From: tzs@stein.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.games.video.classic
Subject: Re: Lynx review! JOUST
Date: 2 Jan 1993 13:12:37 GMT
Organization: University of Washington School of Law, Class of '95
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu

rich@grebyn.com (Richard Lawrence) writes:
>>If they had shown Joust, and it looked good, I might have went for it.
>>Is this the legendary Atari marketing at work?
>
>Joust really does exist, and it's even in stores now. Not only that,
>it's a *great* translation - because Atari didn't do it, Shadowsoft did
>(the same people that did the perfect, sans controls, translation of
>Robotron).

Anyone know why they didn't include this in their ad?  And how widespread
was this ad?  In Seattle, it was a four page color insert in the Sunday
paper, printed on good quality paper.

Here are the games they show screen shots of in this ad, along with my
comments from the point of view of someone who has an SNES, and so is
only going to buy another system if something really stands out (like
Joust would have if they had included it).  Remember, for most of these
games, my comments are based on the single screen shot Atari put in
the ad.  I've not played these games -- they might all be great.  What
I'm commenting on is how they appear from the Atari ad:

	Xenophobe: nothing stands out on the screen they show.

	Rampager: nothing stands out.

	Batman Returns:  looks like a side view, scroll and punch game.
		These are available on SNES.

	Pinball Jam: tell me more.

	Todd's Adventures in Slime World: looks like a platform game.
		Nice colors.  Maybe when I get through Super Mario World
		and Spider-man & X-Men on the SNES, I'll be ready for
		another one of these, but not now.

	Toki: can't tell much.

	Gauntlet - The Third Encounter:  I was never a Gauntlet player in
		the arcades, so there is no great attraction here.
		Furthermore, a large part of the screen shot is taken up
		by a status displa -- I hope this isn't the most exciting
		part of the game!

	Steel Talons:  can't tell much, other than it seems that there is
		an enemy helicopter.

	Gates of Zendocon:  can't tell much.

	Switchblade II: looks like another platform game.

	Electrocop:  looks like a scrolling run & shoot.  There is no dearth
		of these for SNES.

	Ms. Pac-Man: well, it looks like Ms. Pac-Man, I suppose, but I'll
		eat quiche before I'll play this...

	Zarlor Mercenary: looks like a top-view scroll & shoot.  I've got
		this kind of thing on SNES.

	Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure: looks like a top-view wander
		around game. Maybe when I get done with Zelda and Mystic
		Quest on SNES, I'll be ready for another of this type,
		but it's not going to get me to buy a Lynx now.

	Ninja Garden: Looks pretty generic.

	Paperboy: I'm not a fan of the arcade game, so I'm not excited.

	Rygar: can't tell a lot.

	Viking Child: looks like another fantasy RPG.

	Xybots: can't tell much.

	Tournament Cyberball: football-like?

	Kung Food: can't tell much from the screen, but from the name alone
		it sounds interesting.

	Shadow of the Beast: looks like a run & shoot game.

	NFL Football: doesn't look that impressive.

	Hockey:  looks OK.

	California Games:  can't tell much.

	Blue Lightning:  can't tell much.

	Warbirds:  looks like a generic flight combat game.

	Basketbrawl: can't tell much -- the screen shot looks like a title
		screen, which is useless.

	A.P.B.: OK, this looks like it might be interesting.

	Awesome Golf:  aren't all golf games bascially the same? :-)

	World Class Soccer: why do there appear to be players from *three*
		teams on the field?

	S.T.U.N. Runner: driving game.  I've got F-Zero and Super Mario Kart
		on SNES, so driving games aren't going to entice me.

	Turbo Sub: looks interestined.

	Chip's Challenge: can't tell much.

	Block-Out: looks like a 3-d top-view Tetris-class game.

	Hard Drivin: yawn -- another driving game.

	Superskweek:  can't tell much.

	Crystal Mines II: can't tell much.

	Rampart: can't tell much.

	Checkered Flag: oh boy!  More driving!

	Lynx Casino: can't tell much, as the screen shot looks like the
		title screen.

	Shanghai: can't tell much.

	Klax: can't tell much.

This ad has not left me with a burning desire to buy one of these things.
I did notice this time, though, a "coming soon" list, which I missed the
first couple of times through, which lists Joust.  Too bad they didn't have
a screen shot of Joust, though, because the games they did feature did
not really stand out, for the most part.

--Tim Smith