2002 California Extreme
September 7&8 2002

Updated Sept 11, 2002

I got there a little late Saturday and after 30 minutes of gaming there was an Atari discussion panel in which Owen Rubin, Mike Something (I think) Ed Logg and Al Alcorn gave wonderful stories of their days at Atari and field questions form the audiance. Look at Owen sort of looking right at me as is saying what the F*? They showed a video entitled "A day in the life of an Coin Op Prima Donna" from around circa 1981. Very funny stuff and worth the price of admission alone...

The first prototype games I saw were Atari Classics and Akka Arrh. Unfortunately Akka Arrh was not working the day I was there. Guess I'll have to go back next year! Thanks much to Scott Evans for bringing them. I was dying to play MC II and while it was cool, did not live up to my lofty expectations. I think it was the small Trak-Ball and big fire buttons which made it a bit awkward if your a big fan of the original like I am...

To the right of these prototypes, in a big circle, were every Laser game you would want to play with the exception of Dragons Layer II I think. The left pic has Badlands, Begas Battle, Cobra Command, Space Ace & Dragons Layer. While to the right had Thayers Quest, Cliffhanger & Don Quixote.

Badlands, Begas Battle and Cliffhanger shots...

Some rare or not-so-rare games I had never played before. Boulder Dash and Blaster.

This is my favorite picture and section of the show. The King, Missile Command Cockpit next to it's larger (distant) cousin, Environmental Discs of Tron!

Rarer than rare vectors, Demon and Sundance next to a desirable and not-so-rare (comparatively) Quantum...

The Taito Row containing Zookeeper, Space Dungeon (A lost Classic), Kram, Electric Yo-Yo& Qix. A Williams mini section with Make Trax, Robotron and Stargate, nice! Finally Solar Fox, Victory, Mr Do's Castle & Pong. I remembered Victory and wanted to like it but the movement of the ships was plain bad.. Oh well, plenty of other games to play and collect!

Late on Saturday )at least it seeemed late with the 3 hour time difference) a Teeter Torture by Exidy was wheeled in with a hand made marquee. The guy who brought it is said that is was found in a bar with other games and bought in a bulk buy. the funny thing is that when former Exidy were asked about it no one knew anything or acknowledge ever making it, even though it plainly had Exidy on the title screen. The game was actually pretty fun though a the cannon you move a bit phallic... :-) The jist of the game was that if you moved your cannon to one side of the teeter-totter you would push the plunger down on that side and ultimately blow yourself up. You could make it go back up slowly by going to the other side of the beam but in turn push that plunger down. The catch was that you had to also shoot the men coming down and if you missed one they would latch onto your board and cause it to weigh down on that side... I found myself playing multiple games and wishing I had one... :-) Oh yeah, next to Teeter Torture was Varkon and the Williams clan...

More of Varkon. It's a weird pinball game in which the playfield is reflected into a mirror and you play vertically. Notice the pen in place of the right joystick/flipper. It actually worked fine! :-)

This was a small portion of what was there as I think half of the fun was meeting up with people I had conversed with via email, newsgroups and even ebay (yes ebay) in the flesh. Great time and I recommend going on many levels even if it is almost 3000 miles away...  I really wish I took more pics... More next year I hope!

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