2022.12.19
Some things I learned or was reminded of about Atari:
1. The arcade game "Crystal Castles" has a cool feature where the current high score initials are turned into structures behind the first level. That's pretty dope!
2. The bat in 2600 "Adventure" is one of the best NPCs ever. I used to lock him away by stuffing him in the golden castle, but playing a round of Version 2 and letting him add his chaotic element to the game... it's brilliant, he just flaps around, carrying random items doing inscrutable bat things - you just catch these glimpses, then he gets interested in whatever you're carrying and swoop into steal it... but often you can grab him at the same time, so you and him and the item move around in lock step and you try to get done what you needed the item for before he wriggles free... just pure genius.
3. The comic book that came with Yar's Revenge goes hard, like a Moebius comic. (Well... completely stupid story but the art is really cool.)
And three criticisms:
1. They really failed in covering 3rd party games (Activision, Imagic, etc) and even big licenses (Star Wars the arcade game, the Indiana Jones games, or even the infamous E.T.) I could understand if the ROMs would be hard to license, but as a historical reference they could have made SOME kind of referencing or cataloging.
2. I think they shortplayed the whole Atari BASIC scene (and maybe the magazines, like Antic and Analog). Not to mention stuff like the Atari Program eXchange APX - the first big attempt to make a shareware community happen, like a "Steam" store for the 80s... But also the BASIC was good for sound and simple graphics, but it barely gets mentioned, except indirectly via ads from the era.
3. Ernest "Ready Player One". Cline. Ugh. Such an overrated work, its tongue bath of the 80s pop culture is embarrassing even to a Gen-Xer like me who sometimes swims in the 80s retro. (Yeah I do have a grudge, having consulted on a much better novel centered on video games, "Constellation Games")
Everyone's always going through something, aren't they? Just life, basically. Just more and more stuff to go through. You have all that shit going on with your dad that you never talk about. Nobody's going through nothing.