As promised yesterday, this month’s Geek in Review stands entirely on its own, but also goes well (if I do say so myself) with this week’s LA Daily.
As a matter of fact, I have played Atari today
“You’re the undisputed master of Combat,” I told my son. “As your reward, you get to watch me play Adventure.”
I flipped switches on the Flashback II, and was soon on my way to collect the various items required to complete my quest.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s my sword,” I said, pushing my little box against an arrow-shaped icon.
“What do you use it for?”
“Slaying Dragons!” I said, as I entered a once-simple maze of passages that the passage of time had made as vexing as it was when I was eight.
“You realize you’ve gone into that dead end five times, right?”
“Quiet you. This is how we did it back in the 80s.”
“You ran into the same dead end over and over again?”
“Yes, it was part of Reganomics.”
I finally found my way out of the maze, and approached a castle, anxious to impress Nolan by grabbing the chalice within. That’s when the dragon showed up.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a dragon, of course,” I said, holding the joystick out in front of me like I always did, convinced that if I moved it around, it would help me escape faster. That’s when the dragon ate me.
“This is really what you guys did for fun?”
“Well, there was this, and we’d occasionally fend off Indian attacks when we weren’t Dinosaurizing our caves, yeah.”
I say this every time I link to my Geek in Review, but I know the one time I don’t, someone’s going to lose their shit at me: my column and the newswire are Safe For Work. The rest of the site is delightfully NOT SAFE FOR WORK. If you just stay at the news page, you don’t have to worry about encountering anything naughty, but the logs aren’t going to know that, and you may have a hard time convincing your IT guys that you were just reading it for the articles.
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hehe reminds me of the scene in ‘Back to the Future’ when the two kids pull faces at the shoot’em up machine when McFly explains to them how it works. hehe
ahh i miss those simple graphics days when i could use my imagination 😉
You have no idea how happy it makes me that your son beat you at Combat. Because I have an *actual* 8 year old in my house that beat me while I was training for our epic battle.
And she is a girl.
🙂
I’m not going to even pretend I got to play Atari games at home when I was a kid (I played arcades only for all of my childhood). But a year or so ago I bought a Flashback II. I haven’t really played it recently, though. This article makes me wish I had 10 extra years of gaming memories because those games sound so AWESOME. When I’m done with my own projects (and I totally laughed at the stereotypical parent-kid role reversal between you (“Come play video games!” and Nolan (“Dude. Homework?”)) I’m totally going to pull out my own Flashback and pretend I knew what it was like back then.
I think the articles work very well together. Thank you for sharing them!
Cheers!
That story had me laughing out loud. I remember playing Adventure for HOURS. Somehow it didn’t matter that your avatar was a square. Getting the key, slaying the dragon and then finally getting that magical flashing chalice was heaven.
This past weekend I had my own little flashback, but to college. I spent the entire night beating a new friend at Soul Calibur and reliving nights with my roomate’s dreamcast. Switching between epic Soul Calibur “General battle wars” and Crazy Taxi.
Side note, I’m turning 30 today! (Got Dancing Barefoot AND your woot shirt!) My last minute birthday wish is @replies from wilw, tychobrahe, cwgabriel, and neilhimself. Any chance you’d throw me a shout?
Nice body slam of Reagonomics there! That made me laugh.
It might be fun to try and impress upon your kid, that in 20 years or so, the “cool” games of today will probably be as equally lame to the kids who haven’t been born yet.
Ah this brings back memories. Unfortunately my brother made off with our old Atari set so my children are stuck with the new game systems – never to enjoy Pong, Pitfall or Space Invaders. (Although you can find some of these online.)
Hmm, decisions: try to get my sister to ship me the old Atari from back west, or find an emulator to get my Return of the Jedi fix…..
Man, Penguicon is 10 minutes from my house and I didn’t even know it? What kinda nerd am I?
This reminds me of playing Oregon Trail on a green screen computer in the 80’s, and the original Nintendo Zelda. I love these “old school” games. Just the other day, I was playing pinball TNG, now that was awesome! Thanks for inspiring my inner geek, and inner writer. It was nice meeting you in Seattle. I love your writing!
Kristin (komo reporter)
http://www.kristinhanes.blogspot.com
My husband’s father gave him a joystick loaded with Classic Arcade Games a few years ago. He loaded up Adventure, made his way to the maze, and when he got there, his hand took over and led him through it with unerring accuracy. The mind may forget, but the wrist remembers.
Thanks for this fantastic walk down memory lane. I know my family has a 2600 around somewhere, and if I don’t find it, my sister will likely be quite put out.
Great article,
I use to play my Atari all the time, even in the 16 bit days. I wish I still had it. Now I find myself going back to PC games from 10 or more years ago and playing those.
Remember when all 3 dragons would be in the same room sometimes?
You wouldnt be able to kill the 3rd because it couldnt render everything so the 3rd would constantly blink and you wouldnt be able to touch it with the sword.
There are times I miss being the dot 🙂
Those dragons scared the crap out of me as a kid!
It took me forever to figure it out, but I did eventually get through to the castle.
I played Yar’s Revenge maybe once or twice, only skimmed the comic, yet it is still lodged in my mind as a classic Atari game.
Great article…just bought an old Atari on eBay. Thanks..wife’s gonna kill me..lol
As a kid I always thought the dragons looked like a cross between a duck and a seahorse. Still scary though. I wonder if you took the kid that I was then and put him in front of my present-day desktop and started up Left 4 Dead how long it would take before he wet himself… 🙂
Dude, I… umm… accidentally… clicked on one of the links on the SG site and ran across the SG Tour. One of the girls, named Alexis, is posing with a Wesley Crusher action figure hanging onto her panties. Check it out (http://suicidegirls.com/media/albums/9/92/3929/207217.jpg)
(*Chris*)
Are you kidding? The present day version of ME wet himself the first time I started up left 4 dead!
I.. umm.. had a urinary… issue?
You have not truly completed Adventure until you play on level 3, defeat all dragons, unlock the easter egg and recover the chalice without resetting. And then you must kill that pesky bat 😉
Completely off topic, but since this is your latest post Wil, I’ll leave it here. I was wondering if you knew about a documentary that premiered last night, Beer Wars ( http://beerwarsmovie.com ), about what small, craft brewers go through and how the beer industry is run. It featured one of your favorite brewers (at least I think it is), Stone Brewing. I found out about the movie at the last minute so I wasn’t able to spread the word about it. I don’t know if/when it’ll play again, but I’d recommend it to anyone that likes good beer!
That was a great story. Brings back fun memories. Adventure was my favorite Atari game. 🙂
Hey Wil, look forward to meeting you at the http://latimes.com/festivalofbooks next Saturday, when I moderate “Panel 1031,” aka the Status Update social media session: http://tr.im/j6BJ
Please think about what you’d like to ask fellow panelists Otis Chandler, of http://goodreads.com, and Sarah Wolf, editor of the Itch Dance journal on Facebook: http://tr.im/j6Cl
Would be great to chat before the panel, if you have a chance.
andrew dot nystrom [at] latimes dot com / @latimesnystrom
LA Times social media guy, embedded in the latimes.com newsroom
Not quite on topic, but related to nostalgic gaming. Found the Monkey Island theme played live:
It’s quite a good rendition.
– me –
I loved playing Adventure. Since I lived in San Jose I knew people who knew people and was one of the first to open the side wall and walk into the “easter egg”. We didn’t call it that back then though.
I also remember playing all the old Scott Adams games like Mission Impossible, Pirate Adventure, Voodoo Castle and more.. and they were all in text… but I loved them…
Many an evening with 6-8 adults all shouting out ideas on what to try next! Boy I miss that.
Somehow, “grabbing the chalice within” sounds dirty.
Also, old video games are a thousand times more fun than the new ones.
Hi Wil, I don’t know if this is the correct place to tell you this, or even if you already know, but you are clue 42 Across in this Sunday’s New York Times Crossword Puzzle!
Apparently Friday’s Penny-Arcade news post announced that the PA guys want to add Vin Diesel into the next round of D&D podcasts as a rogue. How awesome would it be to have him as the 5th member of your party?!? 🙂
Hahahaha.. My folks were to0..umm.. cost-savvy.. to buy me an Atari when I was 8. I got the Sears knock off. It still had brilliant games though. The game cartridges were like bloody 8-tracks.
“Dinosaurizing the cave.. ” snort.
I was pretty young when we bought our Atari, but I still remember kicking my brother’s butt at Combat. Unfortunately a few years later my oldest brother traded the Atari and all our games for some comic books.
I worked on my Grandfathers garbage truck for a whole summer with the 2600 on lay-a-way at the Big K. Picked it up that fall.
My first game was (of course) the bundled Combat cart. But soon after I came up with the money (mostly lunch money) to pick up Space Arc. That one really blew me away. Vector graphics still have a place in my heart. Yar’s Revenge consumed me for weeks and weeks. Pitfall, Adventure, River Raiders, and Raiders of the Lost Ark all have left permanent burns on my corneas. I loved those games, and the accompanying hand cramps.