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The promise of the Game Boy could never have been made more clear than in this 1993 ad by Hudson. Confined to your room? No problem; play your Game Boy. The portable nature of Nintendo’s first handheld console opened up incredible new possibilities for how and where you could play video games.

Those possibilities felt very real when I finally convinced my dad to buy me a used Game Boy around 1990. (Sure, it had just come out in 1989, but it felt like forever because I was begging my parents for one all along the way.) With the Game Boy, I could play video games in the car, in school (although I never did), in bed at night, and I even remember wandering through the local art museum — black Game Boy earbuds in place — glued to Tetris instead of paying attention to the paintings. Oh, that glorious stereo sound. Those were amazing days indeed.

Discussion topic of the week: What was the first handheld electronic game you ever played? Also, feel free to share your first Game Boy experience.

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“The ice cube cometh.”

Yep, Mr. Cool is little more than Q*bert on ice — but this one requires a touch of SuperCool to win. Somehow, Mr. Cool himself looks like he was plucked from an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

I remember playing this for the Atari 800 and not being too impressed. But oh well; clones will be clones. (Psst — remember Donkey King?)

Discussion topic of the week: Share your memories of video game clones. Any favorites? Any ridiculous examples?

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A few years ago, I brought home a large old cedar chest that had once belonged to my grandmother. It had languished, mostly forgotten, in my parents’ basement since my grandmother’s death in 1992. Upon cracking it open, I was instantly overwhelmed by the stale funk of old paper. My wife, sensitive to allergies, had to leave the room.

Among the greeting cards, family quilts, and my grandfather’s WWII uniform, I found the source of the smell: a large stack of vintage newspapers that my grandmother treasured. Some of the papers were fascinating windows to America’s past — chronicling John Glenn in space, the first landing on the moon, and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Others dealt with less meaningful issues to me, such as unusually heavy winter weather or local events of eastern Tennessee.

Seeing an opportunity for Retro Scan of the Week, I combed through the newspapers looking for interesting material that I could share. The example you see below is the oldest VC&G-relevant ad I could find (I found others that I’ll post later). It’s a 1954 advertisement for a Westinghouse television set sold by “Don Cherry Tire Company.”

Chattanooga’s Greatest TV Value

The headline, while amazing to us today, is somewhat self-explanatory: in 1954, television was coming into many American households for the first time. We’re witnessing, in print, the birth of an essential component of the personal computer and video game revolution — the affordable home TV set. Ironically, the small (likely 12-15″) black and white TV you see above sold for about $2,125.64 in 2008 dollars. Remember that the next time you plop down two grand for a new 42″ plasma.

Interestingly, I found a color ad for the same TV seen above on another site. And another here.

Discussion topic of the week: Tell us about your family TV set as a kid: when did your family get it, how big was it, and did you use it with home computers or video games?

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A photo essay by Marty Pickleman, Grade 5

I like video games. They are fun.

[ Continue reading Video Games Are Fun » ]

What a silly illustration.

Discussion topic of the week: In your opinion, which Super NES game had the best graphics?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Michelangelo is turning in his grave (eager to play SimEarth, of course).

SimEarth: “It’s kinda like being God, except the graphics are better.”

If I recall SimEarth in general, it was kind of a dud: after excitedly buying it for the PC upon its release, my brother returned it within a few days, disappointed. I personally have never played it much, nor have I tried the TurboDuo version. But if it has better graphics than being God, then maybe I should give it a second chance.

Discussion topic of the week: What role, if any, should religion have in video games?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Like an alien mothership come home, a small flying saucer surveyed the pulsing, Technicolor scenery of Manhattan’s trendy Studio 54 dance club. The saucer, a four-foot replica of a mysterious electronic toy, hung overhead in preparation for an unveiling later in the night. Yet the revelers below, entranced by thumping disco and free-flowing decadence, barely noticed the invasion in progress.

Further up, in the pitch black balcony, a 56 year-old engineer from New Hampshire fought off drowsiness and reminded himself why he had attended the deafening event: among the glamorous movie stars, the blasting music, and the swirling mirrored balls, it was his creation they were there to celebrate.

At approximately 3 AM on the morning of May 16th, 1978, the music stopped. The dazed crowd parted like the Red Sea, and a middle-aged man — the Vice President of Milton Bradley — took the stage to introduce the company’s latest toy, a curious wheel of blinking colored lights and musical tones called Simon that would soon become the must-buy gift of Christmas 1978.

In the balcony, the engineer smiled: he had reached the end of a story that had begun, surprisingly, six years earlier.

Something is crooked in the state of Denmark.

Leave it to the Japanese to create a fantasy golf game with androids, robotic caddies, and floating islands in the sky. As usual, they were quite forward-looking in 1993: they knew that some day, androids would be better at golf than humans.

I’ve actually tried my hand at this game a few times, and it’s weird. While the 3D engine is cool, it’s painfully slow; you can easily doze off while waiting for the screen to redraw.

[ Correction – 07/21/2008 ] I just played Mecarobot Golf again, and it seems that my memory was flawed. The whacked-out SNES Golf game I recalled above was actually Devil’s Course. Now that is a crazy golf game. Mecarobot Golf still contains robots, but it features a smooth Mode 7 engine.

Discussion topic of the week: What’s your favorite video or computer golf game?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

“Mutant scum never learn!”

Being a huge fan of the original Blaster Master for the NES, I went gaga when I first discovered that Sunsoft had developed (yes, I missed it at the time, along with everyone else) a Blaster Master 2 for the Sega Genesis. And so it was that BM2 became one of the first Genesis games I emulated on a PC in the mid-late 1990s. And I was disappointed.

If you get past Blaster Master 2’s horribly tinny FM-synthesis music, you’ll find a cartoonish technicolor imitation of the original. BM2 somehow lacks the epic feel of the original Blaster Master (maybe it’s the color palette), and instead resembles a straight-up Turrican-esque 16-bit platform shooter. Still, if I could get past the first stage (and turn down the volume), I feel like BM2 might be fun.

Discussion topic of the week: What’s your favorite Sega Genesis / Mega Drive game of all time?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Yep, it’s that time again: time to premiere a new Benj-crafted VC&G-related article from another site. Today we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of Space Invaders, and my ode to the seminal space shooter can be found on 1UP.com. I think the piece turned out well — 1UP did an especially good job with the illustrations. Here’s a blurb from the introduction:

Thirty years ago this month, Taito released Space Invaders, one of the most important and influential videogames of all time, to Japanese arcades. You might know that it set its native Japan ablaze and drove America crazy, but have you ever wondered why? Well, you’re about to find out. Here are 10 things everyone should know about Space Invaders.

Feel free to check out the article; I think you’ll enjoy it. When you’re done, tell us some of your Space Invaders memories. When was the first time you played it? What did you think of it at the time?