The Atari 2600 Glitch That Cancelled An Olympic Competition

One of the best sports games for the Atari 2600 was Decathlon by Activision. It was c compilation of 10 track & field events and the object is to score the highest total of points for those 10 events either in single player mode or against another opponent. It was quite grueling workout and the 400m and 1500m would leave exhausted as you have to push the joystick from side to side as fast as you could in order to make the on screen runner move as fast as possible.

After Activision released Decathlon in 1983, they decided to have a contest. Players would send in photos of their highest scores and a handful of the top scorers would be flown to Los Angeles to compete in a tournament to coincide with the 1984 Olympics that were to be held in L.A. that year.

Activision received quite a few entries and everything seemed going well until they discovered a glitch in the game. A person could score higher than was deemed possible in the pole vault if the player rapidly hit the fire button while going up. Activision decided to cancel the contest and everyone who entered received a wireless controller as a consolation gift. A trip to the Olympics vanished for a few gifted players and a wireless Atari 2600 is all I have to remind me of what could have been.

Winning At Tecmo Super Bowl For The Sega Genesis

One of the first true great football games was Tecmo Super Bowl. You could play a full season and choose from several different offensive or defensive plays. Although it does not rival the Madden series for complexity or realism, Tecmo Super Bowl was the first realistic football game.

Tecmo Super Bowl was first released on the NES system. This sequel to Tecmo Bowl provided you with all the NFL teams and allowed you to play a complete season including the playoffs. They also released a version for the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis. Although I first played the game on the NES, I spent more time playing it on the Sega Genesis. The Houston Oilers were a stronger team on the Genesis version and I spent a lot of time developing my skills.

Going to the Super Bowl with the Oilers is not too difficult. The Oilers had a great passing attack at that time and it showed on the Genesis version. Although Lorenzo White was a decent running back, the running game was not very strong. Changing the running plays to pitch left or pitch right will help keep the defense honest. The Oilers used a lot of 4 wideout schemes and this will help you on the passing attacks. If you are playing the computer, it has a difficult time covering 4 receivers and you should be able to find an open man. Practice at changing receivers and you should be able to put up some big points. The defense is good, but not great. You will find yourself playing the game to outscore your opponent; not to shut him down. Memorize the passing plays and you will be on your way to the Super Bowl.

The Unique Concept Of The Odyssey II

The Magnavox Odyssey II was released in 1978 to compete with the Atari VCS. Although the system had relative success, it was nowhere near the success as the VCS.  Here are some notable features and unique points.

• All first party games for the system ended in a “!”.
• The Odyssey II was known as the Phillips Video pac G7000
• The console was designed with a flat keyboard to fool people into thinking it had the capibilities of a computer.
• It has an innovative speech synthesis unit
• A rare European version had a built in monitor
• Unlike the Atari VCS, The Odyssey II featured flicker-free graphics. This was a weakness that hurt Atari on the game Pacman.
• It was the first video game system that marketed itself as a educational tool and a game system.

The Most Valuable Atari 2600 Game Of All Time

The one year anniversary of the most important day in Atari collecting is rapidly approaching and it now becomes apparent just how important this day is. It was March of 2010 when a man in Austin, Texas stunned the collecting world by announcing that he had a complete copy of Air Raid for the Atari 2600. The announcement that this item would be auctioned off on Ebay created worldwide interest because of the facts:

It was considered the holy grail of Atari games because there were no known copies of the box in existence.

Collectors were sure to jump on this one since the game was manufactured almost 30 years ago and this is the first complete copy to surface. No one could be sure if there were any more in existence.

The Ebay auction was scheduled to end on Saturday night April 3^rd. As the minutes ticked down, the high bid did not move much and it seemed as though this auction would be a letdown. And then it happened. In the final 45 seconds, the bidding went on a frenzy and increased almost $20,000 in just those few seconds. The final bid was $31,600 and a new standard had been set for an Atari 2600 game.

Related articles:

Air Raid Sets A New Ebay Record

The Rarest Atari 2600 Games

The List Of Playstation Long Box Games.

Most people are familiar with the jewel cases of the ps1 games, but in the beginnings, the games were released in big cases called the "long boxes". Some games were released in plastic cases that resembled a bigger version of the jewel case. A few of the games were released in long cardboard cases. Here is a list of the long box ps1 releases.

Agile Warrior FIIIX
Air Combat
Alien Trilogy
Assault Rigs
A-Train
Bases Loaded '96
Battle Arena Toshinden
Battle Arena Toshinden 2
Braindead 13
Bust-a-Move 2
Chessmaster 3D, The
College Slam
Criticom
Cyber Sled
Cyberia
Cyberspeed
D
Dare Devil Derby
Darkstalkers
Defcon 5
Descent
Destruction Derby
Discworld, Terry Prachett's
Doom
ESPN Extreme Games
Fade to Black
FIFA Soccer '96
FIFA Soccer '97
Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball
Geom Cube
Gex
Goal Storm
Gunship
Hardball 5
Hi-Octane
In the Hunt
International Track & Field
Johnny Bazookatone
Jumping Flash
Jupiter Strike
Kileak: The DNA Imperative
King's Field
Krazy Ivan
Lemmings 3D
Loaded
Magic Carpet
MLBPA Bottom of the Ninth
Mortal Kombat 3
NBA In The Zone
NBA Jam T.E.
NBA Live '96
NBA Shootout
Need For Speed 2
NFL GameDay
NHL Faceoff
Novastorm
Off-World Interceptor Extreme
Panzer General
PGA Tour '96
Philosoma
PO'ed
Power Serve Tennis
Primal Rage
Psychic Detective
Raiden Project
Rayman
Resident Evil
Return Fire
Revolution X
Ridge Racer
Rise 2 Resurrection
Road Rash
Romance Of The Three Kingdoms IV
Shellshock
Shockwave Assault
Silverload
Skeleton Warriors
Slam 'n Jam '96
Space Griffon VF-9
Space Hulk
Starblade Alpha
Street Fighter Alpha
Street Fighter: The Movie
Striker 96
Tecmo World Golf
Tekken
The Need for Speed
Theme Park
Thunderstrike 2
Top Gun: Fire At Will!
Total Eclipse Turbo
Triple Play '97
Triple Play '98
Twisted Metal
V-Tennis
Viewpoint
VR Soccer 96
Warhawk
Williams' Arcade's Greatest Hits
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Wipe0ut
World Cup Golf (Eidos)
Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game
X-Com UFO Defense
Zero Divide
Zoop

The Rarest Sears Label Atari 2600 Games

Sears made a lot of games for the Atari 2600 during the early days of the system. Most of them are quite common and easy to find. However, a few of them are quite scarce. Here are 10 titles to keep an eye out for:

• Baseball (picture version) – The text version is easy to find.
• Canyon Bomber (picture label) – The text label version is easy to find, but the picture label is a harder to obtain.
• Cannon Man – This is the Sears version of Human Cannonball
• Chase (picture version) – Designed by the famous Alan Miller
• Dare Diver – Sears version of Sky Diver
• Gunslinger (picture version)- Sears version of Outlaw
• Missile Command (picture version) – The only version of Missile Command that is considered rare.
• Night Driver (picture version) – The text version is very common, but this picture version is extremely difficult to find.
• Pong Sports (picture version) – This is Sears version of Video Olympics
• Submarine Commander  – This game does not show up very often.

The Best Selling NES Games Of All Time

The NES system is credited with resurrecting the home video game industry. Super Mario Bros. set the standard of side scrolling adventure games with its amazing replay value. Here are the 10 best selling NES games of all time.

1. Super Mario Bros. – 40.2 million
2. Super Mario Bros. 3 – 18 million
3. Super Mario Bros. 2 – 10 million
4. The Legend Of Zelda – 6.5 million
5. Tetris – 5.5 million
6. Dr Mario – 4.8 million
7. Zelda II – 4.3 million
8. Excitebike – 4.1 million
9. Golf - 4 million
10. 10. Dragon Warrior III - 3.8 million

The numbers on Super Mario Bros. include all the ones bundled with the system so the numbers are incredibly exaggerated. What is surprising is that Mike Tyson’s Punchout, Metroid, Paperboy, Contra, and Tecmo Bowl are all missing from this list. Golf at number 9 is quite a surprise. All of those games were extremely popular at that time. It also must be noted that all 4 Dragon Warrior games have sold over 2 million copies each.

The Launch Prices Of Video Game Systems

The launch price of the 20G PS3 for $499 was a steep price for a video game system and higher than the XBOX 360 and the Nintendo Wii. This price and the extremely limited quantities available at launch date led to the PS3 selling very poorly compared to both systems. This proved to be a disaster of a marketing move by Sony and would take the company years to catch up to its rivals.

If you think that the prices of the new games systems are high, check out the launch price of some other game systems:

Atari 2600 - $199

Atari 5200 - $269

Intellivision - $299

NES - $199

PS1 - $299

Sega Saturn - $399

3DO - $699

If $199 seems to be a reasonable price for a launch of the Atari 2600, then you have to realize that if you adjusted the price for inflation that price would now be $700. The 3DO launch today would be over $1000. The Atari 5200 would be over $750. That is a lot of money for a system with terrible controllers.

The Video Game Systems Before The Atari 2600

Many people believe that the Atari 2600 started the home video game market. While it was the system that made home video games a hit, it was not the first. Here are the systems that preceded the famous 2600.

Magnavox Odyssey

In 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey became the first game system released for the home market. In spite of its crude graphics and lack of sound, it sold at a decent pace. One of the misconceptions that that sales was the misleading idea that it would only work on Magnavox TVs. It was the first and only home system that operated off batteries.

Pong

Pong was released by Atari in 1975 and became a hit. The fold of imitators soon followed but none would become as popular as Atari’s version. This also started the longstanding relationship between Sears and Atari.

Magnavox Odyssey 100-5000

Magnavox decided to release a series of Pong-style home systems beginning with the Magnavox 100. The first one only had tennis and hockey. Each version was a slightly upgraded model over the previous one, but they still trailed the famous Atari Pong.

Coleco Telstar

The Coleco Telstar was released in 1976 and became an instant hit. The $50 price tag proved to a be popular with consumers and it had 3 different skill levels.

Wonder Wizard 7702

The Wonder Wizard was a pong-style system with a nice wood grain front. The system had 3 difficulty switches for ball speed, paddle size, and ball angle.

Fairchild Channel F

The Fairchild Channel F was the first system to use plug-in cartridges. It was released in 1976 and there were a total of 26 games for it. Fairchild numbered all the cartridges to entice people to collect the whole series. The system saw its sales plummet when the Atari 2600 was released in 1977.

RCA Studio II

The RCA Studio II was beaten to the home video market by The Channel F by just a few months. The rush job on the Studio II was very evident as it was in all black & white and only had 8 games released with the system. It became dead in the water when Atari released the 2600.