Now that I’ve been spending more time playing games on my Atari 8bit machines I’m also keeping an eye out on potential bargains.
Game cartridges are what I keep an eye out for as many titles for the system were later released in that format for the XE series machines. Unfortunately they also seem to hold their value too (and then some)… especially boxed copies.
Cartridges are where it’s at.
So much to my surprise I found two games going cheap on eBay I couldn’t help myself. When they are more than a quarter the price of similar items you jump on them quickly. 🙂
The first of my finds is Accolade’s Hardball! from 1985 which as the title implies is a baseball game. Though it doesn’t have any license or player rosters to prop it up the game is a surprising attempt to get the feel of the game with the pitcher view closely mimicking the angles used on live broadcasts.
At the time when it was first released I wasn’t much of a fan of games the were more simulation oriented and even less so for a sport whose following is not as high profile as others in Australia. But I always remembered magazine reviews of the time and the impressive screenshots with them.
The second game I found was Final Legacy (1984) from Atari, a game that gives me the impression of a take on Beach-Head or Raid over Moscow formula by breaking the overall game down into simpler minigames. I had never heard of this one until recently so was really curious about it.
The box is still shrink wrapped which is a surprise… hoping it’s not a sign of the game’s quality. I’m sure there’s plenty of discussion about trying to keep the game’s value but I’ll be opening that sucker and checking it out. A game not played just seems a waste.
With these games getting older and harder to find it’s pretty cool I found a couple of bargains. If they turn out to be of good quality it might just give me incentive to hunt for more in the future. Fingers crossed I’ll have them soon! 🙂
The Late Night Session 
Reblogged this on DDOCentral.
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Final Legacy is one of my favourite Atari 8-bit games! Wonderfully evocative of ’80s “WarGames”-style nuclear paranoia.
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I remember there also being a branded WarGames title as well that I had fun times with too so I’m getting even more excited to check this out when it arrives next week… It’s almost like a new game to me… An old-new game. 🙂
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The Thorn EMI one? I used to love that one too. Great music and sounds, and the Defcon alarm siren thingy was terrifying!
I’m bummed my 800XL gave up the ghost recently, but hopefully I’ll be hijacking my parents’ 8-bit collection before long so I can get back to some retro goodtimes.
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I think that’s the one! 🙂 It did a great job of mimicking the screens from the movie and I ALWAYS had to watch the movie logo getting nuked to pieces!
It’s amazing these machines have lasted so long but so, so sad when they finally give up. There does seem to be a lot of people online though who have the knowledge and resources to help keep them running which is encouraging. Hope you get back to some 8bit goodness soon! 🙂
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Good read. Not enough people cover classic computers. When it comes to Atari…it seems like most don’t care for anything that isn’t from their arcade or 2600 line.
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Thanks! Atari computers were a big part of my formative years and certainly influenced how I looked at games over the years. I still think it is a tragedy that Star Raiders doesn’t get more recognition for how amazing that game is.Seems people nowadays think gaming started at Super Mario Bros and that’s it. Now that I’ve been finally able to get some old Atari systems together it’s been great getting back into the games again and share stories. 🙂
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