¢VCS FUTURA - ISSUE 8¢¢¢THE VCS AT THE MOVIES¢by S.J.Murray, NOSAUG.¢¢¢ There have been many video game versions of popular movies and the VCS has its fair share. The most famous VCS movie cart is RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. I bought it for 29.95 from I.C.Games (a local VCS retailer). I think it was 1982.¢¢ Raiders was (and still is) superb. I remember playing it for weeks and weeks. All my friends were involved in trying to complete the game. We never did! I suppose I could have read one of the many published soultions but I felt that would be an injustice to such an excellent cart. I've never really been one for using solutions to adventure games. One of these days I'm going to get back to Raiders and complete it!¢¢ Another famous movie cart is ET: THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL. Again, I bought it for 29.95, except this time it was from a Co-op department store. The flop of the ET cart is already well documented. I suppose it was inevitable due to the initial outlay by Atari. Anyway, at the time, ET was the biggest thing around. If I remember correctly, I think the year was 1983.¢¢ The ET game itself wasn't a patch on Raiders. Although it did hold my interest for a while, it missed that extra spark of Raiders. Had Atari produced a better game, I've no doubt that ET would have become even bigger than Pacman.¢¢ The Star Wars movies are well represented on the VCS. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, DEATH STAR BATTLE and JEDI ARENA were all released by Parker Brothers. Today, when I think of Parker Brothers all I remember is the Empire cart! Boy, was it a cracker! You had to take on the Imperial Walkers with your little X-wing fighter. It's still one of my favourite shoot-em-ups on the VCS.¢¢ Jedi Arena is a fun game in which you battle with light-sabers. It's brilliant in 2-player mode! I haven't seen Death Star Battle.¢¢ I suppose the other 'big' movie cart on the VCS is GHOSTBUSTERS by Activision. I loved the 8-Bit version but never got round to buying the VCS cart.¢¢ Other movie carts to look out for include KRULL by Atari, STAR TREK and BUCK ROGERS by Sega, ADVENTURES OF TRON and DEADLY DISKS by M-Network, and JAMES BOND by Parker Brothers.¢¢ I enjoy recalling these movie carts because it shows that the "game of the movie" was around long before the big movie games of today (Robocop, Batman, etc.).¢¢ The two VCS movie carts I'd most like to own are HALLOWEEN and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE by Wizard Video. Anyone got the HALLOWEEN cart?¢¢¢¢Keep VCS-ing!¢¢Stu.¢
