If there’s one thing I’m internet-famous for, it’s talking about Haunted House. Like, I talk about it a lot, and I’m not even sorry. So what do we think? Does the Haunted House remake seem promising? (P.S. Thanks to the two of ye who Tweeted me.)
On video games and escapism: What we’re escaping from, Scott Sharkey says pointedly, is unfairness. // I always complained, to his face, that Sharkey was the weirdest kind of person—an angry optimist.
Brandon Boyer catches you up on the Tim Langdell/Edge crap. Then: those irreverent, spunky indie devs fight back the best way they know—litigation-baiting mockery! That’s moxie.
11/14 opening reception for James Kochalka—he of "Monkey vs Robot" fame—at Giant Robot SF. Featuring a live performance of his very own Game Boy music! (Yeah, my satellite Internet connection really dropped the ball on my reposting this.) via docpop tweet
Of course, after a run of 100 issues over 19 years, I can certainly understand why editor Al Backiel has decided to hang up his hat. That’s a very long time, and an awful lot of issues. The 2600 Connection has been a fixture of the Atari fan community for years, a work of dedication celebrating one of the most important game systems of all time. [...]
The magazine’s demise doesn’t mean that the 2600 collector scene is dead, though; far from it. Atari Age and a number of other sites dedicated to the VCS and its siblings are perfectly alive and active. And people are still producing all sorts of interesting new homebrew games for the platform, such as the infamous VCS rendition of Mega Man that’s been making the rounds this week. -E. Jeremy Parish
Kevin Bunch ·
May 28, 2009 at 1:33 am
· Filed under Ephemera
This is the first in a series of articles about homebrew games. Quite simply, outside of the fanbase for a particular system, a number of these go clear under the radar. It’s a terrible shame, given that a lot of these homebrews end up being better than commercial releases. As such, I’m going to highlight some of my particular favorites for a variety of systems!
I had written previously on the subject of gravity in Spacewar, one of the earliest computer games ever made. The concept of gravity’s effect on games has extended beyond that, but only a few noteworthy games have ever stood out. One in particular, a BBC Acorn game (later ported, famously, to the Commodore 64, among others) entitled Thrust, became something of a cult classic.
Thrust was something of an evolution from Atari’s arcade game, Gravitar. In that game, you were flying from planet to planet, destroying guns and grabbing fuel before taking off to the next one. Ever present was the gravity each planet would ensnare you in, forcing you to make your moves carefully, lest you fall too far and crash.
Thrust took this a step further—instead of flying from planet to planet, now you were warping onto a planet, battling turrets and the forces of physics as you made your way deep into planetary chasms to grab a fuel cell. Once you had latched onto it with your tractor beam, you had to carefully maneuver your way back out, all the while fighting with the weight and inertia of your cargo.
Jenn Frank ·
October 25, 2008 at 12:23 pm
· Filed under Ephemera, Music
I cannot wait for Lead to come out.
Granted, it’s already out. You can download the ROM (edit: no, no, download this one) and play it right now in a 2600 emulator like Stella. A warning: it’s tough.
Lead is a music shmup from programmer Simone Serra, designed for the Atari 2600. It boasts unforgiving gameplay and a catchy ‘glitch’ soundtrack.
As for the game’s music mechanics, freelancer/archivist/programming hobbyist Jess Ragan says, “Simone [Serra] has done what Tetsuya Mizuguchi could not: create a ‘synesthetic’ shooter that is not entirely dependent on pretty graphics and a pretentious art direction.” His review of an earlier build of Lead, below:
A little over a week ago, AtariAge announced the winner of the Lead Label Contest. The game will ship—with pretty labels on real Atari carts, as God intended!—this December.
I had written 
