Magazine #14.4 2/02

Classic Gaming Expo 2K2
Part IV

New Releases

CGE 2002 had a ton of new releases! I've never seen as many re-discovered prototypes, unfinished projects and new excellent homebrew games for classic systems as during this show. In fact there was sort of a glut of new games, so much so that unlike previous years many new releases didn't sell out. Maybe it also had to do with the less than stellar economy but many sellers of new releases had plenty of stuff to take home - bummer! Of course plenty of these new releases are already showing up on Ebay at astronomical prices. Ah well, if you are looking for these new games and don't want to get ripped off on Ebay check with AtariAge, CGE Merchandising and ResQsoft - they'll probably have what you're looking for.

To avoid the endless lines and the long waits CGE initiated a new lottery system for the show releases. Following a release schedule interested enthusiasts could collect tickets (one per person) and from this pool the winners were drawn at posted times. Almost all new releases used this system but it turned out that many people weren't interested in the games thus making every ticket a winner.  For some games less than half of the winning tickets were claimed.

Marble Craze for the Atari 2600 by Paul Slocum - played with two paddles and very addictive!	Vectrex Vec Sports Boxing by Manu Pärssinen - nice graphics!	Colecovision Bejeweled by Daniel Bienvenu - great puzzle game.	Atari 5200 Super Pac-Man by ? and Haunted House II 3-D by John Swiderski - haven't played them yet.
Two Atari 2600 titles: Space Treat by Fabrizio Zavagli and Berzerk with voice by Mike Mika.	More Atari 2600: Vault Assault by Brian Prescott and Polo, originally by Carol Shaw.	Atari 2600 Thrust by Thomas Jentzsch is absolutely great! Castleblast by Tonen Habot is similar to the last level on Phoenix.	Marc Oberhauser released two Atari 2600 protos: RealSports Basketball and Disney's Snow White.
CGE Corp. released (among others) Pick Up (with a great cover by Scott Ross, my favorite videogame-related artist) and Save The Whales.	Also for the Atari 2600: Crack'ed, released by CGE Corp. Atari2600.com released Holey Moley with a nice overlay.	ResQsoft released KLAX for the Atari 7800, the best KLAX version after the LYNX. Even includes a nice interview with the original programmer by John Harvey!	Las Vegas Audio Taping services made this nice tapeset of all the Keynotes, they sell it for $50, definitely a buy (tell them where you saw it).
The latest edition of the Digital Press guide - this thing is getting bigger and better all the time!	More good things by ResQsoft: NTSC(!!!) Sentinel for the Atari 7800, NWCGE Invaders and X3V0LuX for the Atari 2600.	VeCaves (with an amazing home-made overlay) and Spike's Spree - two Vectrex games by Mark De Smet.	Vectrex Cube Quest by Paul Allen Newell, released by CGE Corp.
Great Intellivision music CD by Retrotopia!	Carl Forhan's CGE anniversary Jaguar CD, some of my pics from previous shows are on there!	Bruce & Cathy (B & C Computers) released the Caves Of Fear Jaguar CD demo - very nice!

Other games included Mental Kombat for the Atari 2600 and Songbird Production's CGE 5 year anniversary releases for the Jaguar (CD) and LYNX (cart) containing many pictures from recent CGE shows (including some from this website!!!). ResQsoft sold a set of Berenstain Bears CDs, AtariAge had some nice and inexpensive protective covers for cartridges for the serious collector, the Videogame Bible was for sale, Raina Lee sold her fan-zine (more on that later) and various enthusiasts sold many products related to classic gaming.

Continue with Part V

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