Intellivision

Did you have Intellivision, or just Atari? I always felt that Intellivision was Atari for hardcore sports fans. That said, love these comic-book ads, esp the one for the D&D game.

Game over? Nyet!

The Museum of Soviet Video Games. A fascinating photo tour.

(Via Metafilter.)

Super Mario fun at the supermarket

Super Mario fun at the supermarket. Man, this is amazing. I'd want to stop anyone from buying a pack of pop and thus destroying the design!

It's on like Donkey Kong

Seattle's own "King of Kong" has been dethroned by his nemesis. A great movie, by the way.

X-rated Atari games

X-rated Atari games.

Wow, and I thought the creepy "Custer's Revenge" was the only one. Was I wrong. The art is so primitive it's really hard to even see what's going on in half of these. No, in ALL of these.

Burger Time tops the charts!

A great list of arcade music, including from "Frogger," "Burger Time" and "Pac Man."

Man, just playing one or two of these audio clips gets me all nervous, like I need a joystick in my hand and to start moving little creatures before I get eaten or squashed.

Oh, just hit that audio link for the "Frogger" music and see if you don't feel the same.

Bloop bloop bleep

Super Mario fingernails. How did... Why did... Never mind, just enjoy.

(Via Boing Boing.)

It's on like ... Frogger? Kangaroo?

There's a heated debate going on about who originated the vitally useful and too-silly-to-be-stupid phrase "It's on like Donkey Kong."

Remembering the Sierra days

Someone on Ask Metafilter was asking about playing old Sierra games, and one of the answers pointed out that if you just want to see them again for the nostalgia factor, there are walk-throughs on YouTube.

Whoa. Here's King's Quest 5. I guess I didn't play this one, but I surely played others in the series, as well as Police Quest, Space Quest (remember that space burger stand?) and Leisure Suit Larry.

A-tar-i!

I'm pretty much in agreement with the Top 5 Atari games, as chosen by one of our tech columnists.

Just looking at the Frogger screen starts to stress me out. I can still remember the sinking feeling as you realized a car or a log was going to run right over your little froggie. And the feeling of relief when you finally landed him safely on the other side, only to have to start all over again with a new guy.

I would probably have also put Pac-Man on there, although I know people were horrified at how badly it translated from the arcade. But it was on the Atari that I first learned about patterns, and how you could memorize a way to get through each screen that would work every time. I still never got very far, but it was enlightening to learn that it was possible, even for me.

A-tar-i!

I love this: Modern video games if they had those quaint Atari box designs we all loved in the 1980s.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Paper chase

I loved the video game Paperboy. It was so simple in concept, yet so difficult in execution...perhaps not unlike a real paper route!

I could never manage to deliver more than a couple of papers without running into a car or other obstacle and braining my paperboy character.

Anyway, here's a great Paperboy complaint form. Heh.

Acts of Gord

I read Acts of Gord years ago but just rediscovered it. Poor Gord is a Canadian who runs (ran?) a video-game store. He sounds like a perfectly reasonable, funny guy...I picture Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons" if he had that same giant ego but was a little saner and a better businessman.

Anyway, poor Gord is tormented daily by the kuh-raziest customers this side of an insane asylum. If you hold a cherished, vaunted image of Canadians as the calm, sane cousin of we nutty Americans, man, will this site dissuade you...because these particular Canucks are as loony as their money. Hilarious.

Salvador Dali's Pinball Thrills! Gay French Mario Brothers!

Atari 2600 games, hilariously renamed. Who can forget the joys of playing "Old-Timey Cop With A Stick," (as one commentor notes: "That cop could never catch Gallagher.") or better yet, "It's Fucking Checkers!"

Man, 1980s box art was depressingly similar to clip art used in community college brochures.

(Via Metafilter.)

How much poop would a Pac-Man poop?

When two adult brothers get on IM and debate the pooping capacity of Pac-Man, well, true humor ensues.

Best line: "now, let's say it's one of those high speed versions like we played at the pizza hut. so he's burning a ton of calories, and all of this stuff is super nutritious. and plus he reserves some that he'll convert to mass for when he goes supersize to chase blinky at the first intermission..."

(Via Metafilter.)

AUUUUGH! HELP! GHOSTS!

Pac-Man and his little ghosts were so cute and so sweet and so Japanese. Who knew the terror behind their bland little facades?

Save your quarters

The boringest video game of all time. (Via Not Martha.)

Jesus saves Pac-Man addicts

A wonderfully goofy anti-Pac-Man tract.

I also loved the vintage photos of the blog proprietor's descent into Pac-Man madness.

Why didn't we take photos of such memorable moments as unwrapping an Atari console, or simply playing home video games with our friends? Those seemingly unimportant moments are the ones I now would love to see represented in a photograph.

Pac-Man fever

Fun with Pac-Man!

First, a game where you are the ghosts, not Pac-Man.

And second, Pac-Man as a text adventure. (I suck at these.)

In on the yolk

I don't know why, but this internal monologue from the egg in the video game Burger Time cracks me up, especially the last bit: "Oh hey, a chef. I’m going to get that bastard."