Collection essentials #13: Missile Command (2600)

 

Another well-known classic by Atari, first released in arcades and well-ported to the 2600. If you’re my age or older there’s a high chance you’ve seen this game, but in case you haven’t, it involves an endless barrage of missiles coming down at you (remember, this was made late in the Cold War so it was on peoples’ minds as a possibility!) and you control an icon that you freely move around the screen to aim your counter-shots to try and detonate the missiles before they touch down and cause destruction. You have several different bases that you can fire out of, so there's a good incentive to not let any of them get hit since you will be more effective if you can shoot from them all. You also have to learn to plan your shots, since they come out very slow. You have to learn to shoot where the missiles are going to be shortly, not where they currently are. An absolute must-own for any Atari fan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Collection essentials #390: Valkyrie Profile (PS1)

Image
Here we have a truly marvelous and totally unique RPG from developer “tri-Ace”, whose founders first worked on Tales of Phantasia on the Super Famicom and then went on to form their own studio. Valkyrie Profile probably technically qualifies as a JRPG, but it’s so incredibly unique that saying so doesn’t give you a good idea at all of what the game is actually like, and even future games in its own series don’t even truly resemble it.  As you may guess, this game is loosely based on Norse mythology. The main character Lenneth is a valkyrie, who serves Odin and recruits newly-deceased warriors to fight in a war waged by the gods with the ultimate goal of saving their home Asgard from destruction.  The basic gameplay loop of Valkyrie Profile involves a limited schedule. There are a limited number of “Periods” in the game until the final battle (something the game makes very clear), and performing certain actions such as entering a dungeon or recruiting a warrior take up one or m...
Read more

Intro

Image
  I'm about to start a long-term personal project relating to my video game collection. It's actually something I'm doing mostly for myself, but sharing it with others is certainly a nice little side perk. As you probably already know, I have a large video game collection that would make many nerds jealous! I did the bulk of my collecting from roughly 2012-2018. Now I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to. In fact, in 2021 my collection actually had a net shrinkage because I sold more than I bought. Does that mean I've just been a hoarder all this time and I'm slowly growing to regret my life decisions? HECK no. I feel quite satisfied and vindicated with the legion of games into which I've invested time, energy and resources to assemble and I've merely reached a point of satiation. I scratched all the most important stuff from my bucket list. I purposefully was liberal in my choice of buying stuff because I knew how to find deals and I knew that th...
Read more

Collection essentials #411: The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (N64)

Image
Sometimes Nintendo consoles are only graced with a single Zelda game. But after the success of Ocarina of Time, Nintendo decided that the Nintendo 64 needed a second one, to be developed in much less time, under two years. To help save time, many assets from Ocarina of Time were reused. The basic gameplay elements and physics are all the same, too. And so, at a brief glance, this game may seem like an Ocarina of Time clone. But guess what? Majora’s Mask is actually one of the most unique and creatively-designed games in the series.  The story begins not long after the events of Ocarina of Time. Link is ambushed by a Skull Kid, a type of forest-dwelling humanoid first introduced in the previous game. This Skull Kid is wearing a strange mask. This mask grants special powers, and the Skull Kid places a curse on Link, turning him into a creature called a Deku Scrub. Link then travels to the game’s central location, Clock Town in the land of Termina, and meets a mask salesman there who ...
Read more