ATARI BYTES

The carnival is in town! The majesty of the Ferris wheel. The roar of the ferocious lions. The siren call of demons from the underworld enticing you to play their game. If you do, you're off on a hellish roller coaster of demons that mock, diamonds that bounce and skulls with post-nasal drip. What in the world is going on here? Put down that corn dog and help us figure it out. Thanks to Kevin McLe...

Episode 4 is up! Old Man River, that Old Man River...He says, "Keep the noise down!" What noise? EXPLOSIONS! This week's game is the 1982 Activision game RIVER RAID. It has jets. It has helicopters and fuel depots. Boats and bridges all over the place. And they're all blowing up...Thanks to you. I've been playing Atari games for 30+ years, but I've only had this one about a week. AND IT'S AWESOME....

If your knowledge of the Old West comes primarily from "Back to the Future III", then this is the episode for you. OUTLAW is our game; the game where gunslingers rule the town...unless there's a stagecoach or a cactus blocking their path. This 1978 Atari game promises players they "can become expert gunslingers during these games". Go head to head and leave your opponent in the dust. Throw in a sa...

Q*Bert! He was adorable, wasn't he? Sure he was. But man, he was a little guy with issues. Can't really blame him though, what with Coily and Sam trying to push him off that pyramid. All the guy wanted to do was change the color of those cubes. In this episode, we decide whether this plot makes any sense and, along the way, psycho-analyze a fictional character from a thirty-year-old video game. An...

Here it is! Episode 1! We're a real show now! The 1981 Atari game Yar's Revenge is our focus.  Who is Yar? Why does Yar want revenge? Against whom? Does Yar succeed? All this and more in this episode. Music: Thanks to Kevin McLeod at Incompetech.com for the use via Creative Commons License of "Take a Chance", "Reformat", and "Pinball Spring".

Remember those classic Atari 2600 games? They were fun to play, but didn't you kind of wonder why they sent a plumber to take down Donkey Kong? What the Defender was defending? What Yar was trying to get revenge against? What made those robots go berserk? Me too! This podcast tries to divine those answers from within the games. Then, if we can't, we make 'em up.