But war without robots? Forget it; it’s hell.

You should probably know by now that I love the Atari Jaguar. Or at least I did (Read #14) when it came out. I was a huge Atari nut back then. Iron Soldier, the game featured in this bold, well-illustrated ad, remains one of the few truly fun games released for the Jaguar. I only acquired it recently (well, recently as in 2001) but I’ve had a blast with it, even if the missions do feel like three-hour aimless wanderlusts of wanton destruction. I’ll never forget the feeling of punching skyscrapers with my giant robot’s stubby fist for the first time.

Did anybody else out there have this game? What did you think about it?

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When I first saw this ad in EGM around 1992-93, I wanted one of these modems so bad. I was hugely into BBSes and computer telecommunications at the time, and the thought of using one on a console to play games with friends was awesome. My best friend called my BBS, and my imagination went wild thinking about all the fun we could have with a pair of these modems. That is, assuming the games were good.

Eventually, I convinced my mom to call Baton (being a about 11 or 12 years old then) to see if she could order one, but by that time either the phone number was already disconnected, or she didn’t get an answer. Or maybe she did talk to somebody — my memory’s fuzzy on that point. I was hugely disappointed. Crushed. The Teleplay modems never showed up in stores and I never heard anything about them again.

I did get excited when Xband modems came out some years later (for the SNES and Genesis), but I found the experience with their service somewhat lacking. I wanted a direct player-to-player connection with no game broker or middle man.

For more on the story behind the Baton Teleplay modem, check out Frank Cifaldi’s investigative piece at Lost Levels Online. I’m really glad he took the time to research the company so that their story isn’t completely lost to history.

Unfortunately, I forgot to document the issue number this ad appeared in when I scanned it some time ago.

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Just in time for Halloween comes this special ultra-morbid computer software ad from 1983. I’ll have to admit that I’ve felt this way about computers myself more than a few times — especially back in the Windows 98 days. Luckily I didn’t go this far, or else I wouldn’t be here today writing for you.

I’m just glad this isn’t an ad for a computer version of Hangman.

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