Archive for March, 2008

[ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Super Gorilla Advantage

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

SNES Super Advantage - Asciiware - Gorilla Magazine Ad

It’s true: most controllers can’t stand up to the intense punishment delivered by the average Donkey Kong Country player. That’s why Asciiware created the Super Advantage joystick for the SNES. It’s built “gorilla tough” for “gorilla games.”

Woah there — don’t try using this sophisticated piece of technology on a non-gorilla game, or that tiny gorilla (pictured) will jump out of the controller and smack you. Just a warning: he goes straight for the eyes.

Discussion topic of the week: What if standard joysticks looked like this in the Atari 2600 era? How would games have been different?

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Twenty-One Inches of Atlantis

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Sometimes people ask me if I’ve played any good games recently. At present, I must reply a resounding “YES!”

The title I’m engaged in at the moment is one of the most fun computer games I’ve played in years. It’s called Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, a graphical point-and-click released by LucasArts in 1992. I’m playing it on my favorite MS-DOS computer, a generic 386SX with 4 megs of RAM and a 21″ Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 100E monitor that I bought last year at the NCSU surplus sale for $1 (Yes, one whole dollar, and they have plenty more where that came from).

Spielburg should have turned this game into a movie — or at least one with Atlantis in it — although I’m looking forward to the new Indy flick coming out later this year. Anyway, I have to get back to the game.