Author Doug McCoy

How To Win At E.T.

dougmccoy38 — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:41:22 +0000

I had no idea E.T. for the Atari 2600 was such a bad game until the modern era when I found everybody on the net ripping it to pieces and heard about secret landfills in the desert. I had it and played it and liked it as a kid. I still like it today, though I have to admit that its notoriety is always in the back of my mind anytime I think about it now. And it was that combination of notoriety and affection that made me pick up How To Win At E.T.

How To Win At E.T. is another hintbook from the Consumer’s Guide, just like How To Win At Donkey Kong. It is much more ornate, though, as each page’s text is printed over a full-color picture of the moon or other E.T.-esque images. It is longer, too. It took me quite a bit of time to work through this one. And it has more (and in my opinion, more helpful) information. The staff at the Consumer’s Guide really took this game apart, explaining what all the elements do and giving several strategies for playing the game. They even gave a breakdown of the six screens and showed how movement from each screen works.

The book’s biggest surprise to me was how difficult the game was. I remember finishing the game, assembling the phone pieces from the pit and being picked up by the mother ship. I know I did that as a kid. After reading this book, though, I’m not sure how that is possible because there was so much I didn’t know about the game play. It’s possible I forgot all those things, but it doesn’t seem that possible. Maybe I just reached the mother ship by luck?

In any case, the book was a little long and overly-detailed, but it still evoked that nostalgia which I’m always searching for and which led me to pick it up in the first place. It also made me want to play the game again. That’s right. I’m just waiting for my next opportunity to play E.T.

Evolution of Samus

dougmccoy38 — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:14:05 +0000

I don’t know why I didn’t think to do the evolution of Samus in the same way I did the evolution of Mario, but I should have. It’s just as interesting. This time, though, I had to do the work myself, since I couldn’t find a suitable evolution anywhere. Here’s mine, which only covers the NES, Game Boy, and SNES Samuses.

I did find a couple of other interesting evolutions, though, including Samus artwork and Samus in her “bailey”.

Atari 2600 Label Creator

dougmccoy38 — Sun, 12 May 2013 04:38:52 +0000

I was looking into Atari silver label cartridges when I found this fun site: Atari 2600 Label Creator. You can important your own pictures into a template to create a faux label for a faux Atari 2600 cartridge. You can also set the title and change all the other text fields.

Here’s my silver label cartridge (the silver labels just seem better to me; kind of the same “silver must mean a better game” idea I had with Metroid and Kid Icarus)

And here’s my picture label version:

If you have some time, check it out. It really is tons of fun.

Space Invaders, Galaxian, and Galaga ships

dougmccoy38 — Fri, 10 May 2013 23:12:49 +0000

There must be a lot of people out there looking into retro arcade space fighters, because “Galaga ship” is the number one search that brings folks to authordougmccoy.com. That being the case, I wanted to add a couple better pics of the Galaga ship and a few others. I hope these are better, anyway. In either case, I grabbed them myself and tried to resize them without losing two much quality.

First is the Space Invaders laser base (yeah, it’s a laser base, not a ship). Again, I grabbed this one myself. For some reason, it is solid. The horizontal lines that a visible in the other pic I posted aren’t visible in this one. I don’t know why.

Next is the Galaxian ship. Again, not my favorite. It still looks more like a freighter than a fighter to me.

And finally is the Galaga ship. I still contend that this is the best looking space fighter in the arcade. It is even better looking than a lot I’ve seen on film.

So those are the best pics of these ships I can get. If anybody finds any better ones, let me know!

How To Win At Donkey Kong

dougmccoy38 — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:02:41 +0000

I always get all my video game playing tips from the editors of Consumer Guide. That’s why I was so excited to get their book called How To Win At Donkey Kong, another video game pdf I recently found.

This short book (really more like a pamphlet) gives us an introduction to the characters, patterns for each board, ideas for finesse, and ways you can grandstand. I found it pretty helpful mostly because of the patterns. There were some other things in it, though, that were interesting. It covered the pattern of the “Springese” on the elevator board. I had never heard of that until Steve Wiebe mentioned in in King of Kong. It also mentioned that Mario can be killed while using the hammer, something I talked about in Arcadian.

There were some oddities about the book as well. It listed several alternate names for Donkey Kong, such as “King Kong” and “Chimp Face”. I wasn’t sure where those names came from. It also said the blue things on the girder board are “beams”. I always thought they were just blue barrels.

Those oddities aside, this book was a fun read (yet another example of my “portable nostalgia”), particularly because the authors seemed to have the same goal I had: getting to the next board. The book seems to be geared not towards score but to advancement, which is always what I played for. Maybe with the patterns this book gives, I finally can get to the cement factory!

How To Beat Video Games

dougmccoy38 — Tue, 07 May 2013 21:57:18 +0000

In addition to all the great ebooks I got with my Christmas money (and that I’m still working through), I also found some old video game book pdfs. Among them was this title: How To Beat Video Games by Michael Blanchet.

This is one that I may or may not have had as a kid. I know I had a similar book to this one, and I know it covered Qik, but that’s all I have in my memory banks to go on, so I’m not sure if this is the same one or not. It starts with some general tips about arcade gaming that I would have taken seriously as a kid (check the joystick action, ground yourself from static electricity, etc) but just blow off now. And it gives general tips on how to play all the games listed on the title. It even has some diagrams of boards and moves.

Books like this aren’t that helpful to me today. Since I don’t play for a high score (and never did, as I explained in Arcadian), I don’t pay attention to scoring strategies. But the real value of the book isn’t in the tips or strategies. The real value is in the nostalgia, or, since I have it on my Kindle Fire, the “portable nostalgia”, the ability to give me just a quick taste of some of the good things of my childhood. This book serves that purpose just fine.

Mario Mania Players Guide

dougmccoy38 — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:33:04 +0000

Yet another NES book I hadn’t known about: the Mario Mania Players Guide.

I never had this book, so I can’t say much about it (other than that it would go great with my other NES books). Fortunately, there is a fellow on YouTube who gives us a complete breakdown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkfkNiTjHNk

Atari Hot Wheels

dougmccoy38 — Fri, 03 May 2013 01:23:22 +0000

Once again, two loves comes together. This time, it is the Atari 2600 and Hot Wheels cars.

Granted, I didn’t love Hot Wheels as much as some kids did (though I was very found of the Cobra Stunt Set), but I loved the Atari 2600 and all its games & colors & logos, so when I saw these Atari 2600 Hot Wheels cars, I was immediately smitten.

I’m no expert in this area, but it looks like there were six cars total: one generic 2600 vehicle, and five game vehicles (Tempest, Centipede, Pong, Missile Command, and Breakout). Of the six, Centipede is definitely my favorite.

Nintendo Classic Challenge Classic Action Poster

dougmccoy38 — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:38:04 +0000

Somebody keeps putting great NES posters on Ebay. I just came across this one, which proclaims “Classic Challenge, Classic Action”. It features the later versions of Punch Out!! without Mike Tyson, the yellow-label Metroid, and Zelda & Zelda 2. You can also see a few other games at the bottom, including the newer, non-black label sports games. Yet another poster I would have loved to have on my wall in the late 80s and would still love to have on my wall now.

IGN Presents The History Of The Legend Of Zelda

dougmccoy38 — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:11:16 +0000

I just used some of my birthday money to buy a book that had been on my Amazon.com wishlist for some time: IGN Presents the History of the Legend of Zelda. I at first thought this might be an attempt to harmonize the timeline of all the Zelda games (something I tried to do as a kid with just the first two NES games and the Game Boy game). At it turns out, it is really an overview of every major Zelda game from the original NES classic to Twilight Princess.

The book is a quick read, and while it does give a little insider information, it doesn’t give that much. For that reason, some of the reviews on Amazon.com were negative. I loved this short book, though, for a couple reasons. The first is that I love the Zelda series, being an immediate convert from the first time I put the brand new game cartridge in my brand NES on Christmas morning 1986. That being the case, I am attracted to and affectionate for anything that has to do with Zelda. The second is that I have not been able to keep up with the series throughout the years. I got my hands on the original immediately, and on the SNES’s Link To The Past as soon as it was released, and I eventually got to play Zelda 2 in college and Ocarina of Time after graduation, and the Game Boy and Game Boy Advanced games after that. But I eventually just couldn’t get up, and there is no way that I can now catch up. To do so would require buying multiple consoles and putting way to much time and energy into the endeavors. The only possible way I could possible complete each game is by using walkthroughs, which would speed up the process but also reduce the accomplishment, so I’m just not interested. This quick read, then, which had color pictures of each game’s cover art, is a way for me to at least get a taste of the games which time and responsibilities force me to love from afar, and for that I’m thankful.

You can get this short book for $1.99 at Amazon.com, but you can also read it for free here. While free is nice, two bucks isn’t a super hardship to get it on your ereader and support independent writing.