Various Atari 2600 carts & other Atari l00t from Retro Gathering VCE 2017

This is part 1 of my Retro Gathering l00t :) I will go through everything bit by bit once I’m done sorting and cleaning stuff ^_^ As you might have seen on my Instagram it was quite a large haul XD So let’s start off with all my Atari related pickups! I found quite a few Atari 2600 games thanks to my friend nesfrk who pointed out to me the big box of Atari carts that was hiding under a table that I had missed! I ended up buying 22 Atari 2600 games in total, and many of them were in different shapes and sizes. I haven’t really read up a lot about these, but it started fascinating me after I found out about the Atari V-carts that I recently bought from a friend, and now I kind of wanna know what the rest of the weird looks of the Atari 2600 carts are about XD

Some of them are a bit more obvious, they were released by a certain company that just made their own style of cartridges and labels, such as Parker Brothers or ActiVision. Parker Brothers’ Atari 2600 carts have a really cool shape in my opinion, and the labels are silver. I don’t know if there were other variants, but all the ones I own which read Parker Brothers on the back all have silver labels. And the ActiVision ones are a bit more dull, just black and white but with the ActiVision logo printed in the plastic on the back, just like the Parker Brothers logo. ActiVision does have other labels as well, more colourful, I own a few of those as well, but I think these black and white ones might be region specific.

These are the common Atari carts that I’m used to seeing. Either with a silver label, a black label with a colourful name on the side or the black with silver frame labels. Also there’s the full color ones, that have one bright background colour and same colour on the end label.

I found some odd carts with 2 games in 1 called 2 Pak Special. I’ve never seen these before. The seller told me they were Australian (if I’m not mistaken). Kind of ugly, but still charming in a way XD

I also got Hero by Imagineering, from 1990 (!!), and I just read that they didn’t discontinue the Atari 2600 until 1992! 25 years later!! this blew my mind XD Then there was a Telegames game called Armor Ambush with a silver label and finally three unidentifiable games. Two of them have the same cartridge case, it has S.S imprinted on the back, but other than that it only reads the game name and no publisher, so I’m thinking they might be bootlegs? They’re German at least I can tell from the names XD Funny names! Super-Cowboy beim Rodeo and Vom Himmel durch die Hölle (From heaven to hell). The last one called Lilly Adventure has a similar cartridge case but it’s a little bit shorter and doesn’t have anything printed on the plastic..

So many variations right! :D That’s probably far from all of them as well XD I also found two joysticks for the Atari 2600. The Driving paddle controller :) It was apparently needed for the Indy 500 game, so I ran and picked them up from the place at the convention where I had seen them earlier that day, by Butik Mackapär ^_^

I also picked up a few Atari 400 games. I bought an Atari 400 not too long ago, haven’t got it up and running yet, but I will make another attempt soon. Meanwhile I found these game cartridges for it :)

And I also got one Atari ST game ^_^ It was cheap, in nice condition and I liked the cover art :)

More posts are coming with the rest of the loot from Retro Gathering soon ^_^

Mailday – Super Methane Bros and other Amiga CD32 games

I usually get games in the mail on a weekly basis, but I rarely feel like I have the time to make a full scale blog post about them, but I thought I might make some shorter posts as well just showing what has arrived ^_^ The collecting is constant! Haha :D But I have quite a pile of games to go through that I haven’t had the time to try out yet.. :/ Mainly because I’ve been super busy with work.. but I’ll get through them eventually ^_^

Today I had a parcel in the mail with some Amiga CD32 games that I bought from eBay. I’ve told myself not to buy a bunch of CD games and focus on cartridges, mainly because I don’t enjoy the loading times and I also have a hard time with the early 3D graphics, but I got a pretty good deal on these :) So I couldn’t pass it up!

I don’t really know what any of them are except for Chuck Rock which I also have for a few other systems. I’m fairly certain that Ultimate Body Blows is some kind of fighting game XD

Super Methane Bros is the one I fell for,  the name suggests it’s kind of a grown up version of Super Mario Bros, but I could be completely wrong XD I’m hoping it’s a 2D platformer, but it’s probably not >_< Alien Breed Tower Assault sounds like a strategy type tower defence game? I’m just guessing! Haha ^_^

Super Stardust is probably a shmup, I’m just hoping it’s not too much 3D.. but it looks like it from the screenshots on the back :( Diggers & Oscar are two games in one I think :) Don’t know the genre but I’m thinking Diggers is some kind of Dig Dug/Mr. Driller clone..

Anyway, I’ll be back soon with my pickups from Retro Gathering VCE 2017, it’s just A LOT to go through XD

Retro Gathering VCE 2017!

This weekend I visited Retro Gathering VCE (Vintage Computer Edition) in Västerås with my friend Gabriella. This years focus was Commodore PET that celebrated 40 years, Apple II and adventure games which is right up my friend Gabbi’s alley ^_^ It was as awesome as always! A bit fewer people visiting the convention this time, but that just meant less people crowding around the tables where I wanna buy stuff XD But I understand that it might be frustrating for the sellers to get fewer customers :/ But it’s usually a bit fewer people at the Vintage Computer Edition of Retro Gathering in spring time, compared to the regular Retro Gathering they host each fall. Probably because less people are into old computers and more people are into Nintendo and newer consoles … unfortunately :(  Well, another thing that might also have been the cause of less visitors is that Nintendo at Bergsala in Gothenburg hosted a launch party for the Nintendo Switch during the same weekend. I know a lot of people who went there instead.. But I had a great time at Retro Gathering VCE! Met and chatted with so many friends that I’ve gotten to know through these last couple of years, I just love the retro gaming community here in Sweden! :D

There were still a lot of things to look at and to buy. My biggest mistake was not to snag an Atari Jaguar CD unit, boxed and WORKING! I waited and they were gone within the hour.. >_< But I bought lots of other cool stuff ^_^ I’ll make another post when I’ve gone through it all XD

There was a big showcase of some old computer stuff, I don’t really know much about this kind of stuff, but some things were from the 70s and quite unique. The coolest thing was a guy who had put together Spacewar for people to try out, the very first video game from 1961! :D Both me and Gabriella tried it out ^_^

Apart from all the awesome people that were there, visiting or selling, there were also loads of computers on demonstration that you could try out :) I kind of fell in love with the Microbee and the game Hopper! I got the highscore, until Magnus had to go beat me by 100 points XD I need to get me one of these computers so I can practice some more ;) Seriously though, if anyone has a Microbee lying around I am more than interested! :D There was also a competition held on a Commodore PET to play the game Car race by Satoru Iwata. This reminded me a lot of Race on Philips Videopac, but it was a bit more difficult, especially because of the slippery stages XD But I managed to get a decent score on there as well :) I’ll have to wait and see until they upload the scores on the Retro Gathering homepage to see where I ranked ^_^

I’m already looking forward to Retro Gathering this fall! Meanwhile I’ll also be attending Retrospelsmässan in Gothenburg in April ^_^ I’m happy they’re back!