Atari Video Club/Jaguar Community United 2004 US Tour

In 2004 AVC/JCU is scheduled to be at the following shows:
Philly Classic 5, NWCGE
Midwest Gaming Classic 2004 , AVC's 2004 Video Game Summit and
OKGE 2004

(AVC/JCU is also part of the click here to visit the Jagfest site)

Philly Classic 5

When: Saturday & Sunday, March 20-21, 2004
Where:Valley Forge Convention Center
King of Prussia, PA
For more information go to:Philly Classic 5
(Randy Femrite will be at PC5 on Saturday)

NWCGE Report
by Brad Prillwitz

The NorthWest Classic Games Enthusiasts show was an experience to remember.

http://nwcge.org/

A two day (May 8 & 9) event that had games from just about any system/console that you can imagine! Games to play, games to buy, and games up for competition.

The first day they had several competitions, and prizes that were donated. People were hesitant to start any kind of competition, but once they got going, you could not stop them!

NWCGE Saturday competitions:

Atari 2600 NWCGE Invaders, X3VOLuX

Atari 7800 Klax

Atari Jaguar Tempest 2000, Protector

ColecoVision Ping Pong, Mr. Do!

Intellivision Beamrider, Pinball

Odyssey 2 KTAA, Turtles w/voice

NES Playchoice RC Pro-Am, Contra

Vectrex Yasi

Xbox Fusion Frenzy, Arcade Treasure

Dreamcast Mr. Driller

NWCGE Invaders and X3VOLuX seemed to be popular. Two very good shoot-em-ups for the 2600, that provided some intense action for the competitors. Klax, for the 7800 did not seem to get much attention. Personally, I love the game. The 7800 version does have very good gameplay, and good graphics, but the sound is not as good as other versions.

Tempest 2000 also did not get much attention. Only a few people entered this contest, possibly because of the length of time it would take to get the high score, which was around 550,000. (I came in second, stopped playing at 508,000 to eat pizza :) Protector did well, and everyone that played this Defender clone on the Jaguar seemed to enjoy it. I didn't hear what the final score was for Protector.

The Ping-Pong game for ColecoVision was very good. Not just another Pong type game. The control was something that took a while to learn, because you could move the hand with a paddle in four directions, as well as applying more thrust, or punch to your serve. Ping-Pong had one small problem, the 2-player selection was not active. Hopefully it will be fixed, so all ColecoVision fans can enjoy it (we could not get the 2-player option to work.) I never saw Mr. Do! running on a ColecoVision that day. Maybe they had problems with it.

The Intellivision console stayed turned off for quite a while. When it was on, Pinball got the most attention. Personally, I think the Intellivision version of Pinball is a little slow, but a few gamers enjoyed it. Beamrider did not get very much play-time.

On the Odyssey 2, KTAA was either left out, or did not get played much, because everyone loved the Turtles w/voice game. It was constantly played by someone both Saturday, and Sunday. Someone had to turn the sound down, when Joe Decuir was ready to speak!

The NES Playchoice Kiosk was popular, for the kids! Only a few adult gamers got to touch the Playchoice, because the children kept playing Super Mario Bros. on it! NES Playchoice was a nice set-up, and would be popular anywhere, with all age groups.

As for the Vectrex, I did not see Yasi. I saw two Vectrex units, one was for sale at Vintage Fun World, the other was set up for the competition. The Vetrex that was to be used for the competition, got used as a test system, for gamers to try out their new purchases. I brought three Vectrex games with me, and tried to get passing by gamers started on one of them, but not a lot of interest for some reason. The Multicart didn't get played at all. Vix/Tsunami (Qix and Tempest clones, on the same cart) got about 30 minutes of play time. The most popular would be Spinnerama, which is a cart with several games on it that are modified to use a standard Atari driving controller. Armor Attack (on Spinnerama) was fun, but you have to use two controllers, a driving controller to steer, and the Vectrex controller for gas and firing your shots. Spinnerama drew some big smiles from the people that played it.

As for the Xbox competition, I completely missed it, because I had a crowd of gamers enjoying Bombastic on my PS2 at that time(more on that later.) I did look up to notice that the XBox Fusion Frenzy competition seemed to be going well.

For the Dreamcast, the Mr. Driller competition was very popular. It always had someone playing Mr. Driller to for a high score. I've got Mr. Driller at home, but have only played it once. I was asked to try out for the competition, and got eliminated quickly, by gamers that knew how to play this highly addictive puzzle game. Drill (or make disappear) the brightly colored "rocks" next to your character, or underneath you. But, don't run out of oxygen! Mr. Driller went on being played, well beyond the time limit, until they had to stop it, for the Atari 2600 competition.

BOOTHS/DISPLAYS:

Several booths were set up, some for vendors, some for show, and some for game play.

My personal favorite game to play (not in a competition, darn!) would be Computer Space, that was projected onto the ceiling! Green lasers shot the game upwards, and had everyone that passed by looking up! One of the ships you could choose was the Starship Enterprise, complete with sounds from the classic show. Another was a pair of scissors, that made a "clipping" sound every time you shot off a round towards your enemy! This game was hard to stop playing(very addictive), and it's probably rare to enjoy such a treat. The computer AI would get "smarter" every round, making the game that much more fun!

Another booth had a Nuon, hooked up to a projector, so you could play Tempest 3000 on the wall! T3K is a fun game, but the lighting was to bright to see the projected image very well. Tempest 3000 would have been more popular, if gamers could see it better.

Lee Krueger had a demo Cuttle Cart 2, on his 7800. The Cuttle Cart 2 is a masterpiece! Almost any game you desire for the 2600 and 7800 available to play. If I remember correct, the only games not playable would be Pitfall 2, and a few 2600 games that will not work on the 7800.

Next to the Cuttle Cart 2 demo, was a Sega Saturn Nights Kiosk. It looked sharp, and clean, but did not get much game play.

I was immediately hooked on the Atari 2600 Battlezone hack. Packrat video games was selling it, which allows you to use 2 joysticks, for a more realistic arcade type control. Two Spectravideo joysticks, with suction cups on the bottom, attached to a flat plastic board, made this game very nice! Anyone who enjoyed Battlezone will love the control on this 2600 hack. Check out http://www.packratvg.com/ to get Battlezone TC.

I was asked to bring a PS2, along with a few good games. Blaster, on the Midway Collection 2 (PSone) caught quite a few gamers eyes. Most said they had never seen this classic arcade game. I put in several different multi-player games, as well as some more classic collections, but two games got the most attention:

War of the Monsters (PS2), was a smash hit for everyone that played it. Pick your favorite monster, old movie style, and battle your opponents. You can also rip up the zone/city that your battle is in. Great gameplay, and graphics too. War of the Monsters is fun for everyone.

Bombastic (PS2) drew a crowd. I hooked up a Multi-Tap, so five people could play Bombastic at the same time. Gamers were having a great time trying to match up dice, while blowing up their opponents! This game was fun for all ages. Bombastic had gamers from ages five to fifty-five! My favorite comment was "I'm a Zombie too!", by one of the younger players, after his on-screen character blew up. :-)

The Big Dee's Games booth had a multitude of imports for sale, as well as some to play. My favorite would be Cosmic Smash, an import for the Dreamcast. A 3D holographic skeleton character, that you controlled while playing some type of racquetball. And, you would also have to smash some transparent blocks out of your way. Great graphics, and fun gameplay, but hard to find.

SUNDAY, MAY 9th, they had a very special guest, Joe Decuir! It was very interesting to listen, and learn. Joe discussed the origin of the VCS/2600, along with programming it. He went into detail about what the VCS/2600 was originally meant to be, and how they decided on the correct processor for it. Joe showed everybody "Stella", his bicycle, where the original name for the Atari 2600 was inspired from. Joe also said he still uses Stella (the bicycle).

Joe displayed an Atari 800 computer, and explained the differences between how it was designed, and how he wanted it done. He wanted the Atari 8-bit computers to be more like the Amiga was, with a built in disk drive, and the proper connections, so people would not have to buy extra cables, or adapters just to use additional hardware. And, he also had a very good discussion about the Amiga computer, how it was originally to be a gaming machine. I enjoyed listening to Joe very much, and even got him to sign a Combat cartridge!

Joe Decuir was going to show an unreleased game for the Amiga, but the cable hooked to his keyboard had been chewed through by his cat! He told us that the unreleased Amiga game was a flight simulator. One statement I enjoyed from Joe while he was looking at Jr. Pac-Man, on the 2600, was "It wasn't designed to do that!"

Joe was browsing a display of 2600 cartridges for sale, when he said that he wanted to see what Beat 'em and Eat 'em looked like. Someone standing next to him told him what the gameplay was like, then he changed his mind.

The Atari 2600 Championship at NWCGE was held later that day, and it was a blast!

I could not believe how good some of the players were. Personally, I was terrible, and got wiped out after the first round.

Atari 2600 games that were in the championship:

Kaboom (dang it gets fast! )

Combat (classic battle fun)

Millipede (high score was over 177,000! )

Indy 500 w/driving controllers

Space Invaders

Root Beer Tapper

Pitfall!

Jr. Pac-Man

Astroblast

Video Olympics

Super Breakout

Frogs 'n Flies.

The Atari 2600 championship went over very well, and the winner (I think it was Chris, from http://www.vintagefunworld.com/ ) didn't start, until it was half over. He did have to go "backwards" and play every game that was in the championship, to be eligible.

Several vendors, and classic gamers with stuff for sale were at NWCGE, so you couldn't leave empty handed!

Goodies that I bought:

NEW:

Videopac+ KTAA Odyssey 2

Planet Lander! Odyssey 2

Packrat Atari VCS/2600

Dragon Chase Atari VCS/2600

Poseidon Atari VCS/2600

Cubic Lode Runner Game Cube (import)

SNES style controller Game Cube (import)

Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream Dreamcast (import)

Mr. Driller Gameboy Advance (import)

Battlezone TC Atari VCS/2600 (dual control...it works great!!)

USED:

Donpachi Saturn (import)

Fantasy Zone Saturn (import)

Fighting Street PC Engine CD (import)

REZ Dreamcast (import)

Pesterminator NES

110 in 1 games NES (import)

Destructor ColecoVision

Snoopy & the Red Baron Atari VCS/2600

Artillery Duel/Chuck Norris Superkicks Atari VCS/2600

Dragon View SNES

U.S. Gold Hurricanes SNES

AUDIO CD's:

Arcade Ambiance 1981

Arcade Ambiance 1983

(arcade sounds from the selected year)

Someone else (who shall remain nameless :) snagged a Dreamcast Kiosk! He bought it just before the show started. I helped load it after the show, and it was a lot heavier than it looked! Very nice.

Everything about NWCGE was great, from start to the end. I can only hope to enjoy this great event again next year!

Midwest Gaming  Classic 2004

When: May 22nd and 23rd 2004
Where: Milwaukee, WI 53214

  Here is my report from the 2004 Midwest Gaming Classic:
I started out to leave my house about 7:30am so I could get there before
the show early enough to set up before the show actually started.
I was the first one there for Jagfest on tour section, since I had to wait for
Tom Legare to bring his Lynx collection and TV's  (and other assorted
gaming items)  I basically set up my jag, the Atari Zone Fanzine binders and
the Atari Tribute items. When Tom came I helped him bring his stuff to the room.
Later on Matt Baker came in to set up his Jaguar stuff (protos and stuff).
Jason (Megadata) then came along to set up his stuff. Pretty soon another person
came along (don't remember his name) who brought his Jaguar.
(we also shared the room with the group of people who brought the marathon game
for the Apple (Midi maze was supposed to set up but never did ))
Now we come to Show opening Day 1:
We had a crowd in the room and we basically showed off the Jaguar and Lynx games,
(we didn't set up the tourneys  until later on). I did manage to get out the room to stretch
my legs and view the other rooms like Atari Age (Atariprotos.com) , Sunmark and The Lan room
set up by iColiseum internet cafe. I also had some time to check out the pinball/arcade rooms.
I basically couldn't move around the first day because the crowds was so large ( I should mention
that I did manage to go into dealer room to see what in there I met up with Jarrett from Packrat Video Games
therewas some other vendors there too like Warpzone Video games (I talked to Wyatt on the second day).
Around 3pm I had to check in for my room, then I came back down to the jagfest room and we was still busy.
Later on we finally set up a two tourneys: Beat level 21 on Tempest 2000(it was actually beat the Yak level because I found out it wasn't actually level 21) the prizes for that was a copy of either Blue Lighting CD for the Jag or Tempest 2000 Soundtrack and copy of the first Jagfest issue that AVC has made. We actually had three people win (one from day one and two on day two) We also tried to set up the Battlesphere network tourney.
Prizes for that was the extreme pack set for Jaguar and  a copy of World Tour Racing for the Jag. Unfortunately, that tourney didn't go well, but the Jagfest group did manage get together for 4 player Battlesphere network before we closed up shop. Later on that night I joined the group from Atari Age for pizza and pop (gaming as well) Al from Atari Age had set up some tourneys to play: Cave 1k, Warring Worms  (I played in the Warring Worms tourney, and almost won the quarter finals but then chocked), and some others I can't remember. By the time I got to my room it was a 11:30pm.
MGC day 2:
This day was a lot slower then the first day and the Jagfest room
was also less the network of the other Jags because Matt and the others didn't return for the second day
so it was just Me and Tom (and the group from Marathon). Tom left around 3pm and I figured to close up shop as well, so The Jagfest room was the first to shut down since the marathon people left as well. I walked around a bit before I decide to walk around a bit to visit some rooms, around 4pm I figured to start waiting upstairs for my ride to pick me up around 6pm. Some people I did meet up with some people  during the first  day was Jim Leonard (from Jagfest'97) and Bud Melvin (who performed at VGS'03)
Overall I would say that was a good show (I hope to return for next year).

Pictures from MGC

For more information go to The Midwest Gaming Classic
Also be sure to visit the The Jagfest at Midwest Classic site
 

 AVC Presents
 
The Video Game Summit
When: July 17th,2004
Where: Lombard, IL

Well, Atari Video Club's Second attempt at holding a Video game and computer trade show is now in history books.
Here is a breakdown of what was going on at Atari Video Club's
Video Game Summit held on July 17th, 2004:

I got to the hotel about a little after 8am, (I was the first one there this time)
This time we had two rooms and the hallway leading to the rooms. My tables were at the
entrance of the vender room and inside the game room (where I held the tourneys). Since I
can't remember who came to the show exactly in order they came, I'll just describe the rooms
and who was in it.

Inside in the Vendor room:
(lay out tables aligned the walls, no tables in the middle)
First table was Bruce Maret, who had an Atari 7800 with a working cuttle cart 2 connected,
Next to him was Bohus Blahut and Jason Compton,
next to him we had a space for playandview.com
but couldn't come due personal reasons, next to that we have
Mike “Doubledownon11” Dullum
who showed off a moded colecovision
, next to him was Dan Loosen and Goat Store LLC.
showing off classic items for sale, next to him was
Suburban Chicago Atarians (ran by Rory Mchman, Nick DiMasi and Julian Wolfe), next to them was
Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe (ran by Chris Forman),
TomMage.com (ran by Tom Hlavaty) and
MobyGames.com (ran by Jim Leonard).
After that there were empty tables.

Inside the Game room:(Lay out was similar to vendor room):
as mentioned before I had one table right by the door for the tourneys, on one side of me was
Terrence Williams (Force Designs)
showing off Mad Bodies, and Gorf Pluz for the Jaguar, on the other side of me was
Tom Legare
with Lynx display (as well as other systems,
next to him was Mike Bielecki
who was actually selling classic games (which I didn't mind).
Unfortunately, because of Bohus being in the vendor room(when he was supposed to be in the game room,
he changed his mind at last minute because he saw a friend of his in their)
and because another person didn't show I had
Johnny Armstrong in corner
showing an Emulator on his computer(along with the
public showing of my 2600 hack of keystone kappers "LaserMan2k3"
running off the emulator for the 2600).
Eric Titus also brought table at the show for his 2600(he didn't stay long).

Outside of the rooms was where I had tables for AVC(entrance table)
and a freebee table with brochures from Safari Land and business cards from Good Deal Games and Mobygames.com.

Now for the events at the show:
Our first tourney was at 10am which was Escape from the Master Mind,
the prize for that was the Cheats 12,000 book and it was won by Eric Titus.
The second tourney was around 11:30am
(originally it was supposed to start the spy game tourney
but it work out so they went the separate ways) which was Protector SE,
the prize for that was a Tempest 2000 soundtrack and it was won by Nick Sula.
Our first raffle for a Final Fantasy Crystal chronicles T-shirt was at noon
and that was by Darel Ochoa.
The third tourney was around 1:30pm was Reactor
the prize for that was Intellivision Lock and Chase and that was won by Nick Sula.
Our Second Raffle was around 2:30pm for PC Sonic and Knuckles collection
won by Jim Leonard.
Around 3pm we held a Frogger tourney
the prize for that was Arcade Ambiance 1981 and '83 Audio CD, won by Nick Sula.
About 30 minutes after that we held our third Raffle won by Chris Bielicki
(originally the prize for this was supposed to be a PSone and game but
play and view didn't show who were also were supposed to supply this prize so we had to
substitute for another prize of which I don't recall).
as the day came close ending we held our forth raffle for a Sega Prize package
(Marko and Citizen X) at 5pm won by Chris Bielicki.
Now it was time the grab bag for every item not given away:
as far as remember that Bohus picked up most of the Infocomme games
that was donated by Ye Olde Infocomme shoppe
(he also picked up the hot wheels car for the special prize which was a VGS t-shirt
(he declined it though which was cool(saved me money from buying and sending it to him)
and Jim "Inky" gobel picked all of the Lynx games donated by Goat Store LLC.
I didn’t see who got what after those two because I went to
tell others about the grab bag and by the time most of the stuff was gone.

show ended about 1/2 hour earlier then scheduled because
a lot of people were leaving, and there was no plan for an after show dinner at safari land.
We had about 35 people for this years show counting attendees and people who had tables.

I would like to thank all sponsors:
Atari Age
(I had left over name tags from last show so I used them
(they were going make us some new ones but Al was busy with other stuff),
Classic Gamer Magazine,
Digital Press
(I had a bunch of price guides left from the last show so I used them to sell
(sold one copy btw)),
Goat Store LLc,
Good Deal Games
(they supplied most of the prizes),
Play and view.com
(even though they didn't show but they did buy table so that took care of that)
,Pack Rat Video Games,
Safari Land
(they also helped with the flyers by having them distributed on the weekends)
,Tom Mage.com,
Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe
, Video Game Collector Magazine
(they donated their first issues which was handed out to people asthey came in)
and Video Game Connections.
VGS'05 is right now being planned out as of this writing


Pictures From The 2004 Video Game Summit
Dan Iacovelli's pics

Bruce Merret's pics

Rory Mcmahon pics can be viewed here at EVite-Ofoto
(you either have to click on slide show or join OFoto (it's free) to view them.

For more information go to  The Video Game Summit

 Oklahoma Gaming Expo
Tulsa, OK
9/18/04
Report by Brad P.


OKGE was great this year. Attendance was up, and the space we had to use was double last years. I forgot to take pictures, but plenty of others did, and they are posted at Atari Age.com We had some new games at OKGE. Beef Drop, for the Atari 5200, Reversi, for the ColecoVision, and Seawolf, for the Atari 2600. I enjoyed Beef Drop quite a bit, as well as Seawolf. But haven't tried Reversi yet. I bought all three as soon as Albert had them ready for sale! About an hour after OKGE started, my Space Invaders competition gained some interest. Everyone went nuts over the mini-cocktail controller adapter that I was giving away. Although, most (maybe all) casual gamers did not realize the SI anniversary was an import,and thought they could just take it home and use it.

I hooked up a Gamecube to a 20" LCD TV, and it was quite an eye catcher. Classic games, and classic updates were playing on the Gamecube. PC Genjin (Bonk's Adventure), Cubic Lode Runner, and the Gameboy Advance multi-cart that I picked up at CGE this year. Almost everyone loved Bonk. Cubic Lode Runner was not very popular. But, the multi-cart (using the Gameboy player hooked up to the bottom of my Gamecube) was a big hit. Everyone loved playing classic NES titles on the Gamecube. And, I took it one more step by using a SNES style controller. One game that I couldn't stop laughing at was "Ronald's Adventures", a Burgertime hack that has you moving Ronald McDonald while being chased by Chicken McNuggets!! On another table, I had three Lynx systems set up, with about 60 games ready to play. But, I forgot to bring extra batteries, power packs, or AC adapters!! One Lynx got about 4 hours of use, before power ran out. Another table of mine had a Jaguar with six carts, and the latest CD releases (Painter, Ocean Depths, Jag Extreme paks). Space War 2000 got quite a few people trying it. Protector SE was also very popular. Battlesphere was fairly popular, but everyone that tryed it, didn't know what the controls did, so had trouble playing it. Several gamers were asking me for Aliens vs Predator, but I forgot it. And, I forgot to bring the AC adapter for the Jag CD! Later in the day, I pulled the Lynx stuff,and hooked up a Dreamcast with some 4-player games. This drew a small crowd. I put an import in the Dreamcast that made everyone ask where I got it, Cosmic Smash. To bad it's only a one player game. One other problem, forgot a TV for my Jag set up, so I bought a cheap TV at a local Wal-Mart. Picture was fine, but very bad sound. Had to turn volume all the way up, and only mono hook up. I took it back for a refund, after the show.

It was great being able to enjoy a local show, probably the same way you enjoy NWCGE. Putting some of your time, money, sweat, and tears into it, makes you appreciate it that much more. Messiah games was there, showing off their wireless NES, and SNES controllers again. I'll buy them, as soon as they are ready. Atariage had a great set up, with plenty of stuff to play, and buy. Reflex got most of my gaming time at their tables. Jeff Cooper had an incredible Pac-Man collection. Anything that had Pac-Man on it , was on his table. I had almost forgot about Pac-Man pasta! The arcade games set up for free play were great. Although the cocktail Galaga, and Joust were never lonely! I'm still seriously thinking about buying one of the arcade games from a dealer in Tulsa.

I forgot to take a look (and feel) at the trakball for the O2 system. Earl had it available to try out this year, and the pictures of it look great. Take a look at his report of OKGE when you get a chance. He even got one picture of me, that looks like I'm trying to but something into the back side of my Vectrex! (I have on a T-shirt that shows Pac-Man giving Ms. Pac-Man the tounge!) Earl's Report

The Vectrex system was popular, but would have been better, if I remembered to bring my multi-cart! Everyone drooled over the Vectorcade controller for the Vectrex! Favorite games were Spike, Tsunami, and Spinnerama. Several people commented that I need to put the Atari driving controller next to a standard Vectrex controller, and velcro them together. They loved the enhanced gameplay of being able to use the driving controller on certain Vectrex games.

Live entertainment at OKGE, from George Alistair "The Fat Man" Sanger. His music was great to hear, while everyone enjoyed a day of gaming. I had dinner with George, and his assistant, after the show. We ate ribs, at the Rib Joint, and had a great time. George kept me laughing so hard, I couldn't sit up straight! After dinner, everyone wanted to play an online game, at a nearby gaming center. They fired up Starcraft, but I only watched for a few minutes, then went to bed.

OKGE also had "Flack", from Atariage, showing off his copying devices, for the SNES, and N64. I only briefly saw them, but wanted to see them in action. Jesse Hardesty organized a fantastic show, that entertained many gamers this year!!

Click here to visit the OKGE website

Jagfest '97 , Jagfest '98 , Jagfest '99
CGE 2K ,  AVC/JCU 2001 US Tour
 AVC/JCU 2002 US Tour,
 AVC/JCU 2003 US Tour,
AVC/JCU 2004 US tour
AVC/JCU 2005 US tour
AVC/JCU 2006 US tour
AVC/JCU 2007 US tour