#ballyarcade

Space Fortress - the home version of the game that this is all about: Space Zap.

I have to say, this version is pretty faithful to the arcade, all things considered. The scoring seems low but maybe the intensity setting adjusts that, I didn't really pay attention.

The controls take a toll on your wrists, much like the arcade can, though in a different way...Shooting so much with the trigger begins to get uncomfortable after a while and the little joystick is perhaps not responsive enough (though that could be the specific controller I was using - the other three I have were even worse).

Finally coming to and end here 🥹

Baseball, Handball, Hockey, and Tennis. Most of these are like weird variations on Pong. Again, these are all multiplayer so I didn't spend much time with them.

Seawolf and Missile are basic ports of the arcade games Sea Wolf and Guided Missile, respectively. This is probably one of my favorite carts that I have for the Astrocade. Both games play pretty well and are decent ports, all things considered.

Astro Battle, Football, Brickyard, Clowns, and Artillery Duel.

Astro Battle is basically Space Invaders. Nothing much to say there.

Football is, presumably, football-ish. I couldn't get it to really do anything. Probably user error 🏈

Brickyard is an interesting breakout clone. This is the first game of this type I've played where the "ball" is affected by gravity. It won't always make it to the bricks on the other side and you'll have to catch it and try to build up more force to get it over there. It's actually a neat concept that changes the game in a way you might not expect.

Clowns is, now that I think about it, basically the same thing and it makes sense to be in the same cart at Brickyard. Very much the same as the arcade version of Clowns or even Circus, I never considered those to also be pretty similar in game play to Breakout. But with gravity. The more you know 🌠

Let's knock out a few carts tonight. First up we have a couple pretty neat driving games, 280 ZZZAP and Dodgem.

Both control basically the same, using the paddle at the top of the joystick to steer and I have to admit that both are relatively fun to play. The over the top crashes in 280 ZZZAP are a hoot and Dodgem really just makes me want to play Monaco GP.

As far as I can recall, I've not played the arcade version of 280 ZZZAP/Midnight Racer though it does look familiar.

Next up is The Incredible Wizard, a home version of Wizard of Wor. I didn't spend much time with this one, (I think it froze a couple of times) but from what I was able to play, it handled well enough though I did get caught on some corners a few times.

Next up are Red Baron and Panzer Attack.

Both of these are probably fairly good but without another player, there wasn't much for me to do.

Flying around in Red Baron was a little odd with me often getting turned around but I think with more time getting used to the controls, it might feel pretty natural. Doing loops behind clouds was kinda fun.

The tank in Panzer Attack also took me a minute to grasp. If I recall correctly, up was always forward, down was back, then left and right rotate. I suspect this works well once you're used to it.

Alright so, as mentioned, I'll share a bit about each Astrocade game that mine came with. Remember: I have no real nostalgia for this thing.

We'll start with the four built into the system: Gun Fight, Checkmate, Calculator... and Scribbling...

Gun Fight is a home version of the spectacular black and white arcade game and it lives up to the name well enough. The game shows off all the aspects of the Astrocade's unique controller: moving your character with the joystick, aiming your gun with the paddle, and of course firing with the trigger. If you have a friend nearby, this is maybe one of the best games on the system, in my opinion.

Checkmate is a variant of Blockade (sort of similar to a multiplayer Snake game for the younger crowd) which also plays pretty dang well. It's also one of the few games I have that has AI so I could actually enjoy it for an extended period of time.

Calculator is...a calculator. Remember that back in the day systems like this were often marketed as home computers so having something like this built in makes sense. I'm not really sure how practical it might have been but this is the mid to late 70s we're talking about.