I never know what I’m going to find when I go to a retro game store. There’s definitely games that I keep an eye out for, but usually I’m just popping in and seeing what I find. I actually found one I was looking for a few weeks ago, Godzilla for the PS4, but I didn’t write one of these about it. Maybe I’ll do something bigger with that later. But for now, let’s talk about my most recent haul, which is three games. I got two for the Atari 2600 and one for the Sega Dreamcast.

The first game I’m talking about today is Taz for the 2600. I had no idea this game even existed. As you may have guessed, this is a game starring the Looney Tunes character, the Tasmanian Devil. Maybe this is showing my ignorance, but I didn’t realize we were calling him Taz all the way back in 1983, I always associate that with the 90’s series, Taz-Mania. But whatever, we got ourselves an old Taz game, that’s pretty cool.

My first impression was pretty strong, a really nice title screen with a large picture of Taz himself filling the screen. Unfortunately, after that, the game goes really downhill. You control Taz who is constantly spinning like a tornado. There’s multiple lanes going across the screen where food and dynamite slide quickly from one side to the other. You can move Taz either up or down. Getting food gets you points, getting dynamite blows you up. That’s kind of it.

Now look, I’m well aware that Atari 2600 games tend to be very simple. That being said, this is barely a game. You just move up or down. Taz also moves way to quickly between lanes, which often led to me going to far up or down and accidentally getting blown up. It’s just not very fun. Still, I’m pretty happy to add this to my collection, if only for a being a weird little thing.

The second 2600 game I picked up was Ice Hockey. This was a game made by Activision, who way back before they were the Call of Duty factory they are today, was a company that put out some of the most impressive games on the 2600, including Pitfall, River Raid, and Chopper Command. I hadn’t actually heard anything about this one, but going in I had pretty high expectations.

After being disappointed with Taz, I had the complete opposite reaction to Ice Hockey. This is a fantastic game. Each team has two players, one goalie and one serving basically every other role. Instead of having your teammate controlled by AI, you control whichever member of your team is closest to the puck at any time. The joystick moves your players around and the button hits the puck in the direction that you’re currently facing.

This goes along with what I was saying earlier about 2600 games being simple. There’s not a lot to Ice Hockey. But it’s fast paced, the way you control both players is interesting, and it works exactly as you’d expect. It took a little bit for me to get the hang of shooting, but once I did, I quickly took the lead from the computer and won. I wasn’t able to try two player, but I bet it would be a ton of fun.

And finally, the third game I picked up was Quake III Arena for the Sega Dreamcast. If you read my post about games that only I like, you might remember that I love the Dreamcast version of Unreal Tournament. Just like that game, this is a port of a multiplayer focused PC first person shooter for a console that only has one analog stick. That’s the exact reason why I don’t think anyone else would like Unreal Tournament, but because I do like it, I’ve always wanted to add Quake III Arena to my collection.

Before starting the game, I messed around with the settings. By default, the controls are mapped to movement on the face buttons and looking around on the analog stick. This control scheme is used in some other shooters for the Dreamcast, and it’s pretty similar to how Turok controlled back on the N64. But, thankfully, there was an option that mapped the controls identically to Unreal Tournaments, where moving is almost entirely done with the stick, but the face buttons let you strafe and look up and down.

I’m happy to report that this game is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Just like Unreal Tournament, the single player campaign is really just a series of bot matches on multiplayer maps. This is another reason why I don’t think most people would like this game, why would you want to play like that instead of playing with people? But I don’t know, I have fun with it.

I don’t have any real nostalgia for Quake, but I still had a lot of fun with this game. It’s fast paced, the weapons are fun, and it looks good. I don’t have a ton to say about this one either, but this is one I’ll be returning to for a while. Always a good time when I can find a reason to pick up a Dreamcast controller.

So that’s what I found this time. Quake III was a game I had been keeping an eye out for. Then there’s Taz, which I probably won’t put more time into but it’s fun to have. And finally Ice Hockey, which I will absolutely play more of. Overall, even if this was a pretty small haul, I’m very happy with it. We’ll see if my luck continues the next time I write one of these.