The Geek Connoisseur Blogs

ATARI NOSTALGIC BLOG :: As with many of us who grew up during the ‘70s and ‘80s, we got introduced to Atari with their latest new interactive electronic toy in town, a new toy that was meant to be plugged into our B&W TV. PONG was its name! PONG TV PONG : That was something new and never seen before, the first two-player electronic game allowing us to move a light bar up & down on each side of our TV screen; by using round knobs! Upon starting the game, we both were now trying to prevent that square ball to pass us and to bounce it back to the other side hoping your opponent will not be able to block it to win a point! Interactive tennis was now available on our very own TV, how cool was that! And, the pure joy of having succeeded to win the game at the end after all those beeps of the ball hitting the walls and our futuristic light-rackets. ATARI VCS :: A NEW KID IN TOWN! ATARI 2600 : A few years later, in 1977, a new electronic interactive machine hits the stores, something

ARCADE NOSTALGIA BLOG :: One of my all-time favorite arcade machines: Missile Command ! It is also one of the best looking Atari arcade cabinets of the 80’s! I've played this awesome game in arcade rooms for hours on end. Easy to play but hard to master if you wanted some serious high-score! When I first saw its cool large control panel with its big target control trackball and its missile launch control compose of three volcano-like buttons I was hooked immediately and wanted to play it. I still remember the first time I've played it; pressing the start button for the very first time. Hearing the sounds of a new level starting and all the sound effects during gameplay and at the end when it was calculating the remaining missiles and cities you've saved along with the bonus city sounds which was a nice relief to hear after they've destroyed them all. How cool it was to defend your cities from incoming ICBM missiles with fast reaction and precision trackball gameplay b

ARCADE RACING RETRO GAMES BLOG :: From low res to high speed, racing games have come a long way! I remember playing my first racing video games in 1974 : " Gran Trak 10 " from Atari, a black-and-white top-down racer with white dots trace the borders of the track, we needed to avoid hitting the dots with a real steering wheel to control a car sprite. Then we've played in Night Driver in 1976 in arcades beside pinball machines; this also came out on the Atari 2600 in 1978. In 1980 , we had other types of arcade racers, one that I really enjoyed was Rally X from Namco; this was a top-down, multi-directional racing game with multiple paths and opposing racers. A few years later, in 1982 , Namco came out with Pole Position ! This arcade racer was one of the most influential racing games of all time. This is when a bright, third-person view graphics and smoothness of motion became a standard for racing games. The 2600 arcade port was still decent even with the console limitati