HDN

I love the sport of Miniature Golf. Well, is it even a sport? Golf is, so Mini Golf is, there. The brightly-colored balls, the sound of the artificial water streams, oldies playing quietly on speakers mounted proudly on tall wooden posts... Each course is filled to the brim with its own personality. I've gone to many places to play and I find the smaller ones to be the best. If a place typically has more than one thing in it besides mini golf (like batting cages or go-karts), I find it to have less character and appeal. Not to say they aren't fun. I just find the fancier places like those to be a bit too fancy for their own good. I like the middling to small places. There's this ice cream place near us called The Chubby Seagull that also has a small mini golf course. It was pretty run down, but a few years ago they renovated the building, and last year I believe they started renovating the golf course. I haven't played on it since it was new, but I had fun on that crappy old run-down place. It still isn't fancy or anything, just a bit tidied up. For three bucks it was pretty fun. I haven't seen the new course since construction; I wonder if they have made any progress on it during COVID-19. Other places I have enjoyed were The Red Putter in Door County (which was also quite reasonable, especially for Door County) and there was another place near Blue Harbor in Sheboygan (name escapes me at the moment). So for my inaugural blog, I have decided to review one of my favorite Atari 2600 games, Miniature Golf. The game released on the Atari Video Computer System (later renamed the 2600 to differentiate it from the Atari 5200 SuperSystem) in 1978 and was programmed by Tom Reuterdahl. It was supposedly based off of an unreleased Atari arcade game, "Mini-Golf". From what I can tell, you control the power and direction of the ball itself rather than controlling a sentient square and pressing the button to bash into the square and send it flying off at whatever angle you hit it at. I couldn't find much out about the arcade game, nor did I play it for this review. What I could tell about the game is that there are 18 holes in the game and one credit will let you play nine of them, front or back I assume. The holes themselves have much more detail than the 2600 version, with inclines, declines, bunkers, and other background details not present in the home port. One advantage the home version has over the unreleased arcade cabinet is that it is presented in color. Black and White monitors were prevalent in games of the era, and in many cases had colored overlays that added color and sometimes even added graphical elements not programmed into the games, such as the pipes in Atari's Stunt Cycle. These overlays are reminiscent of the ones used on the Magnavox Odyssey. It is unknown if Mini Golf was planned to include an overlay on the arcade cabinet. Though the game's graphics are monochrome, the game graphics themselves are much more detailed than the home port. The Atari 2600 home version (which will be our main focus for today) isn't terribly realistic, but that was par for the course (pardon the pun) for early Atari sports games. The physics of the nine holes of Miniature Golf (or Arcade Golf for you Sears shoppers) are much more akin to Billiards and Pool than Putt-Putt. The box art (shown below for Atari and Sears varients) looks nice, but is riddled with problems and inconsistencies. For instance, on the Atari version, you can clearly see that one of the holes is marked 18, though there are only nine in the game. Perhaps a remnant from the cancelled arcade game. The hole layouts do little to match their in-game counterparts; just look at hole nine on the Atari box, though hole eight on the Sears box is arguably comparable to the corresponding hole in the game. Overall, I like the packaging and box art. The cartridge only appears to have a single text-label variant for both the Sears and Atari versions. Sadly, this hidden gem appears to have been discontinued sometime around 1981 as it stopped appearing in the Atari catalogs. Miniature Golf has only two game variations: single player or two players. The difficulty switches affect how far the ball will go when hit; in the A position there is much less friction on the ball, making it go farther but also being much harder to get it to stop exactly where you want it to. The object of the game is the same as typical Golf and Miniature Golf: complete the course in as little strokes (or in this case hits of the small square with the bigger square) as possible. Each of the nine holes in this game is assigned a par. The par, for the unfamiliar, is a target for the hole. You want to stay under it or match it. Since this game does not subtract strokes from your total if you get below par or add them if you go above, it is merely superfluous. All the game does is just track your total number of strokes for the course. At the beginning of each hole, the first player score (blue) will be replaced by the hole number, and the second player score (red) will show the par for the hole. Once the ball is hit for the first time on a hole, the par and hole number will revert back to each player's respective stroke count. The multiplayer mode is also much different compared to typical golf; instead of the player farthest from the hole having the next turn, each player plays the entire hole before the next player goes in a two-player match. This, in a way, gives the second player an unfair advantage as if the first player does well at a hole, they can try to mimic that to stay on their tails. I haven't found it to be a big deal though and it hasn't seemed to affect any of my multiplayer matches. I am typically the first player, and I typically win the game as well! Whoever took this first screenshot I found on Google Image Search is doing horribly! That's only the second hole and he or she already has a whole 20 strokes! Now, whoever took this second picture of their 12-inch Hitachi TV after the ninth hole was a real master! 29 on the whole course--that's a great score! I wonder if anyone can beat it on the scoreboards... Control-wise the game is a bit strange. At first I was confused; I kept smacking the ball at only a short distance. I soon found out that you really need to pull WAY back before you hit the ball to send it flying off at a reasonable speed. Sometimes there won't be enough room on the screen to move back, so you will need to ricochet the ball around! All of the walls function like giant pinball bumpers as they bounce the ball about, especially when the difficulty switch is in the A position. The big square cursor you control to hit the ball sometimes randomly slows down when you are moving it, and it can't move diagonally, but those are just nitpicks. It's not a very fast-paced game so it doesn't affect gameplay much, though it does make aiming a little bit harder. This game would really benefit from true trakball controls. You may have noticed another slightly-larger square on each hole. The square is shown as red for the first player and blue for the second. That is supposed to be--get this--a windmill! Get your laughter out now, everyone! Hardy har har, Atari 2600 graphics suck. Though that is why I said hole eight on the Sears Arcade Golf box is fairly accurate. This "windmill" can either help you our or harm you. For instance, if you get the ball just above the hole in hole eight, the windmill will gladly knock the ball in for you or it will knock it way out of the way. The windmill moves back and forth in eight out of the nine holes, the eighth hole being an exception; it moves down the screen, disappears for a few seconds, and then reappears at the top of the screen. The hole design is, as expected for a 1978 release, incredibly basic. Like many early 2600 games, all of the background elements (in this case the walls of the hole) are completely symmetrical. This is less apparent in the 2006 fan made sequel, Miniature Golf Plus, where the background elements appear in a higher resolution. You can currently buy a physical cartridge of this hack on Atari Age, which I plan on doing sometime! Overall, I feel that Miniature Golf is a must-own game for your VCS. Though it looks like it might be an Adventure or Video Olympics spinoff, this game will not disappoint. The game offers a lot of strategy and is not very easy to master. Unless you are me! The game physics are very nuanced and reliable if you know what you are doing. If you have a friend over and you want to play Atari together, Miniature or Arcade Golf is a great game to pull out and play a few rounds of. Games go quickly and the game is very replayable as you learn new ways to improve your score. As soon as you finish the ninth hole, you'll want to push down that reset switch as soon as possible and play another round! This game is my favorite sports game on the system, hands down, and is leaps and bounds superior to the regular Golf game that appeared on the VCS two years later. It's a darn shame this game was only on the market for a few years and is not very well known today. If you don't have it in your collection, expect to pay around $5.00 for it. That's what I paid for it. Atari Age gives both Miniature Golf and Arcade Golf a rarity of 3 out of 10, making it a little less common than some other Atari 2600 games. It's not very sought after, so you should be able to pick it up for cheap. The physical cartridge of the sequel Miniature Golf Plus will cost you $25.00. Miniature Golf is an easy top-ten game on the system. I highly recommend playing it.

It's weird having to play this game again "normally". Typically I will just use all of the advanced moves to exploit the game and play "out of order". One of the great things about Super Metroid is that the developers let you get away with exploiting the game and don't try to limit your exploration. That's why they put in those advanced overpowered moves. They even put in a few "traps" to force you to get good at the advanced moves or you get stuck infidelity. There's one of these if you Power Bomb the bottom of the initial green plant room in Brinstar that forces you to wall jump if you save in the pit. Another thing, my save battery seems to be on the way out. All of my save data from the past has been deleted. When I started my new file yesterday, it saved OK, but I feel that one of these days it's not going to save at all. My local game store can replace save batteries for only a couple bucks, so I'm not that worried. They replaced the battery in Wario Land 3 when they got it traded in. I was on the list for that one. Superb platformer on the Game Boy Color, but drastically different from your typical Super Mario game. Ironically, it has some Metroidvania elements in it as well-- this genre must be a real battery hog!

I'm not interested in gambling, either. I've told this story before, but when I was about 11 or 12 I blew all of my money on Pokemon card packs. All I had were the common cards. I don't know how much I spent, but it was enough. Since then I have only bought things where I know what I am getting. A pack of Pokemon cards can get you a fun 2600, 7800, Game Boy, GB Color, GB Advance, etc. You can get a lot more bang for your buck with those. Super Monkey Ball Jr. was way more fun than any Pokemon cards I ever bought and the same price as a pack of ten random cards. I think her "gambling" thing comes from all of those stories you hear about EA Sports games and their lootboxes.

HAH! I don't even have the money to buy the 2600 game at full price! Much less the arcade cabinet! But you are right. If I ever decide I want to play the arcade version with a trakball, I will totally get the arcade cabinet!

Yes, it doesn't tell you the controls. the controls are listed on my guide topic. I edited it!

Ha ha! You have been corrupted by me! Now you will buy ALL of the Super NES games! Mwa ha ha! These all look like great games. I haven't played DKC2 and DKC3, Gaia, Actraiser 1 & 2, and Zombies ate my Neighbors. The others, on the other hand, I have played. All are exceptional games. And you know what is coming... PLAY SUPER METROID RIGHT NOW!!! DO IT!!! NOW!!! DON'T DO ANYTHING EXCEPT PLAY SUPER METROID!!! DO IT! DO IT! DON'T BE LIKE @RickR AND TUNNEL RUNNER AND WAIT 4,000 YEARS! TURN ON THE SNES AND PLAY IT NOOOOOOOW!!!!!!

I have seen some comments talking about the 7800 selection at the store. When I go later this week to get my last game (whatever that may be), I will bring my higher-quality camera and take some pictures for you all.

I took a day trip up there this summer. Stayed safe, of course, and didn't go inside anyplace. Let's say people didn't follow the advice. It is HORRIBLE! Might be the most unsafe place during the virus. People were packed into restaurants and shops. I do love me some Door County. Great place. Don't go up in the summer as it is PACKED all of the time. In May, most of the businesses are open but there aren't near as many people there. We always go up in May and stay in a condo. Fun fact: The Rushes in Door County is where I played my first video game, Vs. Super Mario Brothers! Sadly they no longer have an arcade up there. I'm interested. @dauber, where did you stay? If you ever go back, see if you can't get into the High Point Inn in Ephraim! There is a Crystal Castles cab there; see if you can't beat my high score if it's still standing! HDN, of course. They also have Ms. Pac-Man, Klax and 1943 cabinets there. And the Newport Resort in Egg Harbor has Mechanized Attack and Sega Tetris cab that'll give you two credits for only one quarter! Door County is beautiful and 1000% recommended by your pal HDN. Edit: Ironically, when @dauber originally posted this, I was in Door County!

Can't wait for your comparison @RickR. I have caught the Dig Dug Bug these past few days playing the 2600 version on an online emulator.

Hands off! Desert Falcon is MINE! ALL MINE!!!!!! I'm just messing with you. Desert Falcon is one I would like to get someday as well. I enjoy the 2600 version a bit, but I feel it would be much, much better on the 7800. I am also thinking of getting Centipede someday. I don't have the 2600 version, and it's the same price ($10), so why not? I enjoy the 2600 version of Centipede, but I like being able to see how damaged the mushrooms are. Both are excellent versions of the game from what I can tell. Most games there are $10, but Xevious is $5 for some reason. I could get that with my discount if I wasn't already getting it. Ms. Pac-Man is only $5 on the 2600 but $10 on the 7800. I am holding off on 2600 Ms. Pac-Man because I don't really have any good and accurate conversions of Ms. Pac-Man in my collection. I have it on Namco Museum 64, but the controller is terrible for the game. 2600 version emulated is good but not accurate. Both versions on NES are garbage. I was not expecting a hockey game, but I think we have talked about this before. I don't like extremely realistic sports games very much. And I don't expect a lot of depth.

When I have the funds, I will eat those 7800 games right up! No one wants them apparently, but I do! I wonder why there are so many here but not everywhere else. Must be a Wisconsin thing; most forgotten state, forgotten and failed system. Most of those games are ten dollars. I am excited to get them someday. I'm 99% sure they aren't going anywhere! That store has gone through a lot of 7800s. I have seen at least three there: one CIB, one loose, and one in my house! I had a blast with that system before my mom took it away and I am super hyped for Xevious, Galaga, and Food Fight. And maybe Hat Trick, who knows? I watched that video again today and saw those boxed Channel F games next to the boxed Odyssey 2 games. It got me in a Channel F mood. I would really like that system someday, and I think it is cool that a member here, @Willie!, grew up with the thing! I saw some cool games in my internet travels. If I ever get the system, I would totally get Robot Wars and Dodge It. They look so cool and fun and there is nothing like them on Atari! I think the second generation of video games is fascinating. I love hearing stories of people who grew up with the really obscure systems. My dad, for instance, had an Odyssey 2 in the house. Pretty cool! I really wish he kept it, but at least he kept all of his other consoles.

Hi, my name is Harry, and I am a self-proclaimed Super Metroid enthusiast. I am of the opinion that this is the single greatest video game of all time. I know that some of you( @socrates63 and @RickR) are considering playing this awesome video game sometime soon. Super Metroid, as an open Metroidvania style game, can be confusing at times, especially for those of you who are very used to the simplicity of games from the second and third generations. So, I am here to help. Tomorrow I am going to start re-playing Super Metroid on my SNES to get a fresh taste of the game to better aid new players. If you have questions about the game or are stuck, please post about it here. Old Harry can help you out! If anyone needs help enjoying the game, please post here. I don't expect any new posts until you all start playing the game. Anyone not named @RickR or @socrates63, feel free to play this AWESOME game, and if you need help, post it here! I will try to answer your Super Metroid questions as soon as possible if my daily posting limit allows. I would like for this forum to be mostly questions from players on how to get past certain areas, but you can post about your opinions on the game if you so wish. Please keep conversation on the topic of Super Metroid! I love to talk about other things too, but I would like to keep this topic mostly focused on the game and I would like to try to help others at the game. If you have never heard of Super Metroid or don't know much about it, I will gladly fill you in now! Super Metroid is a platforming game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and was released in March 1994. It is the third installment of the science fiction Metroid series. I say sidescrolling platformer, but it isn't what you are thinking of. Unlike Mario, Super Metroid is not divided into strict levels with end goals. There are several areas in the game and the vast majority of them have a boss to fight at the end. Super Metroid involves lots of puzzle solving involving certain items you pick up along the way. You will run into impassable obstacles in the game and have to backtrack or take a detour, only to find an item that can help you pass the obstacle! The beauty of all of the 2D Metroid games are all of those little "Aha!" moments. In Super Metroid, you can save whenever you want at specific save rooms. There are also health and missile recharge rooms and rooms where you can fill out your map, but in later areas there are lots of blank spots you must fill in yourself. Areas on the map you have already traveled to are marked pink while untraveled places are left blue. Little dots on the map can indicate special items, though plenty are hidden! What are the controls for Super Metroid? Super Metroid, as previously stated, is a platformer, so the controls to an extent are self explanatory. However, I will fill you in on the basic controls now without going into any special moves: D*Pad-Move Samus A-Jump B-Run (Use the X-Ray Scope item once you get it) X-Shoot Y-Cancel selected item Start-Pause (Bring up map and status) Select-Select some non auto equipped items (missiles, power bombs, x ray scope, grappling beam, etc.) L-Aim diagonal down R-Aim diagonal up Special items? Yes. Super Metroid has loads of special items you need in order to complete the game. All serve a special purpose and the game will subtly teach you what they do once you get them and also tell you how to control them. If you like The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario, you will love Super Metroid. Some players feel a bit intimidated by this masterpiece, but there is no need to fear when you have a Harry here on the forums who would love to help you out! I love this game. It is my favorite game. I could gush about how I love this game for hours and hours on end. But the best way to show my love of this 1994 Super Nintendo gem is to help others love it too! Please let me help you out if you are stuck and need a walkthrough or just have questions about this amazing title! The HDN Power Line is 100% Toll-Free! Just type a question on Super Metroid and I will answer! It is crazy how some of you have never played Super Metroid! Tunnel Runner is understandable as it is pretty obscure, but Super Metroid is a pioneer and groundbreaking game that somehow manages to be the defining game of its genre more than a quarter of a century later! That is CRAZY! This game has held up remarkably and I hope you will give it a go! Have a nice night, nice tomorrow, nice everything! You will love this game if you give it a try! It has been rereleased on Virtual Console for Wii, Wii U, New 3DS, and it is even on the Switch Online service. Play this game and ask questions if you need guidance! You won't regret it, I promise! Oh yeah, make sure to put @HDN at the beginning of your post so I will get a notification if someone needs help!

First off, I have an intellivision flashback and it's really fun. The controllers are quite nice and I really like Snafu and Shark Shark on it, so if you get an intellivision get those games! Genesises are very cheap at my local game store; only about $35. Probably a decent investment. Now, obviously skipping gens 3 and 4 aren't ACTUALLY sad, but you might want to check them out as you will have some fun with them.

Yes. Especially in your area going outside and NOT playing video games must be amazing. I have spent a lot of time outside recently. It is nice enjoying the last of the nice weather. Must be nice with the smoke gone. Video games can be fun if accompanied by other things. Balance is nice.