Hello all, GoatRoyale here with some recent retro finds; however, first I need to do a little housekeeping.

Although I've been a daily (hourly?) reader of Dtoid for quite a while now, I haven't really been a community member for all that long, much less an active community member. That said, I intend for this to be the start of a semi-regular series of posts regarding all things retro in my life -- gaming and otherwise. I can't promise that other topics won't pop up, but by and large I'd like to have a cohesive series with at least a basic structure or format, both for ease of use and so I don't procrastinate about putting my thoughts on (digital) paper. I actively welcome all thoughts / comments / rants, but make no guarantee as to the relative entertainment value of the content of these posts. You've been warned.

Better Late Than Never: The Atari 2600 Find

As you may or may not be aware, I live on the Texas gulf coast in a little suburban community located roughly halfway between downtown Houston and Galveston Island. As I hope you already know, we recently had a nasty little hurricane come our way that thoroughly screwed over a sizable percentage of the Gulf Coast residents. Fortunately for my family and I, the effects of the hurricane on my community were nothing more than a giant pain in the ass, with a 9 day power outage and a crap-ton of tree damage being the only noteworthy impacts on our day-to-day lives; others, sadly, suffered a number of heartbreaking material and immaterial losses. With that in mind, I present to you a retro find that is the direct result of Gulf Coast hurricane preparations.

When my family found out that a hurricane was headed our way one of the first things they did was enlist my services as a strapping (HA!) young man to go help prep the family's beach house that resides on the west end of Galveston Island. Among the serious storm preparations, I had my own little private agenda: locate and secure the family's old Atari 2600 and its collection of games, which had been residing at the increasingly little used family beach house for over a decade. In retrospect it seems rather crass and trivial, but at the time we had no idea how serious and dangerous the hurricane was going to be, so wasting 20 minutes to dig up some old videogames didn't sound like too bad of an idea.

Anyhow, dig up the old Atari I did, and a handful of retro games I did find. Now, being all of 24 years old, I can't even to begin to pretend that I remember the 2600 in its prime, but the good old Atari was in fact the first console I ever played as a child, and I do vaguely remember playing a number of the games at various points in my life. What follows is a little video recap that I shot, believe it or not, the day before the shit hit the fan and we up and evacuated for the storm. Watch for a cameo by the retro-phone at the halfway point.



Shaky, incoherent video is shaky and incoherent

As mentioned in the video, I do not have any controllers or hookups for the 2600 at the moment, so I unfortunately can't really offer much insight other than what's in the video. I DID do a little bit of research on Lock 'N' Chase, and it turns out that I actually do remember playing the game, as I remember noticing how similar it was to Pac-Man. That said, I still don't know what is up with the cartridge shape, so if anybody knows what the deal is, then please let me know. Also, I have yet to scan in those little catalogs, but I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point. For now, though, I have more important stuff to work on... like the tale of a new game store that actually carries a decent amount of retro games!

Coming next week: the story of my first excursion to GamesPlus -- a small games store, located 15 minutes away from work, that carries a bevy of used games, movies, and cds. I know it's kind of a long shot, seeing as how the guy who works there said they only have 3 locations (all within the state of Texas), but if you live anywhere near League City / Texas City area, you owe it to yourself to check the place out. It's nothing fancy, but in an area that's filled with your dime a dozen big chain game retailers, it's a breath of fresh air.

Anyhow, look for that post sometime early next week. I'll try to get some decent gameplay videos of my acquisitions (no promises), though I'm not yet ready to announce what the games are... just think RetroForce # 61 :) . For now, I'm going to waste my day off by playing Art Style Orbient and Mega Man 9 when I really should be using the free time to clean the house or at least get some laundry done.

I leave you with this random, completely unrelated video that is full of blasphemy and fail


Oh, so I couldn't have Count Chocula as a child, but somehow, SOMEHOW, these were deemed suitable for my consumption? Gee, thanks Mom!