Messin’ Around with an Emerson Arcadia 2001

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?

Atari 7800 Review: DOUBLE DRAGON (Activision, 1989)

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.

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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!)

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.