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by Adam King |
Greetings, gamers. For this
month's helping of the Vault, I have two commercials for a pair of Atari arcade
ports: Ms. Pac-Man and Vanguard. I also have some more info on the upcoming CD.
Both commercials can be downloaded from The Old Computer Dot Com (theoldcomputer.com)
Vanguard
This commercial features three game players in some white room, trying out
Atari's latest shooter, Vanguard. We watch them as they go through the games
levels, each claiming to be an expert on that part of the game. Then along comes
the stereotypical big dumb jock, who takes the joystick and attacks the game's
boss, the Gond.
"Watch all of us play one game together."
"Say, you think we should turn around and see what's behind us?"
"My turn, little men."
Ms. Pac-Man
This commercial featuring the first lady of the arcades features
several scenes that may not go together on paper. First we find a trio of kids
in a locker room. One of them asks another, "Hey Joey, what's she really like?"
Joey answers excitedly," She's the most exciting woman I ever met," making the
others go, "Yeah?"
Suddenly we cut to some gameplay footage with the announcer saying, "Atari
introduces the woman of the year, Ms. Pac-Man! Just like the arcade classic,
four different screens, floating fruit, even pretzels!"
Next the Ms. herself bursts in and does a short dance number, singing, "Honey,
dont'cha know, I'm more than Pac-Man with a bow!"
And the finish: "Reach for Ms. Pac-Man. REACH FOR ATARI!!"
"You do know she's only a game sprite, right?"
The Ms. herself, in all her 2600 glory.
Not only can she chomp ghosts, she can dance and sing too.
Don't forget, she's more than Pac-Man with a bow.
Now I want to talk about the CD I'm working on, so you don't get the wrong idea.
First off, I'm not going to just cobble together all the videos I downloaded off
the Internet and burn them to a CD. I want to put some real effort into this.
Here's the facts thus far:
1. The Commercial Vault CD is just that: a CD. It's not a Video CD or DVD or
anything like that. This does require a CD-Rom to work. You'll also need
Internet Explorer, but not the Internet. This is because the interface for the
CD is basically a bunch of HTML files.
2. All the clips will be in MPEG format. This way you can enjoy the clips on
almost any computer, without the need for special players or codes. Besides,
MPEGs have much better quality than RealPlayer and Quicktime, so that's a bonus.
3. So I'm not accused of stealing other people's work, I'm recording all the
video clips myself. However I will still accept help where I can get it. If any
of you wish to donate some clips, I'll be sure to give you credit.
4. It's just going to be video game commercials. No computer ads, like Apple or
Commodore. The Atari computers may still get in; I haven't decided yet.
5. The CD will have more than just commercials already on the Internet in some
form. You'll find a few rare and exclusive ones as well.
That's all I got so far. I still don't know when the CD Will be released, or how
many clips will be on the disc. If you have any questions, comments, or
whatever, beep me at
Hal_3000@rocketmail.com. That's all for now.
By the way, Stardate 7800 will return next month, so don't worry.