Retro Heaven

I played a lot of video games in the 80's. Well, I play a lot of video games now, I suppose.

But back then there were really only two outlets for my obsession. They were pizza parlors and the Atari 2600.

I spent literally thousands of dollars in rooms just like this, including several years' worth of lunch money


My friend Rob had an Atari 2600, so I sort of lived there. When we weren't playing Dungeons and Dragons, we were building calluses and creating blisters on poorly made joysticks.

see how the joystick is a little hexagon? that hurts after six hours


Anyway, I've been aching for some retro good times on my iPad. This past week, I got my wish in spades. Atari has finally jumped in to iPad euphoria with both feet with a single App that offers 99 original retro games.


The right foot holds perfect video recreations of the video arcade originals:

this is a screen shot of Tempest from my iPad

here we have Lunar Lander


and Missile Command, just to name a few


The left foot is full of original titles for the Atari 2600:

my BIL was the absolute best at Breakout


Combat had dozens of games in one


and Adventure was frustrating and wonderful


All in all, I'm in retro heaven.

I wonder if I can get Nintendo to do that with the Mario franchise?

that would be the ultimate


What have you purchased simply because it reminds you of your more formative years?

Thanks for reading, off to write!

Cheers,

Casey

Comments

Post a Comment

This is where you come in...

Popular posts from this blog

Hotel

Image
I feel like every time I come over to Crescent City I write the same blog post. You know, appreciate my family, wish I was home, like driving by myself, love my wife, want to hug my kids, blah blah blah. So let's try something different. When you are away from home and by yourself: What's on the radio on the road? I've gone through stages for sure. NPR, scanning for local stations, my own iPod music etc. But for the last couple of years it's been audiobooks and nothing else. I belong to audible.com now and get a new book every month for $15. I have a bumper sticker that says, "Shhhh, I'm listening to a book." What kind of crap do you eat? Do you go to a restaurant? My love has no trouble at all spending the evening by herself at a busy restaurant. I'm not made that way. I usually buy some frozen garbage I can nuke in the hotel microwave that will make my tummy ache for the rest of the night. What kind of TV do you watch? Channel 45 for me here, whi...
Read more

Her Cottage

Image
She lives in a one room, cozy cottage she built in the middle of a lush green forest. Her home sits in a grassy clearing, backed up to the base of a fern-covered cliff where in the Spring, sweet clean water trickles down to her waiting barrels. Tiny, baby blue flowers grow amongst the ferns on tender, too-thin stems of pale green. She is young, and happy, and full of hope. One day a pebble dislodges from the very top of the cliff. It’s not much larger than her smallest finger. It tumbles as it falls, briefly touching its brothers along the way. Seeing the pebble’s joy, the brothers break free and join his race down the steep slope. Others join, larger friends, who bring larger friends. And soon they are singing a thunderous roar of glee as they race each other ever faster down. She hears the song and runs out of her cabin, looking up to see them ripping through the ferns, plucking the flowers and consuming all in their bliss. She backs away, then trips. As she hits the gr...
Read more

What Nurtures You?

Image
One of the coolest chicks in the blogosphere suggested that we all come up with twenty things that nurture us. Everyone who has taken this challenge seriously has approached it in a slightly different way, which is one of the things that makes blog communities so cool… the differences within the similarities. For me, I must define. Nurture - to care for and encourage the growth or development of Since really only humans can care for and nurture other humans, what we’re really looking for here are twenty things that inspire us to nurture ourselves. Here we go: 1 – The scents of my woman Which makes me think of the feel of her skin, which makes me think of other nurturing things I will not bring up… 2 – “Hey Dad,” as I walk in the front door at night If those two words don’t ease my soul, nothing will. 3 – Golf The last seven years of my life would not be the same without those long walks and the man-bonding previously missing in nearly my entire adult life. 4 – The smell and fee...
Read more