Weight of moon > weight of world? Termina must be a small place.
(click image above to see full ad)

Despite what you see above, the game featured in this double page advertisement is not set in New York City. It’s set in Termina, a weird place where kids wear lots of masks to get things done. And like Groundhog Day, time keeps looping until you do everything just so. The perpetual déjà vu can be frustrating — nay, maddening. But it may also be genius, and a small subset of loyal Zelda fans call The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask one of the best titles in the series.

It also turned ten years old last November. Happy birthday!

P.S. This scan marks five years of Retro Scan of the Week. Read more about it here.

Discussion Topic of the Week: How do you feel Majora’s Mask ranks in the pantheon of Zelda games? Near the top? Near the bottom?

Captain Foothand strikes again.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever used the Sega Mega Mouse or the Sega Activator? What did you think about them?

I don’t remember this from the films.

Despite the fact that I scanned this ad from a magazine that I religiously pored over some 10 years ago, I have no memory of Star Wars Demolition (PSX and Dreamcast) whatsoever. It appears to be a vehicular combat game (ala Twisted Metal) with a Star Wars license slapped onto it. When I came across this ad earlier today, my first reaction was: “Man, that’s bizarre.” And it is.

Has anyone out there played it?

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite vehicular/car combat game of all time?

I whipped up this Zelda-themed ornament a few days ago out of some leftover polymer clay I had lying around. I thought you might enjoy it.

Have you ever made video game or computer themed ornaments? If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Who will win the battle of the Zappers?

Discussion Topic of the Week: Name any item you received as a present for Christmas in 1987. Don’t remember? Guess!

“Your Game Boy is about to become a man.”

While I’ve been a fan of Duke Nukem since his initial shareware debut in 1991, I’ve never played this 2D platformer for the Game Boy Color. It arrived relatively fresh on the heels of the mega-success that was Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, along with a handful of other spin-off titles for various game consoles.

The true sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem Forever, is supposedly coming soon (after 14 years in development hell), and I look forward to playing that when it arrives.

By the way — if you like Duke Nukem, you may enjoy reading this interview of 3D Realms founder and president Scott Miller that I did last year.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Which is the better game: Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, or Quake? (Not just technologically speaking, but based on the overall experience.)

Every once and a while, I receive emails from people looking for a certain game, electronic toy, or computer from their distant past. I then pass it on to intrepid VC&G readers to crack the case.

The Clues

Pete writes:

Hi…

I was thinking about a game I played as a kid, probably came out around 1982-1986 or so. I think it was called Space Shuttle, but I could be wrong. I’ve searched for it online, but all I see are flight simulator type games, and the one I’m looking for was very different.

There was a roster of astronauts with different skills and personality types, and depending who you picked for your crew, they could either get along well or go crazy onboard! One of the astronauts was Fred Pfister, I think, don’t know why I remember that. There was a way to go EVA, and each shuttle mission required you to land and take off. If I recall correctly, you even had to watch how much money you had in the budget – you could make money by carrying satellites and every mission launched had a cost to it.

I think this would have been a Texas Instruments TI 99 4A game, but it could have been a Commodore 64 game too. Any help?

Thanks,
Pete

The Search Begins

It’s up to you to find the object of Pete’s fuzzy memory. Post any thoughts or suggestions in the comments section below. Pete will be monitoring the comments, so if you need to clarify something with him, ask away. Good luck!

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Have a memory of a computer, video game, computer software, or electronic toy you need help identifying? Send me an email describing your memories in detail. Hopefully, the collective genius of the VC&G readership can help solve your mystery.

“…thus we are very skinny.”

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite first-person RPG of all time?

“System Requirements: 48k Atari, 1 disk drive, modem”

You’re looking at an ad for what may have been the world’s first multiplayer graphical online gaming service, Games Computers Play (1985). It may also have been the world’s first graphical multi-user environment, as it predated the Lucasfilm Habitat beta test for the C64 (1986) by six months or more.

I don’t know else much about this Atari 8-bit-only service beside what can be gleaned from the advertisement above, a 1985 article in Antic magazine, and this thread over at AtariAge.

One of the posters in the forum thread linked above mentioned that he/she found the creators of the service, whom I’d love to talk to myself. I’m trying to get in touch with that poster, but if anyone knows anything about this service (including info about who created it) or has stories to share, please email me here.

[Update – I did get in touch with one of the creators of this service. More info to follow. ]

Discussion Topic of the Week: What was the first game you played with another human (or humans) over a modem?