Flashback: I found the 1990 EB Christmas Catalog

[Kasey Chang]

Oh, boy, did it brought back lots of memories...

GameBoy (original) is out, all the 16-bit consoles are fighting for shelve space, including TurboGrafx-16, Genesis, and more.

On the PC side, we have Secret of Monkey Island, Megafortress, Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, Secret Weapons of Luftwaffe, It Came from the Desert, LHX Attack Chopper, AD&D Secret of the Silver Blades, Populous (original), Chessmaster 2100, Wolf Pack, Simcity (original, not even CD edition), Stunt Driver, Stunts!, Flight of the Intruder, the Soviet puzzle games (Tetris, Welltris, Faces), Test Drive 3, Jack Nicklawus Unlimited Golf & Course Designer, BT Crescent Hawk's Revenge...

On the application side, we get "The NEW Print Shop", and Print Shop Companion, The ORIGINAL Mavis Beacon Teaches TYping, Where in World in Carmen Sandiego, ...

On the hardware side, we have... Kraft Thunderstick, Panasonic 1180i dot matrix printer, Soundblaster (original, $179!) Logitech Scanman Plus (handheld scanner, 189), and more...

Game prices really have NOT rised that much... Most of the AA games lists for $60 and are sold for about $45 or even $40.

[bluefugue]

No joke about game prices. I have an Origin 1990-91 Product Catalog. This was in their absolute heyday, the late Ultimas & Wing Commander, Ultima Underworld on the way, etc. Retail price for Wing Commander and Ultima VI was $69.95.

Fun quotes:

"Blockbuster hits from CHRIS ROBERTS, the hottest new name in games!"

BAD BLOOD:

-Incredible eye-popping color graphics and animations
-pulse-pounding tribal music and soundtrack... recorded from actual instruments and sound score!
-real-time arcade combat and strategy... battle against gun-toting slavers, airborne buzzars and the bloodthirsty Urse

WING COMMANDER:

-Witness the most sophisticated, 3-D graphics technology ever seen on a personal computer
-Experient the intelligent music and sound system that dynamically adjusts the tempo and mood of the music to match the action of the game*
*Music boards highly recommended for IBM/compatibles: Roland MT-32 or LAPC-1, Ad Lib, Sound Blaster.
-Advance in rank while piloting up to 4 unique Terran spacefighters against an armada of over a dozen types of highly detailed enemy ships

Also available for WING COMMANDER
-The SECRET MISSIONS DISK
... more exciting missions & graphics!
-The Official WING COMMANDER Flight Cap
...required battle gear!

>CALL FOR COMPLETE DETAILS<

[hitbyambulance]

>CALL FOR COMPLETE DETAILS<

heh... i remember, even as late as 1994 calling an 800 number to get the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans demo disk (3.5 floppy) from Blizzard.

[wankerjr]

>CALL FOR COMPLETE DETAILS<

heh... i remember, even as late as 1994 calling an 800 number to get the Warcraft: Orcs & Humans demo disk (3.5 floppy) from Blizzard.

Ah yes, I too called that 800 number and listened to the soon-to-be-familiar voice talent ask for my information. Freshman year in college..such wonderful memories.

[Kasey Chang]

What's even more amazing is how many of those games I've actually PLAYED!

Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday -- played

Secret Weapons of Luftwaffe -- played, still have the code wheel

LHX Attack Chopper -- still have the full box here

Wolf Pack -- played, didn't get into it much as I'm still addicted to Silent Serivce

Simcity (original, not even CD edition) -- got the purple code sheet

Stunt Driver -- was on the in-house QA team on this game

Stunts! -- our main competition

Flight of the Intruder -- was on the in-house QA team on this too

Soviet puzzle games (Tetris, Welltris, Faces) -- was in-house QA for faces, works great on Tandy 1000 TL

BT Crescent Hawk's Revenge -- played it as part of BT Power Hits later...

[Bakhtosh]

On the PC side, we have LHX Attack Chopper, AD&D Secret of the Silver Blades, Test Drive 3, BT Crescent Hawk's Revenge...

Wow...those are some really classic games. I own each of these and still consider them all-time classics. I played LHX for years, and Crescent Hawk's revenge is one of those I picked up in the bargain bin since I couldn't afford to upgrade my PC, and it became one of my favorite games...I wonder if I can get it to run on XP...

[hitbyambulance]

Stunts! was waaay more fun than Stunt Driver, to my surprise.

[username]

Funny you should bring this up. I just found an old rate card for the ImagiNation online service. Everyone bitches about online rates today, but how many of you remember this:

BASIC -- $ 9.95/mo -- 5 hours
GOLD -- $49.95/mo -- 25 hours
PLAT -- $99.95/mo -- 50 hours

Each membership plan includes 24 hour access to The ImagiNation Network for the number of hours per month as indicated above. Hours not used in any given month do not carry over into the following month. Any monthly usage over the number of hours allotted on your membership plan will be charged at $3.50 per hour.

A hundred bucks to play an hour and a half of checkers every night. Such a deal.

[Kasey Chang]

Stunts! was waaay more fun than Stunt Driver, to my surprise.

Not too surprising. We had to rush that one out the door after Stunts! hit the stores. The AI never worked quite right (the catchup logic is too fierce), and about half of the game was described the "manual supplement" where we explained the editor, the AI "tuning window", and more.

You SHOULD fine my name somewhere in the credits though.

[Chesspieceface]

Hard to believe that was almost 15 years ago. LHX was the most fun Chopper Sim 3V4R!! I loved the targetting system.

And Kasey mentioning the purple code sheet for simcity! I completely forgot about that. And those codewheels!

Thanks for the nostalgia!

I had some exclamation points left over so here: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ripstar]

Funny I still have all those games and machines to run them. haha

[Samurai]

Oh man, I do remember Wolfpack... I have some fond memories of that game.