RickR

Here's the NSG review of Moon Patrol...it has a few helpful tips.  And he also mentions a little trouble with the difficulty switches!
 
 

35,200. Got all the way to the beginning of the second course.

 

Absolutely Rick! Video games were new and it was a learning curve for everyone.
I think the difference is, with Atari, they were the clear industry leader, and by 1983 they were filled with people who knew better. The "Blue Sky Rangers" the team at Intellivision, the team at Coleco, and the third party developers, these were all fairly small houses at the time, almost boutique developers compared to Warner's Atari, Inc. Atari's mistake was compounded ten fold on the industry. It hurts the industry when Mattel mucks up the first computer add-on, it hurts when Coleco does something similar with ADAM, but one mistake after the next from Atari compounded into them being frozen up, and Atari's absence from the video game market mid 1984-1986 was a catastrophic failure resulting in the power vacuum in the industry which Nintendo was happy to step in and fill, while all the "experts" proclaimed video games a dead fad.

Awesome points, @Justin.  What's so dang interesting is how all of the other players goofed it up too.  Mattel got hosed by that bad court decision on the computer add-on for Intellivision.  A daily penalty took their focus off what they did best.  And why spend any time and effort on the Intellivision 2 without improving your one weakness (the controller)? 

And Coleco had the very best machine out at the time, and they spent their wad on the failed Adam computer.  D'OH!  What could have been if they'd have just focused on the ColecoVision as a game console. 
 

Oh good, it's not just me!  This game is HARD!  But really fun and well-done.  It's kind of amazing what the 2600 was capable of with the right developers and resources!  No flicker, great graphics, and fast gameplay.  Incredible!

I will keep trying.  This seems like one of those games where the pattern is pretty much the same every time with just a little randomization from the sky enemies.  I'm getting really good at getting through the first and second levels after playing through them 100 times. 
 

Awesome points, @Justin.  What's so dang interesting is how all of the other players goofed it up too.  Mattel got hosed by that bad court decision on the computer add-on for Intellivision.  A daily penalty took their focus off what they did best.  And why spend any time and effort on the Intellivision 2 without improving your one weakness (the controller)? 

And Coleco had the very best machine out at the time, and they spent their wad on the failed Adam computer.  D'OH!  What could have been if they'd have just focused on the ColecoVision as a game console. 
 

Oh good, it's not just me!  This game is HARD!  But really fun and well-done.  It's kind of amazing what the 2600 was capable of with the right developers and resources!  No flicker, great graphics, and fast gameplay.  Incredible!

I will keep trying.  This seems like one of those games where the pattern is pretty much the same every time with just a little randomization from the sky enemies.  I'm getting really good at getting through the first and second levels after playing through them 100 times. 
 

Not just games, decisions. Atari potentially could've survived 1983 had games like Pitfall, River Raid, Cosmic Ark, Atlantis, etc. been Atari releases. Once the cat was out of the bag that anybody could release their own unlicensed games for the 2600, it resulted in 1.) only 2 of the top 10 selling 2600 games around that time being actual Atari releases (massive lost revenue), 2.) Atari lost their best in-house game design talent to new groups like Activision and Imagic, 3.) the glut of shovelware that resulted from this contributed greatly to the collapse of the video game industry, and 4.) Atari continued making weird, thoughtless choices about their games and products. The handling of the 5200 was a mess, the Nintendo relationship was lost due to incompetence, and for all the talk of Atari's 2600 games group having smoke outs, pizza parties and fun nights in the spa, it was a group of MIT dropouts on the other coast at GCC that were sending Atari their highest quality releases in 1983 and 1984, and delivered the 7800 to Atari's doorstep without a lot of those guys really knowing much about it.
Not just games, poor decisions that helped to kill the company.

Oh good, it's not just me!  This game is HARD!  But really fun and well-done.  It's kind of amazing what the 2600 was capable of with the right developers and resources!  No flicker, great graphics, and fast gameplay.  Incredible!

I will keep trying.  This seems like one of those games where the pattern is pretty much the same every time with just a little randomization from the sky enemies.  I'm getting really good at getting through the first and second levels after playing through them 100 times. 
 

We have such a section?  Put in a few 5200 games, too, like JR Pac-Man, Sinistar, Super Pac-Man...all completed games that are absolutely a BLAST to play on the 5200...never released.  Yea...someone had one job to do and they pooched it.  And Sinistar was a much needed title on the 5200.  It would have been a killer app on that system.  The dang thing TALKS!
Squabbling = no.  Cursing at the screen like a sailor?  Definitely.  I know I've jumped over that one ditch but, no, game says I crashed in it.  That rock...NO NOT THAT ONE!  The other one!  Boom...right in to it.  I have more trouble with the environment than the enemies flying around.  Geez.  I'm never complaining about my 5200 Moon Patrol ever again.  I like this one but, dang it all, it's whipping my butt LOL.

28,460.  A slight improvement. 

I'm going to go all the way back and say 2600 Space Invaders.  It was so cool to realize you could finally have some real arcade games at home!  Revolution, baby! 
I really think those early Atari arcade ports were all cool for the same reason.  Asteroids, Missile Command, for example.  But not Pac-Man.  That one had the opposite effect.  Not cool!  Time to upgrade to a system with more power! 
 
 

I'm going to put this in the "WTF Was Atari Thinking in 1983?!" category. The manual discrepancy alone is confusing and should've been caught before it went out.
You guys are doing well, let's keep playing! Thank you everyone for being honest and open about your experiences with your scores, having an honest group of friends in here makes it much easier to do these Squad Challenges. All fun, no squabbling. 

I tell you, I've tried that A/B switch both ways, and I canna tell no difference.  I put it on A. 
 

13100

There are tons to choose from.  One that comes to mind is Stargate/Defender II.  Not only does it look a lot like the arcade game, you have to use two joysticks to play to emulate the arcade controls. 
Pitfall II is another one that comes to mind.

I tried it on my JR unit and it seems to be the same no matter which way I flip the switch.  And, yes, my diff switches work perfectly.  I even tried it on my 4-switch and same thing...no difference between A and B.  I wonder if it is the carts themselves?  Maybe there were "improvements" attempted?

Well...slight improvement.
 

8300 live on IG
Retron77 with ranger controller. After read8ng all these posts about A vs B, left or right, I have no idea if this score is even salad now. How the he'll is this so difficult? Lol

I found one box with a price tag on it.  This price tag doesn't say anything but the price but I remember exactly where the store was located where I got the game.  This was a small local store that sold computer stuff.  For some odd reason, they had a stock of Atari games.  So I got Venture there all those years ago.  They sold the games cheaper than in other stores despite being a small store (I have to wonder if they just wanted to get rid of the stock). 
 

OMG Woolworths!  That brings some memories!

Children's Palace was in Minnesota for a long time. They were in Maplewood Mall in Saint Paul, MN, for a few years. Then, they went belly up. They had a great Atari selection.

Okey Dokey.  I'm playing on a 2600jr, and I'm pretty sure A is "left" and B is "right". 
Thanks everyone. 

Okey Dokey.  I'm playing on a 2600jr, and I'm pretty sure A is "left" and B is "right". 
Thanks everyone. 

Can we talk real quick about this?  For me, the left difficulty switch is reversed from the manual.  A = music on, B = music off (mercifully, I choose option B).  Does this imply the right switch is reversed from the manual as well?  I tried it both ways, and I'm not sure I understand what the difference is.  In both cases, pushing left slows the tank down, and right speeds it up.  What am I missing?