INSIST ON QUICKSHOT! THE GENUINE PIECE!!!

I own a few QuickShot joysticks, but I don’t believe I’ve used any of these particular models. Third-party console controllers weren’t all that popular in the age of the NES (relative to the 2600 days, at least), likely because the NES’s own pads (and the NES Advantage and Max) were so good to begin with. Same with the Genesis and Super NES. That fact alone probably killed a few third party video game peripheral companies that were hanging on from the Atari 2600 era, although the QuickShot brand lived on until the late 1990s.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did/do you commonly use third-party controllers for your classic video game systems? Which one is your favorite?

Just a few days ago, renowned video game historians Marty Goldberg (formerly of ClassicGaming.com) and Curt Vendel (Atari collector extraordinaire) published their epic Atari history book, Atari Inc.: Business is Fun.

And by epic, I mean 800-pages epic. Its launch coincides with the 40th anniversary of the legendary video game company, which happens to be this year. (In fact, the 40th anniversary of Pong’s public debut happens to be today.)

I haven’t gotten my hands on a copy of this massive work yet, but I thought I’d let you guys know about it because it promises to be an interesting read.

As long time readers of VC&G know, I usually post short entries about my non-blog writing activities on this blog so you can enjoy them.

Recently, I’ve been so engrossed in writing Macworld articles that I have neglected to mention them. Consider that remedied with this handy digest of pieces I’ve written over the past two months for said Mac-related publication. Conveniently, they all have history angles to them (or else I wouldn’t list them here):

• 09-18-2012 – Steve Jobs’ Seven Key Decisions
• 10-12-2012 – The Five Weirdest Macs of All Time
• 10-19-2012 – Six of the Rarest Macs
• 10-26-2012 – The Land Before Macs: A Field Guide
• 11-02-2012 – The Apple Family Tree: Apple Platforms …
• 11-16-2012 – The Unexplored History of Translucent Apple Design
• 11-23-2012 – The Unusual World of Mac Prototypes

There’s more on the way, so stay tuned to see whether I neglect to mention those here as well. The excitement is palpable!

Nothing says fun like a nice hot bowl of chunky butter cubes.

With the Wii U launching next weekend, it’s worth taking a look back the Power Pad, one of Nintendo’s first experiments in motion-based game control.

In this case, the controller (which decidedly lacked a second screen) took the form of a large vinyl mat with enormous soft buttons that one would lay upon the floor and beat with one’s fists stomp with one’s feet to simulate running in an on-screen video game.

It didn’t work too well, but I personally had a blast playing World Class Track Meet tournaments with the Power Pad at the neighbor’s house up the street. I recall playing in improvised teams of two, where one player from each team would stand and run on two of the forward facing buttons, and another player on each team would sit behind them on the floor and pound the rear buttons simultaneously in an attempt to make their character run faster.

This was apparently possible (I’m working from memory here — I haven’t used a Power Pad in a long time) because each column of buttons is linked together electronically in the Power Pad, so that a push on any one button in any one column is like a push on any other button in that column. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. I can’t test it because the Power Pad I happen to have doesn’t work.

By the way, I apologize for the uncharacteristically poor quality of the source material here. This came from a particular issue of Nintendo Power that I must have read hundreds of times, literally, so the creases are a natural byproduct of my youthful Nintendo-fueled enthusiasm.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Tell us your Power Pad memories. Have you ever used one?

Back in 2007, I intended to write an article about the 10th anniversary of Nick Newhard, the designer and lead programmer of Blood, and arranged for an interview.

For whatever reason, my interview with Newhard didn’t take place until April 2008 via email. (That’s probably why I shelved the project.) Since it’s almost Halloween — and it’s the 15th anniversary of Blood this year — I thought I’d share this little gem from my archives. It should be a treat for any Blood fans that might be out there.

I’m presenting this interview a little more sparsely laid-out than I usually do just for the sake of expediency. Some day I will write more about Blood, but until then, I hope this nugget of history will tide you over.

Get Blood

By the way, you can buy Blood on GOG.com these days for $5.99 (price at present). It runs great in DOSBox on a fast machine — make sure you crank up the in-game display resolution for greatest effect. The game is amazing in 1440×900 VESA mode on a widescreen monitor.

I heartily endorse the thorough and frequent playing of Blood, as it is one of the greatest PC games of all time — in my opinion, at least.

[ Continue reading VC&G Anthology Interview: Nick Newhard on Monolith’s Blood (2008) » ]

That purple monster skipped out mid-treatment and he’s angry!

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the scariest video or computer game you’ve ever played?

Oh to travel by rolling over your face with your spherical body.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite ball-themed video game? Any balls apply.

Dino Wars cast a long shadow in the world of manual covers.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Off the top of your head, name the first video game you can think of that involves dinosaurs.

Guns don’t kill people. My grimy hands do.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever fired a gun in real life? Do any video games successfully replicate that experience?

A stunningly realistic RCA Studio II gameplay session.

Here’s the box cover of TV Arcade III: Tennis/Squash for the for the RCA Studio II (1977), the world’s second ROM cartridge-based video game console.

The early console, which featured only two numeric keypads for control, was such a dog that I named it the “worst video game console of all time” in a 2009 PC World slideshow. Three years later, I stand by that assessment.

You may be asking yourself why RCA prefaced the game title with “TV Arcade III.” Well, silly, that’s because it was part of a sequence of “TV Arcade” games for the RCA Studio II that started with “I” and ended with “IV.” That’s exactly, I might add, how the ancient Romans would have labeled their video games.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever played an RCA Studio II? What did you think?