Games have evolved, become more complex, bigger worlds, better graphics.

All of sudden, here comes Double Dragon, the arcade smash, the game that’s tearing up both the NES and SMS. And now it’s available for the 7800! The series would continue to expand via sequels, spin-offs, and so on and so forth, but for this one occasion, 7800 owners could boast the same hot game as NES and SMS owners could. Not that Double Dragon was the only shared title across the three; Rampage hit all of them as well. But, Double Dragon was a trendsetting name brand that, as I’ve said, was incredibly recognizable in the late-1980s and early-1990s. It showing up on the 7800 seems special to me in a way that, frankly, Rampage doesn’t. That’s just my perception, though.

Furthermore, the beat-’em-up was a genre sorely lacking on the 7800. Kung-Fu Master was fun, but simplistic and old hat by the time it came out on the system in ’89. Ninja Golf and Basketbrawl were quirky Atari originals that combined sports with fighting. And Karateka? Well, we don’t talk about Karateka. None of them could attain quite the same level that Double Dragon achieved – and achieves.

Double Dragon was something special in the Atari 7800 library, and even if it wasn’t a perfect game, that’s still to be celebrated. Even today!

Return of the 1975 RCA AU-097Y Portable TV! (Plus a Look at XENOPHOBE for the Atari 2600!)

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Sometimes I have a problem where I’ve got more than enough stuff that I could write about, but, frankly, can’t really decide on any one subject. Such was my problem recently, as I looked at the boxes of VHS tapes, stacks of DVDs and mounds of old electronics around me, yet continued to be at a loss. I couldn’t get fired up over anything. Then, my eyes fell upon my beloved RCA AU-097Y portable TV from 1975, which I wrote about waaaay back in 2013 – in the early months of this very site! I have always loved the extreme 1970s-ness of this TV, but even so, that alone wasn’t enough to bring it back for a return-appearance on my stupid dumb blog. So what warranted a quick picture-taking session?

The latter years of the Atari 2600, that’s what! (This post is more for fun than anything. Plus, I haven’t written anything for November yet and constantly fear that y’all will abandon me.)

Now, I can play Atari 2600 (or if you want to get technical, Atari 7800) pretty much any time I please. I have one constantly at the ready in my “office” (ha!), and while I don’t play video games a whole lot, I do occasionally need to, as the ads used to say, reach reach reach for Atari. This doesn’t normally require usage of a 42 (!) year old TV, however. So, why did it now? Xenophobe, that’s why!

The picture to the right says it all: Midway’s 1987 split-screen arcade game was given the 2600 treatment, the title-screen of which you’re seeing right here. Xenophobe has long been one of my favorites on the console, which is funny, since I’m not big on the arcade version or most of the higher-end ports (the Lynx adaption wasn’t bad). I guess in the 2600’s case, “less is more,” though. While the more advanced versions retained much of the comical, cartoon-like atmosphere of the coin-op, the 2600’s weaker graphic and sonic capabilities meant only the ‘meat’ of Xenophobe was retained. It comes off quieter, more desolate, which for a game originally inspired by the Alien films, I think serves the 2600 port well. Plus, the fact a game this advanced even made it to the 2600 at all, in an extremely playable form no less, is purty derned impressive.

Here’s the deal: This 2600 port was indeed released in the U.S., at the insanely late date of 1990 (actually, this AtariAge thread says it didn’t ship until Spring 1991!!), which means there were/are NTSC copies out there, but for the longest time, they were pretty rare. I mean, by 1990/1991, the 16-bit era of video games had dawned; who would have thought they’d still be releasing games for a console introduced in 1977 in an age where the Sega Genesis had been unleashed?! It’s true – the Atari 2600 wasn’t officially discontinued until January 1, 1992. This wasn’t a one-off release, either; there were a slew of new 2600 games released in the wake of the infamous 1983 video game crash, after Nintendo totally revived the industry. Many of these newer 2600 titles were, and are, super-impressive, featuring NES-like formats and gameplay and graphics that many just wouldn’t think possible on the 2600.

Xenophobe is one such game, but by the time it saw release in the U.S., the market for the 2600 was all but dead. Overseas though, there was still some life left in the beast, the result being that you could find PAL copies of many of these hard-to-find US titles for a fraction of the cost. And that’s where my RCA TV comes in.

As you may imagine, games in the PAL format from that era aren’t generally known to run correctly in the U.S. Colors will be off, and more drastically, the screen can roll, rendering the game unplayable. However, by using an old school CRT TV with the capability to adjust the vertical hold, you can stabilize the screen to normal, and if you’re using a black & white set, as I did here, why, the mismatched colors don’t even matter! Cool winnins!

I own a (as I was assured by the seller) sealed NTSC copy of Xenophobe, which I had to pay real money for back in 2001 or 2002, but my loose copy is PAL. I’ve had a hankerin’ for some 2600 Xenophobe lately, so, well, you can deduce how we got where we are right now.

(By the way, the prices for NTSC Xenophobe, as well as other late-era releases, have fallen drastically in the years since I nabbed my sealed one; a ton of new old stock U.S. copies were uncovered in Venezuela some years back and made available to the masses, which means that what once were mega-rare titles are now surprisingly common, and affordable, via online sales. I’ve got several of these, another Xenophobe included, winging their way towards me as we speak.)

To make Atari happen on the RCA, I had to kick things way old school. Yep, via screws and an ancient RF switchbox – the kind you had to slide a switch to TV or game when you wanted to enjoy either. That’s what you’re seeing to your left here. Nothing unusual about it; this is how video game consoles were hooked up back in the day! On the RCA, there’s no other way.

Actually, it’s kind of a kick to hook a system up to a TV this way. You know, I grew up plugging things into the RF port, or via AVs, so it’s sorta neat to attach a console in such a wildly obsolete fashion. It feels very late-1970s/early-1980s appropriate, even if the Atari 7800 (which also plays 2600 games is thus my normative choice of Atari console) didn’t come out (nationally) until 1986, when this method had almost-certainly been widely-superseded by the RF/AV thing I just mentioned.

There are a bunch of contrasting eras at play here. You’ve got a black & white TV from 1975, displaying a game copyrighted 1990 and apparently released in 1991 and made for a console introduced in 1977, which in turn was being played on a console released in 1986 but included native backward-compatibility with that console introduced in 1977. Why, it’s enough to make your head swim!

So, back to Xenophobe. If for some reason you thought I had some kind of authority in the world of Atari (Hint: I don’t) and asked me to name my top 20 games for the 2600, Xenophobe would absolutely be on that list. Actually, it’d make my top 10. I love the game!

To your right is the opening scene of game play (I’d venture to guess that this is the only pic of the game being played on a black & white TV from 1975 on the internet – for the time being). Now, most people probably think of 2600 games as simple affairs, but Xenophobe is actually pretty expansive, comparable to many then-modern games. There are eight stations to visit throughout the game (though there’s no ending; it loops after the eighth), and stations that include different rooms, with some having multiple levels accessed via elevator. And as we saw above, it even features a legit title screen!

Graphically, the game really wows. Like any console, the longer it’s around, the more the programmers can get out of it. Okay, sure, compared to the NES or 7800 (both of which had ports of Xenophobe), never mind the Sega Genesis (which didn’t), the graphics are extremely blocky, and gamers nowadays would probably laugh so hard at them that they’d spill whatever hyper-powered soft drink they had chosen for their all-night online gaming session. But given the system it’s on, Xenophobe is definitely impressive. Your character is rendered in multiple colors, the animation is (mostly) smooth, there are a variety of aliens to combat, and from outside appearances at least, the space stations are varied; I really liked all the gadgets and junk that adorned the walls of the areas you traversed, too. There’s even separate cut-scenes featuring your mother ship coming upon an infested station! Neato!

Musically, there’s some bits adapted from the arcade that don’t sound bad at all, and the sound effects are serviceable; there were certainly far worse to be found on the 2600.

The plot of the game involves several space stations that have been infested by alien beings (“Xenophobes,” as per the manual), and it’s up to you to clean ’em out! Yep, you beam on board each station, alone, and must systematically clear out a required number of aliens before you can be beamed back to your mother ship. (If you take too long, you’re beamed back aboard while the infested station self-destructs.) The aliens range from pods to tentacles to gigantic, dangerous beasts, and you’ve got several weapon choices scattered throughout the ships to help exterminate them.

Xenophobe‘s gimmick in the arcades was that the screen was split into three sections, allowing for three players going at the game simultaneously. For obvious reasons, the home editions generally cut that down to two, and as you can see, the 2600 followed suit; that bottom half is reserved for the second player – but not simultaneously! Yep, despite the split-screen, players must take turns, even though it’s still player one on the top, player two on the bottom. I get that having simultaneous game play like that might be too much for the ol’ 2600 to handle, but then why have the split-screen at all?

That bit of irritation aside, Xenophobe is pretty solid. The difficulty may be a little uneven; get the powerful “Poofer Gun” and you can basically cruise through what would otherwise be some pretty tough stages, stages that are a little insurmountable without it or a plentiful supply of grenades. Still, the mark of any good game is how often you (or at least I) keep coming back to it. Despite having not played the game in years, I indeed kept coming back for another round.

(By the way, it’s worth noting that the 2600 wasn’t the only “early” video game console to last as long as it did; the Intellivision, initially the 2600’s main rival, also enjoyed a revival and ultimate lifespan stretching into the late-1980s/early-1990s. However, the Inty never got Xenophobe, and thus Atari won yet again.)

So, aside from using an ancient CRT TV to get around the rolling screen issues, what did I learn playing Xenophobe this way? 1) I don’t mind playing in black & white. 2) There’s an odd sense of “coolness” playing the 2600/7800 in this fashion. It just looks neat. I hesitate to use the word “authenticity,” but there’s probably some of that in there, too. 3) TVs this old emit a smell that’s not particularly pleasant. I looked the phenomenon up, and while I forget the technical term now, it’s apparently normal. Doesn’t change the fact that I have a hypersensitive nose and that first night of play gave me, no joke, an ill-feeling. Subsequent plays were better; maybe the smell dissipated? Or maybe my nose just got used to it? I dunno.

Because this is just sort of a fun, dash-off post, I’m not sure how to end it. I played the Atari 2600 port of Xenophobe on an RCA TV from 1975, okay?

Actually, I do know how to end this post; I didn’t spend a long time playing it, because honestly I just wanted the picture seen here, but I did fire up another 2600 favorite, and this one was more period-appropriate: 1978’s Basketball!

When it comes to sports games, I’m not sure it gets more primitive than Basketball (that it’s right here, duh!), but man is it fun. It’s a one-on-one game, and you can play either the computer or another person. I didn’t this time around, but the two-player mode is where it’s at. Competitive in all the best ways. The graphics and sound are probably more in line with what people think when it comes to Atari, but the play is what counts, and Basketball has it to spare! Get it? “Spare!” Cause it’s…oh wait, I’m thinking of Bowling. That’s a favorite too, though.

So there you have it. I busted out the beloved 1975 RCA AU-097Y portable TV for a picture-taking session, and more importantly, several Xenophobe sessions. Nowadays, people like to mod their 2600’s for AV, HDMI, and so on and so forth. Play ’em on flatscreens and whatnot. Hey, nothing wrong with that. If I had the skills and the spare consoles, I’d take that plunge too. (Actually, I do have the spare consoles…but not the skills.) Still, sometimes you gotta kick it really old school, and I feel I have accomplished that arbitrary task exceedingly well.

Also, playing Xenophobe without the screen rolling like a madman is nice.

Beefin’ Up My Sega Genesis!

2 Replies

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“WELCOME TO THE NEXT LEVEL.”

So said the ads of the 1990s, and here, now, some 22 years or so after I should have gotten all that I could out of the system, I feel I have finally, finally reached that mythical “next level.” Bear with me for the duration of this post gang, because I’m about to ~~incoherently~~ babble about the quest and ultimate fulfillment of getting all that I possibly could out of my trusty Sega.

Now, you have no idea how much I love the Sega Genesis (known as the Sega Megadrive everywhere but in the US; it’ll always be a Genesis to me, deal with it bucky). Indeed, in the realm of my personal favorite video game consoles, the Genny is second only to the Nintendo Entertainment System; no two other systems hold quite such an esteemed place in this heart of mine, dubious honor that may be. In fact, the Genesis has the distinction of being the first console I ever purchased new with my own money, at the long-gone and much-missed Sun Electronics store that once resided a short distance from me. Ah, the 1990s!

Even though the Genesis alone is more than enough to rank among my top favorite systems, the fact that it can be expanded, and expanded mightily, only adds to the personal appeal. So then, just how do you go about beefin’ the console to maximum capacity? What more could possibly be added to what is generally considered one of the greatest video game systems of all-time? Well, by doing what so many gamers back in the 1990s did (or so Sega hoped), and what so many gamers continue to do (or so I hope): I’ve attached the Sega CD and Sega 32x add-ons to my console, that’s what I did! Look up above if you don’t believe me!

“y u doin this bro?”

It’s a question classic gamers probably wouldn’t ask, even though the CD and 32x add-ons, or more specifically their libraries, are often considered, well, kinda negligible. The gaming world at large, I’m not sure they’d get it, but since I give 0 about the current generation of consoles, and never stopped loving the systems I grew up with besides, this just feels right. Plus, this fits in to the current wave of 1990s nostalgia I’ve been riding as of late; even though I didn’t own these add-ons new back in the day, I still fully expect to continuously check my watch to make sure Boy Meets World hasn’t started yet whilst playing this big hulking mound of plastic.

“Wuts a cd 32x bro?”

As you may surmise, the Sega CD was an attachment that allowed for bigger, more powerful games and CD-quality soundtracks via, say it with me, compact discs. The 32x was a cartridge-based attachment that, as you also may surmise, gave the Genesis 32-bit capabilities and thus even bigger, more powerful games. Theoretically, anyway; general consensus is that neither attachment lived up to their potential on a regular basis, and I’m not sure I’d have been happy with them had I paid full price back in the day. Now though? There’s enough good stuff to make me feel I got my money’s worth – especially since I got ’em on the cheap years ago.

I had only limited experience with the add-ons prior; my cousin had both, and I recall once playing Sewer Shark on the CD and Star Wars Arcade on the 32x at his house, way back in 1995 or so. For all intents and purposes however, getting these attached to my Genesis was my first real experience with them, and therein lies my tale. So read on! (And please ignore some of the dust I neglected to clean before snapping photos; frankly, you’re lucky I even gave a cursory soft-cloth wipe-down before taking pictures.)

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Anyone reading almost undoubtedly has to know what a Sega Genesis looks like. For the .01% of you that don’t, up above is a model 1 Sega Genesis – bare, naked, unbeefed. This isn’t the Sega that I regularly use, and thus isn’t quite the subject of this post. Rather, this is just a spare I’ve wound up with. What, you thought I was gonna unplug all of the attachments just to get a photo of my “playing” Sega without the, as you would say, accoutrements? Think again, chief.

Actually, the system above was the console that the CD and 32x attachments originally came with. I picked the whole set up cheap at a thrift store in late-2010 – and then proceeded to do nothing with any of it. Despite the included mess of cords, I still didn’t think I had all of the necessary attachments, and it promptly became part of the messy mosaic of boxes that made (make) up my increasingly cluttered basement. I never regretted the purchase, because hey, most of the stuff was there, and the price was definitely right (especially compared to the climbing 16-bit prices nowadays), but it wasn’t until recent months that I decided to do something with the lot.

Y’see, the Genesis that I normally use, another model 1 which I picked up years ago at a rummage sale (to the best of my recollection), I’ve kept hooked up as my “playing” unit for quite some time. The room where I have it includes a big, beautiful, vintage Sony Trinitron CRT TV, with built-in speakers on its sides and a stand that also serves as another speaker. It’s my “go-to” classic gaming TV, and for awhile, I had a myriad of consoles daisy chained to it. Eventually I decided to declutter, and instituted a personal “only one system at a time!” rule for the TV, with the beater Genesis getting the nod. That’s the place it has held ever since, and luckily, my pretentious little rule doesn’t preclude add-ons, since it’s still technically only one console. This is important stuff, so pay attention.

I went with the Genesis as my console of normative choice simply because I have stacks and stacks of games (a library that includes more than a few all-time favorites), I’ve got plenty of spare consoles should this one die (yeah, like these things won’t outlive us), and there’s a lot of bases covered by it; legit 16-bit gaming, of course, but also 8-bit via the Sega Master System converter (the SMS is a system I absolutely adore and thus this aspect was a huge factor in my decision), plus, needless to say, now CD and 32x games are in the mix, too. Sega was the king of add-ons in the 1990s, and while that ultimately had a large part in crippling their future (more on that momentarily), for me right now, I love the options at my disposal.

So, as I steadily decided to expand my “playing” Genesis, I simply removed from that thrift store buy what I wanted to use on my ‘good’ console. I initially didn’t intend on using all of it, which I’ll explain in a bit.

When I bought my first Genesis new way back when, it was a model 2; a smaller, sleeker, more streamlined beast. I loved it, and still have it of course, but even then I liked the look of the first model more. There are certain positives and negatives regarding both variations, though the model 1 is easily my preferred choice – especially since the the SMS converter won’t fit on a model 2!

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Though not really the subject of this post, I mentioned that whole model 1/model 2 thing just now because the Master System adapter, the Power Base Converter, really did play a part when I was thinkin’ ’bout beefin.’

Via this converter, my SMS library has probably gotten just as much playtime as my Genesis games have. Now, I have an actual SMS, but again, that would require two consoles being out, which would start me on the slippery slope towards cluttering up mah space again. The Power Base Converter does pretty much everything a ‘real’ SMS can do (no built-in game, though), and aside from a few (but just a few) games not liking a Genesis controller (gotta use a legit SMS pad for Bomber Raid, dawg), I have no issues with it. Indeed, I love the lil’ feller, and it fills me with a burning rage that it kinda flies under the radar when the subject of Genesis add-ons are brought up at sophisticated dinner parties and whatnot.

So what was my concern regarding the converter? From how I understand it, the adapter basically acts as a pass-through, and all of the stuff to make an SMS game ‘go’ is already in the Genesis. However, when you attach a 32x, which allows you to play regular Genesis games through it (lest you have to un-hook & re-hook the thing every time the 16-bit fancy strikes you), I guess it somehow disables the whatever that allows the Power Base Converter to function. This hurts me deep, even if plugging the converter into the 32x would make the set-up the ugliest monstrosity in console history. The Genny ain’t exactly winning any awards in that area when all beefed up like this, anyway.

Simply put, taking the Power Base Converter out of the equation was not an option. This was non-negotiable. Luckily, I worked out a solution that, while still requiring some unplugging and whatnot, at least keeps my SMS-capabilities on the table; I will not bar myself from readily-accessible Rambo: First Blood Part II! (The SMS game I mean, not the movie – though I won’t bar myself from the flick, either.)

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What got this whole “Ah wanna upgrade mah Sega” thing started was actually the CD. Not Sega’s CD attachment, mind you, but rather the Turbografx-16’s. Or rather, the later TurboDuo combo console. I had been reflecting on my good fortune in obtaining the Duo several years back (it was still pretty expensive, but not “hold your head in your hands and weep bitterly” expensive like it is now), when I realized, hey, I play my Genesis much more than anything right now, so why not take the Sega CD plunge and expand a bit?

My first thought was to pick up a model 1 Sega CD, which was a big hulking unit with a motorized disc tray, and which sat directly beneath the Genesis. I had a chance to pick one of those up (with yet another Genesis) several years back too, at a decent-compared-to-now price, but unlike my TurboDuo, I failed to use my bean and decided against it. Mistake.

In all honestly, at first I didn’t even think of using the model 2 Sega CD that I already had and was currently languishing somewhere in my basement. Eventually, the gears started turning in my noodle, I dug the thing out, and I went to figure out how I could make it “go.” Initially, I only intended it as a placeholder until I could find a halfway-reasonable model 1 CD, and while I won’t say that option is completely off the table, I’d have to come across an original unit in-person and for a great price to make me drop some of my increasingly limited dough on it.

The model 1 Sega CD was first released in the US in 1992, and a year or so later, the redesigned model 2 CD came. Primarily intended for use with the Genesis model 2, the second iteration of the Sega CD used a pop-up disc tray lid and sat next to the Genesis. Luckily for me, this revised Sega CD works just fine with the model 1 Genesis. (Which makes sense, since it came with one when I first brought it home!)

As I said before, when I originally bought my Genesis/CD/32x set-up from the thrift store, I didn’t think I had all the right cables and whatnot. Just looking at the back of this Sega CD, the numerous ports had me confused. Sure, the power supply is self-explanatory (and luckily mine came with one; same as a model 1 Genesis power supply), but the rest? Separate AV jacks? “Mixing?” What have I gotten into?! No wonder I threw all this stuff in a box and let it sit for almost 7 years!

Fortunately, a quick look online revealed that I did indeed have the bare minimum to get this thing running. All I had to do? Connect it to the Genesis’ expansion port, plug the power supply in, and bingo! The Genesis handled the rest! Cool winnins! (There are some metal RF shielding plates that came with the CD, which you screw in the bottom of the Genesis to both better prevent RF interference and to attach it more securely to the CD. I had these and did indeed attach them, but they’re not absolutely necessary.)

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The Sega CD had garnered a decently-sized library before being discontinued in 1996, though oddly enough, as soon as I got mine hooked up, I was sort of at a loss as to what I was really going to go after (barring one exception). The fact my player had been sitting around my basement for nearly 7 years had me wondering if the thing even still worked. A quick trip to a nearby thrift shop yielded me a cheap copy of Bill Walsh College Football, purchased solely for testing purposes (I’m not a college football fan, and frankly, I’m not huge on 16-bit football games in general). Maybe not the best demonstration of the CD’s power, but it told me that my Sega CD was indeed operational.

My first real Sega CD game, as far as one I wanted goes, was Sol-Feace, a terrific horizontal shooter that was actually a pack-in with the original release of the Sega CD. While maybe not a stellar showcase of the CD’s abilities (except for the soundtrack, which I dig), it’s still a blast, and saves me the trouble of tracking down the Genesis cartridge port (titled Sol-Deace; Phil Moore always had fun saying that title on Nick Arcade).

After that was the CD port of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Unlike many Sega CD games, which were just enhanced versions of Genesis games, Dracula is actually a totally different game from the ‘regular’ edition. Featuring actual clips from the movie, digitized characters, and backgrounds that rotate as you pass through them (think Fleischer Popeye), it’s an impressive title for 1993, and unlike the last two games, a real showcase of what the Sega CD can do. Okay, technically it’s a mediocre, single-plane Beat-‘Em-Up, but it looks so neat that I wound up being fond of it nevertheless.

But actually, it was Final Fight CD, which you’re looking at live and in action above (in a shot crummily taken of it playing on my TV because I don’t emulate; it looks better in real life, trust me!), that was the main driving force behind getting me to hook up the CD. Y’see, I’m a Beat’ Em Up junkie; it’s quite possibly my favorite genre of video games. Heck, I pretty much bought the TurboDuo just so I could play the Japan-exclusive port of Double Dragon II. So yeah, Final Fight CD might as well be considered my personal “killer app” here. My conclusion? It’s a very good port, infinitely superior to the SNES version, and with a great, kickin’ soundtrack. My only real issue with the game is the same issue I take with all Beat-‘Em-Ups of its ilk: It tends to be cheap. The difficulty doesn’t so much ramp as it sucker punches you. I’m always up for a challenge, but I find that aspect of the game severely irritating. As far as the Genesis goes, I find both Streets of Rage and Streets of Rage 2 to be superior fighters.

Still, despite some warts, Final Fight CD is my favorite title thus far on the Sega CD. Yes, it was worth hooking the add-on up for!

Currently on the want list: Even though I’ve never been huge on the normal Genesis edition (I’m firmly in the Super Nintendo camp when it comes to games based on the movie), I do intend on picking up the expanded version of Batman Returns. Also in the same vein, and because I’m, as previously stated, a Beat ‘Em Up junkie, the expanded Sega CD port of Cliffhanger is one I’d like to add to the library. Star Wars: Rebel Assault, the PC version of which I grew up with, is a title I’d really like to get, even though intellectually I know it was never a very good game, even back then. Also, Afterburner III, because I do loves me some Afterburner. The Sega CD library is littered with full-motion video titles (a real relic of the ’90s!), and while the thought of most of them make my eyes glaze over, obtaining one or both Mad Dog McCree titles is appealing, simply because, like Rebel Assault, I grew up with with Mad Dog II on the PC. (Unlike Rebel Assault though, I always found Mad Dog II pretty fun.) And of course, I needs me some Sonic CD, too!

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Finally, and for purely cosmetic reasons, I bought the extender piece that attaches to the far-left bottom of the Genesis and slides into the CD base. It doesn’t do anything but make the whole set-up look better; otherwise, the edge of the model 1 Genesis hangs off the side of the model 2 CD. Still plays fine, but looks ugly. Hence, extender piece. I wugs u extendo peece.

The more I think about it, the more I think that a particularly appealing thing about the Sega CD is that it’s such an early-1990s throwback, and not just in release date, either. Back then, CD was this new, wondrous format; just hearing “CD-ROM” today reminds me of getting the latest Sierra adventure games for the PC on CD – 3.5 floppies seemed so outdated after that! To get that same experience on a console, it had to be pretty cool for cutting-edge gamers of the time, and it’s still fun to revel in now, even if the revolutionary aspects have, of course, dimmed in the years since.

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Ah, and that brings us to the the Sega 32x. The infamous Sega 32x. An attachment conceived to give the Genesis 32-bit capabilities, extend the life of the console, and bridge the gap between the Genesis and looming Sega Saturn, the 32x could very well be (and has been) considered the opening salvo in Sega’s demise as a console-maker. The add-on was a notorious flop, with only about 40 games released for it, and it was only on the market for 2 years or so. Even worse, it destroyed much confidence in Sega as a company, and coupled with some unwise decisions and relative commercial failure of the Sega Saturn (commercial failure, mind you, because it certainly has a huge cult following), Sega could never quite get back on track, even when they should have with the terrific Sega Dreamcast.

‘Course, in my case, I got the 32x so many years after all that, that there were only two real factors in deciding whether I should extricate it from its resting place and hook it up to my ‘real’ Genesis: 1) Were there enough games to even make it worth the effort? And, 2) what about my Power Case Converter? As I said before, that thing apparently won’t run whilst plugged in to the 32x (however, and also as I said before, you can run regular Genesis cartridges through it no problem, except for Virtua Racing, which the 32x has its own port of anyway). Like I mentioned earlier, rendering the Power Base Converter useless was non-negotiable in my eyes. I eventually found a not-perfect-but-livable solution, which I’ll explain in a bit.

(Like the Sega CD, the 32x has metal plates you’re supposed to install inside the Genesis cartridge slot, and while I have them, you don’t absolutely need them – also just like the Sega CD. This is a good thing, because they would hamper my just-mentioned SMS-solution, and besides, I don’t know where I put the things anyway.)

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You know, even though there are far fewer games in the 32x library than there is the CD, there were a handful titles that I wanted to play more than any other, save Final Fight CD. Namely, Star Wars Arcade, Doom, and Virtua Fighter.

Star Wars Arcade was a launch title for the 32x in 1994. Based on the 1993 arcade game (as opposed to the 1983 vector Atari arcade game), it’s a very good space-shooter, and an excellent demonstration of the 32x’s polygon abilities. Plus, it was the one 32x game I played back in the day. Still, I haven’t spent a ton of time with this one yet.

Doom, on the other hand, has gotten far more playtime than I expected. I heard conflicting stories about this port, from it being good to it being, uh, not. And you know, even though the music is weak, the framerate sometimes stutters, there are levels missing, and some save states are desperately needed, for a time I could not get enough of this game! *I* think it’s a good port, even if, technically it’s not a great one. Plus, while it may be anathema to admit this, I’ve always preferred Wolfenstein 3D to Doom; since there was no port of the former on the 32x, the latter wins by default.

But as far as 32x favorites go, I think I have to give the edge to Virtua Fighter (above, again in a sad, off-the-TV shot), a terrific port of the revolutionary 1993 arcade game. Using polygonal models, it may not look like much now, but it’s a fantastic demonstration of just what the 32x could do when harnessed properly. It even compares quite well to the later Sega Saturn port! There was a time when I was big into the 3D one-on-one fighters, so this version of Virtua Fighter really does take me right back. Plus, I always wished that Sega had made a big beefed up Genesis port using the same technology they did for Virtua Racing; it never happened (though an okay, albeit 2D, port of Virtua Fighter 2 did show up late in the Genesis lifecycle), so this cart satisfies that ‘hunger’ somewhat.

Currently on the want list: Mortal Kombat II received a 32x port that’s seemingly pretty good, which is fortunate, since I love the regular Genesis version. Furthermore, there are well-regarded ports of Afterburner and Space Harrier that I definitely want. Knuckles Chaotix seems like an interesting Sonic spin-off, and the masochist in me wants to try Motocross Championship, even though it’s supposedly one of the worst things ever – and Youtube vids seem to bear that out. Also, I wouldn’t say no to Spider-Man: Web of Fire, should I find it cheap at a yard sale (yeah, right). Yes, there are fewer personal “wanted” games for the 32x than there are for the CD, but truth be told, the ones I want for the 32x I want more. Go figure!

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As you may well imagine, running all of this results in a real mess of wires, not to mention three separate power adapters. Look up above if y’all don’t believe me! And, the 32x was a real pain to get hooked up satisfactorily. You can’t just “plug it in” like the Sega CD. I didn’t think I had all the necessary cables here either, though it turns out I was only missing one – the most important one (figures). Online searches on what exactly I needed wound up making my head swim, especially when they got into what was needed to get true stereo sound out of a 32x plugged into a model 1 Genesis (which only outputs mono sound). I’m usually pretty good at figuring these things out myself, but here, after numerous tries, I kept finding myself hopelessly confused.

So, here’s what you need for the 32x:

1 – A power adapter, of course. The 32x uses the same style as the Genesis model 2. Mine came with one, and even if it hadn’t, they’re easily found.

2 – Genesis 2-style AV or RF cables. Mine came with an RF box, which was fine with me until I realized I was gonna need AVs not only for better picture (remember, I wasn’t using the shielding plates, which did result in some irritating static), but also for a very specific reason I’m coming to. A quick trip to eBay yielded me some (cheap) AVs, though I soon learned the hard way that normal Genesis 2 stereo AV cables don’t work; you get picture but no sound with them plugged into the TVs AV ports. Nope, here you gotta have mono Genesis 2 AVs in this situation. Evidently they came with the 32x originally. So there went a bit more money for the cause, but they worked. Of course, you’ll only get mono sound in this scenario, but stereo isn’t that important to me here, and besides, figuring that aspect out takes me back to head-swimmin’ territory. Enough of that noise.

3 – Here’s what I didn’t originally have, and also what resulted in the most confusion on my part: The 32x AV mix cable. You see, you have to route from the Genesis AV port to the 32x with this cable in order to see everything correctly, via the “AV out” port on the Genesis and the “AV in” port on the 32x. Not so hard to understand, except the Genesis 1 and the Genesis 2 use different AV ports, and the model 2 port is the same one as found on the 32x. So, the 32x originally came with an adapter that fit the cable into the Genesis 1. It sounds so simple now, but figuring out what people were talking about, again, had my head swimming. I actually had to go to a video game forum and ask where I was at with what I had. Since the original adapters for this cable are pricey nowadays, I opted for a third party cable that’s specifically built to connect the Genesis 1 to the 32x, and I’ve had no complaints.

So, what about my beloved Power Base Converter? Just how was I gonna play SMS games without doing some serious un-hooking? Well, it’s not an ideal situation, but since I now have AV cables for the 32x, and thus normally run all of my Genesis-needs through those, I simply plugged and left my model 1 RF switchbox into the TV, and whenever I feel the need for some SMS, I’ll take out the 32x, unhook the AV cables from the Genesis, plug the RF cable back in, and have at it. No, it’s not as quick and easy as I’d like, but the effort is fairly minimal, and besides, I can still keep all of my stuff in one location, on top of my big honkin’ TV.

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And so, there it be: A model 1 Sega Genesis, loaded, cocked and ready to rock, with a Sega CD and Sega 32x attached, and though not pictured, a Power Base Converter at the ready. Yes, it looks like a big plastic lump sitting on top of my TV. No, I don’t care; in one sitting I can play Rambo III, Virtua Fighter, Final Fight CD and Vigilante if I want, and that’s a thing of beauty.

You know, I was there for the tail-end of the 8-bit era, but basically grew up during the 16-bit generation, not to mention the 32/64-bit years. After that, my interests progressively waned generation-by-generation. But 8-bit and 16-bit, that’s where my gaming heart always truly stayed; I upgraded over the years, sure, but I never stopped loving the consoles and/or eras I grew up with. Since most of those formative-gaming-years took place in the 1990s, man, this beefy monstrosity of a console really does take me back, even if I didn’t actually own most of it when it was new.

And on the subject of the 1990s, I’ve come to consider the Sega Genesis the definitive 1990s console. Let me explain: I’m not necessarily saying it’s the best console of the 1990s; that’s of course subjective, and I absolutely adore the Super Nintendo, which was my first system ever (Christmas of 1992, baby!). Plus, the 1990s also held the 32/64-bitters, and it’s safe to say the Sony Playstation dominated the second-half of the decade handily. (Though for sheer late-1990s-ness, the Nintendo 64 seems to fit to me, too.)

But when I think 1990s gaming, the Genesis defines so much of what comes to mind. Here’s a system that hit the US in 1989, and stuck around until 1998 or so. (Wikipedia says 1999!) The sleek, black console itself, sure, it looks like a product of the decade (even if it technically wasn’t when regarding my preferred model 1), but also the many different trends and styles of gaming it demonstrated. From the 8-bit sensibilities (with 16-bit graphics) of the early titles, to Sonic, to the innovative, technically-impressive stuff being produced in the later years.

And beyond the games themselves, there was the ‘aura’ of the console; the loud, in-your-face marketing (“Blast Processing,” “SEGA!”) and general aimed-at-adults attitude. It all seems so overtly 1990s now. And of course, it’s also the additional features (some might say gimmicks) such as the Sega Channel, and, naturally, Sega CD and 32x add-ons, that all make up the “1990s-ness” of the Genesis. Sega ultimately wound up shooting themselves in the foot by doing “too much” with the system, but as an artifact of the mid-1990s, man, this beefed-up console just screams “1995!!” to me. I love it!

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Looking for a succinct picture to sum up my super-charged Sega Genesis? This one right here seems to fit the bill. The classic 16-bit Sega Genesis, being upgraded to the aforementioned “NEXT LEVEL.” In one system I can take part in genuine 16-bit greatness, venture into the then-fairly-new world of CD-ROM, take a peak into the future with 32-bit gaming, or take a look back at the past with 8-bit gaming; how cool is that?! Do I need any more reasons to keep all this on top of my Trinitron for the foreseeable future? I posit that I do not.

SEGA = BEEFED, and I couldn’t be happier with the results!

Nintendo GameCube AM/FM Stereo Cassette Player.

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Found this odd little number at Goodwill the other night. I usually don’t go for portable cassette players this ‘modern.’ I prefer the more heavy-duty models of the 1980’s, even if they are, generally, considerably bulkier. But, this one was just too strange (to me) to pass up, especially since it was only $2; less, actually, since it was customer appreciation day, which knocked an additional 35% off. Cool winnins!

It’s a portable AM/FM radio and cassette player. Nothing too unusual about that, except it’s branded with the Nintendo GameCube logo. It just seems like such an odd combo to me. I can understand Nintendo throwing the GameCube logo on clothing, keychains, mugs, or what have you. That’s just the nature of the promotional beast. But a cassette player? Honestly, and I can’t place my finger on why exactly, but it just seems a little ‘off’ to me. A portable radio and cassette player just isn’t something I’d have ever thought I’d find the GameCube logo on.

Then again, a quick search shows that there were portable cassette players with Game Boy Color and Nintendo 64 insignias made prior, so maybe it’s only unusual in my sad little world.

At any rate, it sure looks GameCube-y. I mean, they got the colors down right, not that that’s really an amazing feat or anything, but it’s fitting all the same. If they just had to make a cassette player adorned with GameCube propaganda, I suppose this was the best we could’ve hoped for. Actually, no it’s not: a cube or at least rectangular player made to look vaguely like the real GameCube would have been pretty sweet, especially if they included the handle. I should be getting a million dollars a week for these ideas.

You got yer headphone jack, yer AM/FM switch, yer tunin’ knob, and yer tape/radio switch. You have to manually open and close the case to insert and/or remove a cassette. Obviously, it’s a pretty bare bones set-up, not that I’d expect a high-end audiophile unit anyway. It works, but truth be told, this thing plays and feels pretty cheap. Maybe the headphones I used weren’t up to the task, but audio quality on both cassette and radio was pretty spotty. Something tells me my GameCube radio thing couldn’t have cost more than $15-$20 originally.

Now initially, I was a little puzzled as to why Nintendo would want to hook-up with the cassette player format. I don’t know when this thing was released (there’s no date anywhere on it), but the GameCube hit the U.S. in late 2001. But even if this were released that year, cassette tapes were still pretty far along in their path down the mainstream pipe, right? But, the more I thought about it, I guess it makes some kind of sense. Cassettes may not have been priority number one for new, mainstream releases, but it stands to reason that people still had stacks of tapes lying around; the format wasn’t that obsolete. I mean, they’re still making new VCRs, and the VHS format has been dead for, what, about 10 years now? And yet, they still make new blank tapes (they still make new blank cassettes too, come to think of it), so there’s some kind of demand. The day they stop making new VCRs will be a sad one for your Northeast Ohio Video Hunter (it will also make my, erm, job somewhat harder to perform), so, yeah, I’m glad they were still supporting those that held dearly to the cassette format.

Also, there’s no manufacturer noted anywhere on this. Did Nintendo make it themselves? Somehow I doubt it, but I don’t know. If by chance they didn’t, well, why not get the GameCube logo on it if someone else was footin’ the bill? And if this came later in the 2000’s, when the ol’ Cube was slipping behind the Xbox and waaaaaay behind the Playstation 2 in sales, a little extra promotion sure couldn’t have hurt.

See, AM/FM radio and cassette. Did you think I was lying? I wasn’t. Also, it takes two AA batteries. So, yeah. The handy belt clips allows you to, say it with me, clip it to your belt.

I guess it has now become mandatory to include a picture of my cassette copy of The River every time I talk about a cassette player, so there it is. I suppose if I really wanted to blow minds left and right, I could go walking down the street listening to a 1980 tape on a weird GameCube-branded cassette player made some 20 years later. Maybe it would elicit cries of approval. Or protest. Of course, knowing my luck, I’d probably get jumped. I couldn’t really blame the muggers, though; who wouldn’t want a set-up like that?

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Two of my all-time favorite TV finds immortalized in old pictures I found saved on the PC.

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How’s that for a short and concise article title?! I’m such a pro!

Looong before running this blog, I’ve been taking pictures of crap I own/owned. Goofing off on my PC for even a few minutes will undoubtedly unearth several such pics taken for various reasons. As far as this post goes, I actually had one of these pics in mind for an entry, but when I finally came across it, I found the other two, and they also seemed like good candidates for national recognition on my stupid blog. These aren’t new pics; they were taken waaay back in May 2010 for a planned article for another site. I eventually never went ahead with that one, although one of the pictures seen here did find its way into a later article for that same site. Should you ever come across that article, make no mistake, these pics and the TVs contained within them are all mine mine mine.

Philips Magnavox Projection Screen TV, model # 7P5433 W101 (1998)

Ah, my 1998 Philips Magnavox big ol’ projection screen TV, model #7P5433 W101. I can’t remember if it’s a 50 inch or 55 inch screen, but either way, lotta TV here. I picked this up at a second-hand store in early-2010 for a really good price, the only caveat being that the screen had a very reddish tint. A little bit of online research revealed this was the coolant in the projection lamps going bad. Luckily, new coolant was cheap, and replacing it was relatively easy (as long as you were careful).

As you can see, it eventually worked like a champ and quickly became the go-to TV for Nintendo (there’s also a Sega Genesis with the Power Base Converter for Master System games sitting on top of the set). That’s the NES classic Gun.Smoke being played in the pic above. I can waste quite a bit of time playing the game anyway, but when I had the NES hooked up to this big-screen, I would put the sound on mute, and just spend hours playing the game while listening to Jerry Lee Lewis on vinyl. While it may not be the most dignified container ever, that Pampers box the NES is sitting on in the pic was filled with even more carts for the system. Trust me gang, you haven’t lived until you’ve played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon and Double Dragon II on a big-ass TV like this.

Fast-forward to today: There’s something wrong with this TV’s picture. It displays very small and in the center of the screen. Unlike the coolant issue, I think I’m absolutely going to have to take the old beast to a repair shop at some point in the future, hopefully soon. I love this TV too much to ever get rid of it, so if worse comes to worse, it will remain a cool piece of decor in my increasingly-cluttered home. But, it pains me to not have it be useable at the present time. I must rectify this.

Zenith System 3 TV (1984)

Sorry I don’t have a specific model # for this one, but this is a Zenith System 3 color TV from 1984. Despite the fact it’s missing the door that went over the channel-buttons and picture-adjusters, I instantly fell in love with this TV when I found it at Goodwill for like $8-$10 in either late-2009 or early-2010. Continuing my apparent need to have an NES in as many rooms in the house as possible, there’s, erm, another Nintendo hooked up, and on top of the set is my beloved Colecovision, complete with River Raid plugged in and ready-to-go.

This TV has always worked like a champ, I still have it, and I have no intention of ever getting rid of it. And yet, I don’t have it hooked up right now. In it’s place is a Sony Trinitron from, if I recall correctly, 1985, with a big huge, beautiful screen, speakers built into both sides of the set AND it’s built on top of a stand that’s also another speaker. Plus, multiple A/V inputs. So, probably a pretty high-end TV back in the day. I plan on spotlighting that Sony TV and the video game consoles I have hooked up to it at some point in the future, but for now, let us revel in the pic above.

I may not currently be using either TV seen here today, but man, of all the TVs I’ve bought over the years, they’re two of my absolute favorites, and I’m glad to have them.

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THE NORTHEAST OHIO VIDEO HUNTER

An adventure in analog video, electronics, television history, Northeast Ohio, and whatever else I feel like babbling about…

Tag Archives: video game

Bentley Compu-Vision (1983)

Messin’ Around with an Emerson Arcadia 2001

Wonder Wizard Television Sports Games Console (1976)

Memorex Video Information System (1992)

Atari 7800 Review: DOUBLE DRAGON (Activision, 1989)

Return of the 1975 RCA AU-097Y Portable TV! (Plus a Look at XENOPHOBE for the Atari 2600!)

Beefin’ Up My Sega Genesis!

Two of my all-time favorite TV finds immortalized in old pictures I found saved on the PC.