WIZARD OF WOR

At the CGE in Vegas last year there was a real Wizard of Wor. It was very difficult to get onto it and play it, because apparently arcade gamers in a freeplay environment forget everything they ever knew about lines or courtesy. I’m sure the deaf Chinese kid was staring at the thing as the owner tried to pack it up Sunday night, trying to reach down and trigger the “more credits” wire without making eye contact with anyone or anything. The 800 version of WoW is pretty good – a little weird at first, as the first joystick port controls the blue worrior (sic) and the second one controls the yellow… and the game demands that the first joystick port be player two. So you always have the yellow asshole involved in the game no matter which version you play. It looks like somebody fucked up for the 8-bit, but it doesn’t really matter. Plugging the joysticks in and out of the system is easy and they are recognized instantly.

The graphics on the real version of WoW are blocky and shitty, so the 800 version maps pretty well. It’s very playable and you can control how many lives you get before you start playing. A lot of fun in two player mode, as the game, like Joust, can go from co-op to a deathmatch instantly.

WIZARD OF WOR: HOLDS UP NICELY!

JUNO FIRST

This was another one that I played on the real hardware for the first time at the CGE. I had never played it in MAME because of its stupid name. I used to have a juno e-mail account before Chet gave us zombiemail. Juno, the e-mail service, gave us an entire two megabytes of space to use, which was always way too little. I remember Juno having an advertising campaign that went like, “Henry gave it to Gladys. Gladys gave it to Cheryl.” And everyone involved was in their sixties. You definitely want to get people associating STDs and liverspots with your Internet service – I don’t know how Juno failed like it did.

Juno First also fails, because it looks like it’s dropping most of its frames. It’s fairly unplayable and also loses points because it is making the most annoying sounds in the world in its “attract” mode as I type this up. This game is on my 48-in-1 (and it’s a lot of fun, if a little easy), but this version for the Atari 800 is slow and sluggy.

JUNO FIRST: DOES NOT HOLD UP!