Paul Potvin was introduced to video games as a toddler by his father with an Atari 2600. Since then he's been an avid gamer and collector through the NES, SNES, and Playstation eras. He focuses on retro video game systems and titles but is eager to play anything. Paul lives in Massachusetts and can be followed on twitter.com/PotvinPaul
Some time ago I picked up a small lot of Commodore 64 items from arguably one of the most interesting C64 guys on the planet. Here on 1MC, I asked what I should do with it. Specifically, I asked What the Eff should I Play? I hadn’t mentioned the system since then, and with good reason. I had nothing to play, or do, aside from making little BASIC programs, until a few weeks ago. A small lot appeared on my local Craigslist consisting of a few C64s, a C128, and a VIC20, along with approximately 100 game disks and five or six game cartridges.
When it comes to games, I don’t really ‘collect’ everything I see. I usually stick to 2600 cartridges as my ‘system’ to collect for bypassing rows upon rows of SNES, N64, and Genesis carts at a flea market, but actual systems? Those are a weakness. Same goes for the older 8 bit gaming computer systems. I’m lucky enough to be able to have a game room setup (which sees far less use then you’d think) in the house, along with a fiance’ that enjoys gaming and permits this little fun den. The shelves in the room are stocked with most mainstream US consoles from the Atari 2600 onward. a A few weeks ago I stumbled around one of those flea markets doing ‘the walk’. You know ‘the walk’, right? That slow shuffle as you gaze on tables upon tables of knick knacks, doilies, pots, pans, old DVDs, and stereo systems that were lousy 20 years ago. Once in awhile though, you find a gem buried under something.
For whatever reason, I never labeled this disk. I always knew what was on it when I was a kid, as of course games were all that were on my mind circa 1992 (that and comic books). As time marched on this disk made it’s way deeper and deeper to the bottom of a desk drawer, forgotten until last year when I started tearing apart my childhood desk (not literally dismantling it, but ’emptying it’.) Of course I found the requisite dried out colored markers, my old combination lock that served me for over 10 years, and this disk. The ‘blank disk’.
Hello everyone and welcome to “Storming the Castle,” a new collaboration between three similar, but also very distinct minds. Allow us to introduce ourselves:
Johnny De Alba: “Retro Gaming Corner” columnist and viral article creator extraordinaire! Johnny manages to find topics so obscure and inconceivable, you can’t help but gawk in sheer amazement. How does he find this stuff?
Zack Smith: Scribe of “The Completist” column. Zack manages to write articles that are so long, even people who read Robert Jordan novels can’t get through them without a dictionary and a bowl of popcorn.
Paul Potvin: Author of the insanely prolific “The Fair Shake” and “What The EFF is on this Disk?!” columns. Paul posts his articles with the punctuality of a German train. It is rumored that if he ever missed more than two weeks 1 More Castle would spontaneously implode due to lack of content.
Now that we have introduced ourselves let me briefly explain our mission: we want to do something a little different, at least by 1 More Castle standards. Thus the name “Storming the Castle.” Sure, you’ll see plenty of retro games and retro inspired items, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. So without further intro bloat let’s start by shaking things up a bit with something 1 More Castle has only occasionally touched on before: some NEWer retro games!
Some people are gamers. Some are collectors. I’m more on the ‘gamer’ side of the fence, however I do constantly look out for one thing ‘in the wild’. Atari 2600 stuff. It’s where my heart lies, I suppose, there and the NES. I grew up with the Atari, and actually only stopped playing for a few years in the early to mid 90’s. Sure, a lot of the games are trash but you can overlook those, right? Hours spent playing with my dad, or watching my dad play back before the NES even existed. Whatever the reason, I collect for it.
I rarely cover arcade games and I’m not really sure why. Lack of access to cabinets, maybe? I changed that recently. A few weeks ago I was at Funspot with my fiance. (Oh yeah, I’m engaged, whoo hoo!) They have all sorts of arcade games there. Shooting, driving, platformers, timed games, and even the button mash games. You know, the games where the ‘skill’ is who can pound a few buttons the hardest, like Track N Field. This one game, Power Drive, has taunted me, hurt my fingers, stressed my wrists, and generally tired me out since I was a child over 25 years ago.. and I keep going back to it. WHY? What is it about?
What the Eff is on This Disk is a bi weekly column that has been up and running for a short while. Just this past week I had my first ‘request’. 1MC’s own Alex Weiss (@Chronoslinger) contacted me via direct message on Twitter. The conversation went nothing like this:
I’m not sure why I’m always drawn to games set during WWII. Perhaps it’s because my grandfather served in the US Army and was part of the D-Day invasion, as well as the liberation of France et al, so in a small way it helps me connect to the past. Maybe it’s because it was arguably the first ‘modern’ era war, where technology rapidly changed from wooden ships and planes into vessels and flying machines made of metal. Maybe it’s both, Regardless, here we are once more. Some time ago I covered the game GATO, a submarine simulation where you hunt down and destroy nameless enemy ships while running silently, deeply. Search and Destroy (S&D), a DOS game, puts you in the role of a depth charge equipped destroyer hunting submarines in WWII, much like the GATO sub you controlled.
Circa 1988-1989, my nine year old self was so cool. I mean look, I was using a Z in place of an S. I was also labeling disks with a red crayon and drawing lines with squiggly arrows to connect text since I ran out of room. Seriously, go back and look at that title picture.. If you can make it out it reads
Basicga >>> Mez
or
Basic Gamez
In 1942 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.. Dammit, I always get that wrong. That’s ‘In 1492’ Columbus sailed the ocean blue. What does that have to do with 1942? Nothing except for transposed numbers. That poor segue just led us to 1942, a shooter by Capcom. Originally an arcade release in 1984, it was released over 40 years after the Battle of Midway. It was later ported to a ton of systems, but in particular for this week it was released for the NES in 1986.
My grandfather owned a body shop and was sort of a hobbyist computer guy from the late 70’s until his death in 2000. When I was around the age of six my parents decided to get themselves/us a ‘real’ computer to replace the Mattel Aquarius. Turning to my grandfather for advice, he suggested a Tandy 1000, as he was a then recent convert to the system, having had TRS-80’s previously. He of course supplied us with pirated disks of games and programs, long before it was even known as piracy. One disk, an orange-labeled ‘GAMES’ disk, that I think is written in my mother’s writing, contains some BASIC games. I don’t really remember running this all that much, but the disk has survived to this day. What was given to my 6-year old self? Do I remember any of these? More importantly, are they still fun?
As a kid I always loved reading instruction manuals for games. Some of the back-stories written for games that didn’t really need them to begin with are amazing, like Life Force. *Spoiler alert* Seriously? I’m INSIDE an alien being? Wow. Some are amazingly bad, or if you think about the plot, it falls apart. Alien Syndrome is such a game. It takes place in the far-off-I’ll-be-dead-by-then-year of 2089. A random alien fleet has pulled up to Earth calling themselves, ‘Alien Syndrome’, sounding more like a heavy metal band than an invading empire. With aliens threatening to destroy Earth some ‘Earth Command Troopers’ have boarded the fleet but were captured. Now Earth Command has asked for volunteers to rescue the Troopers from the fleet. Save Earth? No, that’s later. We are saving the first wave guys who got caught.
Surround. If you ever had a Nokia cell phone, you automatically had this game in your pocket and most likely played it at least once. If you didn’t have a Nokia, surely you saw one of the Tron movies, right? Hello, light cycles? In the ’90’s, everyone knew this game as ‘Snake’. The first home version of this was on the Atari VCS, called Surround. Unless you had a Sears Video Arcade, then it was called ‘Chase’. It also had some crazy box art that loosely relates to the game. Surround is better than the version on your old Nokia for a few reasons.
October 28, 1989. I was 9 and about two months into middle school. Every Saturday night I’d watch Star Trek: The Next Generation with my parents. I think Worf had already made his way out of red shirts into the yellow security uniforms. Mega Man 2 was my Nintendo addiction. My family had a Tandy 1000 as the household computer. While I’ve covered a ton of games that I feel deserve a Fair Shake, I stumbled on this disk recently while cleaning out a closet for paint. Written in my awful penmanship with a dollar store marker I can make out the following:
Day Games
Good
Games
Paul Potvin
Oct 28. 89
So let’s see. You’ve beaten Life Force and you’re tired of R-Type. You even trudged the hard path through all of Blazing Lazers. What next? Proclaim yourself shooter god? If you want to, go ahead, but you should sit back down and try Star Force for the Nintendo Entertainment System. ‘Star what,’ you say? Oh, that game with the cool box art that actually matches what’s going on in the game? The game that has made me feel old recently?
Three related questions to be answered in a bit –
1. What is Paul’s favorite Hall and Oates song?
2. What game did I pick up locally at a pawn shop?
3. What is this week’s Fair Shake about?
Retro games are great. That’s why we’re all here right? Each of us has our favorite game, genre, character, system, controller, and so on. What happens though, when you’ve played ‘everything’ available on your favorite system? You might just turn to the homebrew scene to see if you can find something new. Last week I did just that. AtariAge.com, among several other vendors, offers new Atari games for each Atari system! (Fun Fact: The 2600 has had new games released each year after it’s release,except in 1993 and 1994.)
Whoa. I must be writing this from Bizarro World. Two Sega Master System games in a row? Yes! I’m attempting to branch out of my comfort zone for a bit (which means no NES games for a few weeks, sorry Bailey). This week, I present a game called Quartet that’s part Gauntlet, part Contra, and a whole lot of fun. Released in the arcades in 1986, and a year later in ’87 for the C64 and Sega Master System, the game is best described as a platforming shooter. UK friends, you saw the game for the Amstrad CPC and the ZX Spectrum in ’87 as well.
So here we are, a little over a year into my weekly column where I have a personal space to present some games I think you should try. If you flip through my previous highlights, you’ll see they are heavily Nintendo-centric. For every ‘other’ system’s release or port I discuss, there’s a piece on a Nintendo or Super Nintendo game. Not intentional, but I guess it follows how I spent my time playing games in my youth. I did dabble in a Sega Master System, but with a few exceptions, it collected dust until I unceremoniously sold it. One game that saw heavy use was Enduro Racer.
Ever have one of those lazy Sundays? Not a Chronicles of Narina Sunday, but a really lazy ‘I can barely keep my eyes open because I’m so tired and it’s rainy and dark out and blahhhhh’ kind of Sunday? I just did. Like any other Nintendophile would do in this situation, I fired up the NES. I dug out, of all things, THE ADVENTURES OF LOLO. Say wha? I did say it was a lazy Sunday didn’t I?