93 replies to this topic

[Spector]

Nukey Shay, on Sat Jun 27, 2009 11:54 PM, said:

Topic:
None, I think. The Colecovision doesn't need a fan.

Yeah but the power supply sure does- I could cook my dinner on the top part. It's big enough too.

[rmaerz]

yurkie, on Thu Jun 25, 2009 4:12 PM, said:

roadrunner, on Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:11 PM, said:

I'm a Colecovision fan. Some games i really like are -
H.E.R.O.
Galaxian
Smurf-Rescue In Gargamel's Castle
Tapper

My favorites are:

Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Q*bert
Frenzy
Spy Hunter
Pac-man Prototype atarisoft (play this on my 128-1 Multi-Cart)
Galaxian
Frogger
Mr. Do
Mr. Do's Castle
Burgertime
Cosmic Avenger
Oil's Well
Kevtris

I would recommend getting the 128-1 Multi-cart from Atarisoft. It is buggy once in awhile, but there are some awesome roms out there that you can play. I also believe in buying the games I like, but some aren't available and this is a good temporary solution.

And looking forward to getting my first homebrew cart... Zippy Race.

My two biggest faves, the ones I play the most are Mouse Trap and Pepper II

Also the ones I play frequently:
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Pac-man & Ms. Pac-man (Opcode)
Galaxian (this and the 2600 Galaxian Arcade are better than the 5200 version)
Defender (I prefer this and even the 2600 Defender Arcade hack over the 5200 version)
Carnival (arcade perfect!)
Omega Race (the two player mode is really fun - my son laughs hysterically playing this one!)
Lady Bug (man this game is intense!)
Space Fury (could have been better but still a fun game)
Venture
Tapper

I'm looking forward to procuring the home brews Astro Invader and Space Invaders with the latter being really tough to come by. Although Astro Invader got a C- grade by videogamecritic.net, I love the crisp graphics of the old arcade games (like Carnival and Mouse Trap) that have been ported to the home console.

[coleconut]

Fan? Dunno, you tell me.
I own about 25 Colecovisions and about a dozen ADAMs.
I am not sure why I need so many....its about buying every one I see. They are in every room in the house.
I cant walk by one without.....
All started at Chrismas 1984. I wonder how my life would have evolved had I got a Leisurevision instead.

I'm gonna have my name legally changed.

My wife is worried about me. She likes our real names.

[Yurkie]

coleconut, on Wed Jul 8, 2009 2:59 PM, said:

Fan? Dunno, you tell me.
I own about 25 Colecovisions and about a dozen ADAMs.
I am not sure why I need so many....its about buying every one I see. They are in every room in the house.
I cant walk by one without.....
All started at Chrismas 1984. I wonder how my life would have evolved had I got a Leisurevision instead.

I'm gonna have my name legally changed.

My wife is worried about me. She likes our real names.

LOL.... that's cool. I have 4 and they are all working, 6 working power supplies,about 15 controllers, 3 super action controllers, a roller controller, about 20 or so games and the 128-1 multi-cart to figure out which ones I wanna buy next. I am waiting my copy of Zippy Race. And getting a copy of Fireman also.

My GF and I play it all the time. I hold the World Record on Twin Galaxies for Q*bert skill #3 and have beat the record score for Donkey Kong Jr. and Donkey Kong. I just need to sit down and tape them one of these days. I am also proud of my GF, she got 95,080 on Mr. Do's Castle a few days ago. This beats the record of 89,520.

Thanks Coleconut for making me feel better about being crazy about Colecovision. What's the new name gonna be first name IMA last name Coleconut?

[CARTRIDGE STEALER]

coleconut, on Wed Jul 8, 2009 1:59 PM, said:

Fan? Dunno, you tell me.
I own about 25 Colecovisions and about a dozen ADAMs.
I am not sure why I need so many....its about buying every one I see. They are in every room in the house.
I cant walk by one without.....
All started at Chrismas 1984. I wonder how my life would have evolved had I got a Leisurevision instead.

I'm gonna have my name legally changed.

My wife is worried about me. She likes our real names.

so, you either have 25 rooms in your house or you have 3 to 4 colecos in each room. this is going to sound strange but why would you have that many in one room, in every room of your house?

I owned up to about 7 but sold 5 off on ebay and have only 2 in the box left.

[Murph74]

What's all this talk about some Kuh-lek-o-vi-shun?

I don't get it.

[rga321]

Love the Colecovision and OPCODE games!

[Spector]

rga321, on Sat Jul 11, 2009 9:07 PM, said:

Love the Colecovision and OPCODE games!

Once I get my hands on one (namely Pacman Collection), I'm gonna love them too!

[fiddlepaddle]

yurkie, on Sun Jun 21, 2009 11:32 AM, said:

I was wondering how many fans are out there?

I was curious, so I decided to conduct a scientific survey. While standing in line at the dollar store to pay for my toothpaste, window cleaner, and candy bar, I asked everyone (within earshot) if they were a Colecovision fan. Surprisingly, three people indicated they used to have one. One woman said her kids (6 and 10, both girls) still play it.

Extrapolate those results to hundreds of dollar stores around the country and I expect there would be thousands of fans, at least. Then if you add in fashion stores, auto-supply stores, fast-food restaurants, and haircut places, you could be in the hundreds of thousands. Also, considering that each Colecovision made most likely was enjoyed by more than one person (on average), there are probably millions of fans (at least until most of the people who owned them back in the day start dying off).

[user42]

fiddlepaddle, on Fri Jul 17, 2009 11:23 PM, said:

yurkie, on Sun Jun 21, 2009 11:32 AM, said:

I was wondering how many fans are out there?

I was curious, so I decided to conduct a scientific survey. While standing in line at the dollar store to pay for my toothpaste, window cleaner, and candy bar, I asked everyone (within earshot) if they were a Colecovision fan. Surprisingly, three people indicated they used to have one. One woman said her kids (6 and 10, both girls) still play it.

Extrapolate those results to hundreds of dollar stores around the country and I expect there would be thousands of fans, at least. Then if you add in fashion stores, auto-supply stores, fast-food restaurants, and haircut places, you could be in the hundreds of thousands. Also, considering that each Colecovision made most likely was enjoyed by more than one person (on average), there are probably millions of fans (at least until most of the people who owned them back in the day start dying off).

Your scientific reasoning is sound. Victory is yours.



EDIT: To stay on topic, I never owned a CV and never played the games until I started a CV Gamebase a few months ago. I may be new to the CV but I am now hooked. I joined the CV High score club here and I apparently just beat the Twin Galaxies High Score for Slurpy by quite a bit (but I wasn't recording the game play, also it was on an emulator, does Twin Galaxies require real hardware?).

Edited by user42, Fri Jul 17, 2009 11:06 PM.

[WatchVenusSpa]

ColecoVision will always be my all time favorite video game console system. I would go as far as to say I don't believe I ever played a bad game for CV and I don't think I can say that about any system before or since. My favorite games are as follows:

Venture
Frenzy
Star Wars: The Arcade Game (all that was missing was Obi Wan and Han's voices from the real arcade game.)
DK
DK Jr
Popeye
War Games (Talk about taking Missle Command to the next level.)
GORF (Possibly my favorite classic game ever.)
Burger Time
Slither

My favorite Adam game was Donkey Kong as it was IMO the greatest port from the arcade version yet made.

[rmaerz]

WatchVenusSpa, on Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:06 AM, said:

ColecoVision will always be my all time favorite video game console system. I would go as far as to say I don't believe I ever played a bad game for CV and I don't think I can say that about any system before or since. My favorite games are as follows:

Venture
Frenzy
Star Wars: The Arcade Game (all that was missing was Obi Wan and Han's voices from the real arcade game.)
DK
DK Jr
Popeye
War Games (Talk about taking Missle Command to the next level.)
GORF (Possibly my favorite classic game ever.)
Burger Time
Slither

My favorite Adam game was Donkey Kong as it was IMO the greatest port from the arcade version yet made.

Those are all good titles. What's missing are Mouse Trap and Pepper II.

It's rare that arcade ports are better than the original, but I would say that the ColecoVision versions of Mouse Trap and Venture are ones that I prefer over the original.

Also, I believe the C64 version of Donkey Kong is the best but I don't recall if it has all the screens are not. The 7800 version of Donkey Kong is just ridiculous with the audio effects and is a rare case where the audio takes away from the overall game experience.

[WatchVenusSpa]

rmaerz, on Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:02 AM, said:

WatchVenusSpa, on Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:06 AM, said:

ColecoVision will always be my all time favorite video game console system. I would go as far as to say I don't believe I ever played a bad game for CV and I don't think I can say that about any system before or since. My favorite games are as follows:

Venture
Frenzy
Star Wars: The Arcade Game (all that was missing was Obi Wan and Han's voices from the real arcade game.)
DK
DK Jr
Popeye
War Games (Talk about taking Missle Command to the next level.)
GORF (Possibly my favorite classic game ever.)
Burger Time
Slither

My favorite Adam game was Donkey Kong as it was IMO the greatest port from the arcade version yet made.

Those are all good titles. What's missing are Mouse Trap and Pepper II.

It's rare that arcade ports are better than the original, but I would say that the ColecoVision versions of Mouse Trap and Venture are ones that I prefer over the original.

Also, I believe the C64 version of Donkey Kong is the best but I don't recall if it has all the screens are not. The 7800 version of Donkey Kong is just ridiculous with the audio effects and is a rare case where the audio takes away from the overall game experience.

The Adam had possibly the fastest game action for DK, best sound effects/music and had 6 screens, which was the most I've ever seen but I never played the C64 version. (Most notably the welding factory screen which is freaking awesome!)

Mouse Trap is a true classic but the background music gives me a headache. Ditto for Ladybug which is the only reason both those games missed the final cut.

[flicky]

I collect a lot of different systems, but Colecovision is definitely my favourite. It's the machine I always wanted as a kid, and the one that really got me into classic game collecting in the first place (this was about 14 years ago).

I've since acquired all the released games, a lot of homebrews (many of which are incredibly well done) and even an Adam in its shipping box

Some day I want to catalogue all the box variations that are out there, I have several different versions of a lot of games with different artwork on the boxes, depending on the region. I'll create a website showing these eventually.

Jon

[WatchVenusSpa]

A lot of the game quality depends on who was programming the games, not the system. Play Value mentioned that Intellivision was a 16 bit system yet their graphics and game play was mediocre at best when it should have been powerful enough to do SNES quality games in 1980.

That's why so many homebrew games kick so much ass. They are stretching the puny level of K in the chips for all they're worth and utilizing every byte to make these games. Look at NewColeco's stuff like GhostBlaster, that is NES quality with spot on music and very fast side scrolling action. I don't think we EVER saw that in the classic ColecoVision era. Based on this I wouldn't be surprised if you could port Zelda to CV.

This is why you should NEVER throw your old consoles away, you never know what's going to pop up in the gamer world!

[rmaerz]

WatchVenusSpa, on Mon Nov 9, 2009 12:33 PM, said:

This is why you should NEVER throw your old consoles away, you never know what's going to pop up in the gamer world!

Let's see how this Super Expansion Module turns out!

[AtariLeaf]

I'm a fan of the games, not the hardware. Does that make sense? No? Too bad.

[opcode]

Not a fan of the hardware, as long as it has the name Atari on it, right.
I am a big fan of the ColecoVision, since I played it for the first time when I was 12...

Edited by opcode, Mon Nov 9, 2009 1:58 PM.

[newcoleco]

I've just notice this topic... I guess you can consider me as a mega fan of the ColecoVision.

I've no problem with the hardware, beside the 3 broken consoles and about 10 broken controllers and 3 bad power supply. But, I've a working console with working controlers, tons of commercial and homebrew games, and things to test and make homebrew games... that's all.

I did sell my Super Sketch months ago to ColecoVisionZone.

[Ransom]

I like the CV. Had one back when it first came out. I'd like to get one again in the future, but the hardware problems scare me. Plus, I already have too many systems to feed! For now, I play CV in emulation only. (I do have a couple of boxed CV games, though.)

[rmaerz]

Ransom, on Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:17 AM, said:

I like the CV. Had one back when it first came out. I'd like to get one again in the future, but the hardware problems scare me. Plus, I already have too many systems to feed! For now, I play CV in emulation only. (I do have a couple of boxed CV games, though.)

The hardware problems aren't "scary." A pain yes but not as much pain inflicted as the NES.

The problems I have are video. I typically have to wiggle the video cable to get a clear picture even though I have the Radio Shack state of the art gold RCA jacks cable. But, this cable seems to have improved the situation versus that flimsy cable I used to use. This is probably the main reason why people are modding the CV to use composite inputs.

Any stress on the controller ports causes sprite problems. The only way around this (on my system) is to not yank the joystick which in turn moves the DB9 connector ever slightly. This can be remedied using a DB9 extension cable.

When powering on the CV, I sometimes get a discolored ColecoVision screen. From there I know I'll have sprite problems. After reinserting the cartridge and repeated power cycles eventually it goes away. This problem seems to be caused by the power switch. Someone has a fix out there if memory serves, but I can't solder worth a damn so that's not an option.

[Ransom]

rmaerz, on Fri Nov 20, 2009 9:09 AM, said:

The hardware problems aren't "scary." A pain yes but not as much pain inflicted as the NES.

The problems I have are video. I typically have to wiggle the video cable to get a clear picture even though I have the Radio Shack state of the art gold RCA jacks cable. But, this cable seems to have improved the situation versus that flimsy cable I used to use. This is probably the main reason why people are modding the CV to use composite inputs.

Any stress on the controller ports causes sprite problems. The only way around this (on my system) is to not yank the joystick which in turn moves the DB9 connector ever slightly. This can be remedied using a DB9 extension cable.

When powering on the CV, I sometimes get a discolored ColecoVision screen. From there I know I'll have sprite problems. After reinserting the cartridge and repeated power cycles eventually it goes away. This problem seems to be caused by the power switch. Someone has a fix out there if memory serves, but I can't solder worth a damn so that's not an option.

The power switch problem is the one that bothers me the most. Both it and the power supply are unusual enough that it's not simple to fix either. And I already have a 5200 and controllers to take care of. I don't have enough time for all that!

But some day, I'll get a CV to go with the carts I already own...

[Rik]

I haven't seen many mention Gyruss as their favorite CV game.Its the game that gets the most play from me right now.I found it at the flea market a little while ago,awesome game,awesome sound/music,everything!phenomenal game IMO.Judging by the number of folks bidding on CV stuff on Ebay alone,id say there are TONNES of CV fans out there.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Ransom, on Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:12 AM, said:

The power switch problem is the one that bothers me the most. Both it and the power supply are unusual enough that it's not simple to fix either. And I already have a 5200 and controllers to take care of. I don't have enough time for all that!

There are more than a few +5/+12 supplies that you can find, but the -5 is what keeps you from just using one of those multi-voltage bricks. If you used a DC/DC converter to get -5, there would be a bonus in that the -5 would be switched when you turned the power off.

I guess an old TRS-80 Model I supply has -5 for the same reasons that the CV needs it. An old PC power supply could probably used after regulating the -12 to -5, but it would be hard to find one small enough. The cool part is that if you found a small enough power brick to go inside the unit, you could probably put an AC jack in place of the existing power jack with only a little work.

[newcoleco]

If you have an old PC with a working AT power supply, you can use that instead to power a ColecoVision or Coleco Adam.