ATARI BYTES

I'm strong to the finish, 'cause I eats me spinach*, I'm Bill the Podcaster Man! *Seriously, I do. Raw even. This week's game is the 1983 Parker Brothers adventure POPEYE. While Olive Oil wears her hearts on her sleeve - and mostly just throws them at her beloved, Popeye is busy running from deck to deck on a ship trying to beat up Bluto/Brutus (which name you refer to Popeye's nemesis by really d...

This week, Sir Dudley Dashly swings from vine to vine across the jungle, colliding violently with Pitfall Harry and sending both of them to the hospital with concussions. If only! That's just my dream premise for Pitfall III. Instead, we're taking a look at the 1983 game from Atari, JUNGLE HUNT. Vicious vines. Cruel crocs. Belligerent boulders. Savage, uh, savages. Will Sir Dudley Dashly ever see...

This week, we go above and beyond by going under the sea to defend the lost city of Atlantis from annihilation by the Gorgons. Make your old high school Greek mythology teacher stop regretting her life choices and actually use some of that stuff she taught you. Who knew the Loch Ness Monster could kick butt so righteously? * And Not-Dead Elvis is deadly on the sentry post.** *The Loch Ness Monster...

This week on the podcast, we boldly bravely cluelessly go where no one has gone before! That's right, in honor of the new Trek film out this summer, Star Trek: Beyond, we slingshot around the sun to go back in time to 1983 and check out the Sega game STAR TREK: STRATEGIC OPERATIONS SIMULATOR. So beam yourself up to this episode and enjoy it at warp factor 10.* *I'm stopping here to avoid any more...

We came. We saw. We kicked its...Well, you know. In 1984, GHOSTBUSTERS left an indelible, Mr. Stay Pufft-sized, footprint on comedy/adventure movies. With the new 2016 Ghostbusters finally out, this seemed like a good time to revisit the 1985 Activision take on the Ghostbusters universe. Does the game live up to the film? To find out, who you gonna call? PODCASTERS! (The management requests that y...

BURGERTIME was one of my favorite video games as a kid...when it was on the Intellivision. But no matter! Atari Burgertime is cool too! Homicidal human-sized hot dogs, massive walking eggs and severely erect breadsticks want to kill our man Chef Peter Pepper, apparently, because he keeps walking all over the giant hamburgers this restaurant serves. As the chef, armed only with a pepper shaker and,...

If the ark is a-rockin', don't bother knockin'... On episode 24, the 1982 iMagic game COSMIC ARK is our focus. You pilot your ship, the Cosmic Ark, into a solar system where the sun is about to go nova, blast away bombarding meteors and then deploy shuttleships equipped with tractor beams to scoop up the creatures below and whisk them off to safety. It's like poor man's Star Trek, only not, becaus...

This week we look at Atari's 1978 game SURROUND. Yep, there it is. This...strategy game, I guess? pits you against the computer or your opponent to see which one of you can paint lines on the screen faster to box the other player in. The graphics are rudimentary; the gameplay simple (though addictive). There are no characters, dialogue, back story or even stakes. PERFECT for a story-based, game re...

SUMMERTIME! AND THE LIVING IS EASY!  The gameplay, on the other hand...not so much. KOOL-AID MAN, 1983 from Mattel Electronics, is our focus this week. This game is basically the video equivalent of my six-year-old after a Tootsie Roll. The Thirsties are running around ruining your pool party by drinking all the water. Kool-Aid Man is running around like a maniac trying to stop them. It's like you...

This week on the podcast, we're MAD!  No, we're not angry. That's MAD as in Mutually Assured Destruction - the Cold War thory that no country would fire nuclear missiles at another country because that would bring about a counter attack and no one on the planet would survive. In the game, on Zardon, the planet in question, you control a small arsenal of missiles to fend off of an interplanetary ai...

Maybe you can't yell "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, but you can yell it all you want in Imagic's 1982 game FIRE FIGHTER, which is our focus on this week's episode. You can stop yelling now. This is an intense (ish) game of man against the elements (well, one element - namely FIRE) battling against time to rescue a desperate victim. Okay, seriously, you can stop yelling now. Sheesh. More info about...

This game is so crazy, it needed to employ a "z" in the name, instead of the ordinary "s". Emotionless robots and maniacal, smiling evil-doers seek to destroy you. It's much like American politics. But unlike in politics where only the third rail is a dangerous place to be., in this game, the very walls that imprison you are electrified. And fighting to get out will make you...well, you know. Bill...

The exclamation point in the game title is well deserved! This week on the podcast, we look at Pitfall!, a 1982 game from legendary game designer Activision!  Awesome! (I just can't stop with the exclamation points!) This game is all about quicksand and alligators and swinging from tree to tree like Tarzan. Grab your pith helmet, loin cloth and joystick and jump into this high-flying jungle advent...

Good grief! This week's episode is Atari's 1983 game SNOOPY & THE RED BARON! High flying adventure with Snoopy AND seemingly endless machine gun fire? I'll drink (root beer) to that! My thanks to Kevin McLeod at Incompetech.com for the creative commons use of his songs "Reformat", "Take a Chance" and "Pinball Spring." You can support the show at Patreon and Zazzle . Check out my other show: It's a...

This week's game is Atari's 1981 classic: WARLORDS. And this week's theme is ...family. Parents, man. You and your brothers are goofing around, innocently catapaulting fireballs at each other when your dad, ruler of the land, gets in your face being all kingly and banishes you to the forbidden lands. But you guys get bored easy so you each pick a corner to barricade yourselves in and fling lightni...

If you think a "barnstormer" is what a stormtrooper becomes after leaving the Empire to work a moisture farm on Tatooine, you need to listen to this episode. This week's game is BARNSTORMING. Activision goes down on the farm and up in the air all at once in this 1982 plane-flying adventure. Test your reflexes and your nerves as you maneuver your bi-plane over windmills and through barns, all the w...

On EPISODE 14 of ATARI BYTES, we down some of the leftover 'shrooms from the Centipede episode, indulge in some peyote and wash it all down with a bottle of Jack and...Oh, wait. No actually, we just played AMIDAR. But that does even weirder things to your brain. Gorillas that want to paint while being chased by WILD warriors that really just look like boogers. Gorillas that turn INTO PAINT ROLLERS...

This game is TURMOIL-ISH! TURMOIL-SOME! TURMOIL-U-TUOUS! Lookit, there's lots of turmoil in this 1982 20th Century Fox game. With weird creatures that look like tanks, UFO's, pink tie-fighters and Andes candies, we're not sure if this game is a space alien shooting gallery or the weird office cubicle fever dream you might experience after inhaling copier toner all day. Find out more about the Atar...

DRIVERS, START YOUR ENGINES! Seriously, you can't drive if you don't start the car, doofus. Atari's 1983 POLE POSITION, a formula one Grand Prix racing game, is our focus this week. How can we make a story out of little more than a race car on a track? Listen and find out! The finest twenty-two minutes of a man alphabetizing his toothpaste collection you'll ever hear. My thanks to Kevin McLeod at...

PASS THE 'SHROOMS, MAN! Atari goes down on the farm in this episode. Atari's CENTIPEDE from 1982 is our topic.  While other elves are out fighting wars and hanging with Hobbits on epic quests, your poor little elf Oliver is stuck tending a mushroom farm. If that isn't bad enough, you're being pummeled by giant centipedes, scorpions, spiders and FLEAS. No one would blame you if you used that magic...

In Cosmic Space Patrol, "roid rage isn't a failing, it's a job requirement. On a routine patrol, your ship is beset by a monster asteroid storm. Even armed with photon torpedoes and hyperdrive, will you have the quick reflexes to survive? Well, no. You only get so many ships and the game will end eventually. But in the meantime, you've got a job to do. Cosmic Space Patrol is a cruel mistress, but...

IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! IT'S A PODCASTER! Er, I mean, IT'S SUPERMAN! That's an easy mistake to make. This week's game is the 1979 Atari game Superman. Will Superman defeat Lex Luthor? Will he save Lois Lane from the evil (?) helicopter? Or will he be left powerless by the kryptonite satellites? There's a whole lot of plot in this game - and the story within an Atari game is this podcast's KRYPT...

Why send a Pac-MAN to do a job when Ms. Pac-Man can do it so much better? Episode 8's game is Atari's 1982 version of Arcade legend MS. PAC-MAN. The gameplay does not disappoint. It looks and sounds about as close to the arcade version as you could get. Sure, the artwork in the manual has Ms. Pac-Man wearing thigh high boots and crimson lipstick, but, then, so am I. Ahem. As always, we'll go beyon...

Feeling a little warm? Aching for an adrenalin rush? Does the echoing siren call of wanna-wanna-wanna drone in your brain? YOU'VE GOT PAC-MAN FEVER, BABY! And this week on the podcast, so do we.  This 1981 Atari version of the iconic arcade classic is the focus of our story-telling gamer scrutiny. For more about the movie "Pac-Man: Come Out to Play" from Australian filmmakers Fury Fingers, talked...

OH, THE CLOWN-MANITY! In this 1980 Atari game, clown after clown face-plants under the Big Top trying to bounce off a trampoline onto a teeter-totter. After then leaping from the teeter-totter and popping some balloons, you, player, are supposed to catch them. But you can't. Because you stink at this game. Or maybe... it's serial clown murder. Either way, this is good, family, slaughter-fun. Pass...