ManekiNeko
01-17-2004, 11:01 AM
After a little coaxing from one of the members of Atari Age, I downloaded a handful of games for the ADAM computer. I never had much luck getting these games to run in the past, but after some perserverence, I finally was able to run them with an emulator called ADAMEM.
It was really a thrill to play all these games. They've given me a pretty good idea of what the Super Game Module would have been like, if Coleco had released it. My favorite ADAM games so far are Super Donkey Kong Jr., Super Zaxxon, and (surprisingly enough) Jeopardy!.
Super Donkey Kong Jr. is great because it includes a fifth round that's exclusive to the ADAM. It's surprisingly well designed, very colorful, and hilariously inventive. In this round, Mario conforms to yet another Italian stereotype, pulling piping hot Sicilian cuisine out of a flaming oven and dumping it on poor Junior's head. The best part of this round is that you can actually turn the tables on the chubby carpenter, briefly knocking him out with fruit.
Super Zaxxon is a fun sequel to the original ColecoVision game, with the same look and feel but new rounds and bosses. You'll often encounter walls bristling with guns... destroying all the guns rips a bite sized chunk out of the wall, which you have to fly through to reach the next round. You can save the game whenever you like, although it's really not necessary... you can reach the end of Super Zaxxon in about thirty or fourty minutes. The ending is great... the pilot of your ship actually gets out of it and floats away in an astronaut suit! Ground control to Major Tom... ground control to Major Tom...
Jeopardy! was the biggest surprise of the bunch. It's actually based on the 80's incarnation of the popular game show, and not the original version which dates back to the 1960's. I could have sworn that Alex Trebek's Jeopardy! debuted after the video game crash... but I digress. Anyway, I compared this directly to Rare's NES version of Jeopardy!, and the two match up pretty well. The graphics in NES Jeopardy! are only marginally better than the ones used in the ADAM game. The big advantage of the ADAM version is that you can use the keyboard to input your answers, rather than madly scramble for letters with the joypad in the NES game.
I recommend that you check these games out if you can. They're a fun glimpse into video gaming's past.
JR
It was really a thrill to play all these games. They've given me a pretty good idea of what the Super Game Module would have been like, if Coleco had released it. My favorite ADAM games so far are Super Donkey Kong Jr., Super Zaxxon, and (surprisingly enough) Jeopardy!.
Super Donkey Kong Jr. is great because it includes a fifth round that's exclusive to the ADAM. It's surprisingly well designed, very colorful, and hilariously inventive. In this round, Mario conforms to yet another Italian stereotype, pulling piping hot Sicilian cuisine out of a flaming oven and dumping it on poor Junior's head. The best part of this round is that you can actually turn the tables on the chubby carpenter, briefly knocking him out with fruit.
Super Zaxxon is a fun sequel to the original ColecoVision game, with the same look and feel but new rounds and bosses. You'll often encounter walls bristling with guns... destroying all the guns rips a bite sized chunk out of the wall, which you have to fly through to reach the next round. You can save the game whenever you like, although it's really not necessary... you can reach the end of Super Zaxxon in about thirty or fourty minutes. The ending is great... the pilot of your ship actually gets out of it and floats away in an astronaut suit! Ground control to Major Tom... ground control to Major Tom...
Jeopardy! was the biggest surprise of the bunch. It's actually based on the 80's incarnation of the popular game show, and not the original version which dates back to the 1960's. I could have sworn that Alex Trebek's Jeopardy! debuted after the video game crash... but I digress. Anyway, I compared this directly to Rare's NES version of Jeopardy!, and the two match up pretty well. The graphics in NES Jeopardy! are only marginally better than the ones used in the ADAM game. The big advantage of the ADAM version is that you can use the keyboard to input your answers, rather than madly scramble for letters with the joypad in the NES game.
I recommend that you check these games out if you can. They're a fun glimpse into video gaming's past.
JR