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My
Atari Moments
by Ryan Edwards
Having had a
love affair with Atari ever since my parents
bought me my first 800XL (including the hypnotic
Lode Runner) my Atari obsession has led me on
some memorable excursions. Here are a couple...
Santa's Grotto
- alias Silica Shop - Sidcup, Kent
Even
back in Atari's second wind during the eighties,
plentiful sources of Atari related goodies were
still hard to find. I could ride against the
common knowledge that the 800XL didn't have
many games (you have how many cassettes?!) due
to my annual trip down to Silica. This was years
before they appeared in every Debenhams across
the land and folded due to over-zealous expansion.
Inside would be an Aladdin's Cave of pretty
much every Atari game on every format that was
available, once left my father's wallet would
be considerably lighter and I would be clutching
two enormous sacks of Atari cassettes.
Gauntlet Legends
& Dark Legacy - New York Amusements, Southend
One
of my favourite games has always been the Gauntlet
series, characterized by the frantic four-player
dungeon antics and the booming voice of the
commentator, from the original arcade version
(Blue Wizard shot the food!) to the fabulous
conversion of Gauntlet II for the Atari ST (Red
Warrior is it!). Many years passed after
these two epics, so you can imagine my amazement
to discover the four-player arcade cabinet of
Gauntlet Legends, this time in astounding 3D.
Legends had been released at a rather dark time
for Atarian gaming fans as around 1998 the Jag
scene was quiet and this was long before Nuon
was released to a lucky few. So immediately
I took the challenge on.
When I was younger
my ambition to play an arcade game through to
completion was largely unfulfilled due to
a lack of money, but since I was working, this
was no longer a problem. Many an evening after
work I would appear in this arcade and quickly
got to know all the staff as the machine ate
my 50p pieces, however, seeing as the game recorded
your progress and your player got progressively
stronger it kept you on your quest.
Eventually I
reached the climactic boss who once slayed,
to a round of applause, enabled me to send off
to Atari Games (now owned by Midway Games who
dropped the Atari name by the time of Legends'
sequel, Dark Legacy) for an exclusive Gauntlet
Legends T-shirt by way of a unique code on the
final screen. During my time on the machine
I clocked up well over 24 hours play time, standing
too!
![[Photo: Ryan in his "I Crushed Garm" T-shirt]](images/ryangarm.jpg)
Drunk from my
victory, I simply had to conquer the sequel
Gauntlet: Dark Legacy with the addition of new
levels and characters. Once conquered I
received another exclusive T-shirt ("I
crushed Garm") and the arcade owners rewarded
by infatuation with some huge A2 promotional
Gauntlet posters!
Somewhere out
there, to this day is a version of this game
with the high score table dominated by the letters
RYA...
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