X-Entertainment | New Article: Gremlins Atari Games!

New Article: Gremlins Atari Games!

New Article: I'm a Gremlins nut, so I'm doing what any huge Gremlins nut should do -- reviewing both the Atari 2600 & 5200 versions of the "Gremlins" video game, which believe it or not, are really quite different from one another. There's one similarity shared, though -- poor Billy Peltzer always looks like shit.

Posted by Matt on 08/13/2003. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 22 comments

Could it be? The first post?! I’ve always prepared for this day, but now I don’t know what to say….

Chestnuts roasted by Goggles Pizano @ 08/13/2003 11:31 PM

Hmm… Hmm… Hmm…
Milk.

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 08/14/2003 12:15 PM

Definitely one of my favorites of the recent articles. Loved the 2600 as a kid. Never knew the 5200 was any different.

Chestnuts roasted by Tarot @ 08/14/2003 12:49 PM

Ahh the main reason why I bought tons of candy cigerettes was to imitate that one gremlin in the bar smoking twenty at once. Hmm if I actually started smoking I could quite possibly blame gremlins for it.

Well anyway when I first saw it I always had this one problem it said never to feed the mogwais after midnight. Since midnight seems to be the general time of the last hour of each day wouldn’t feeding them at 1 am actually be feeding them before midnight so wouldn’t it be safe to feed them once the clock passes 12:59 or if I really want to get technical isn’t 12:01 technically before 12:00 since 12:01 is normally the beginning of the next cycle you know since we are dealing with adding time and if we decide to state that feeding them after midnight wouldn’t that mean you can only feed them once on the day they were born as long as it was not at 12 am. Meaning why couldn’t it be after 12 before lets say 5 am in the morning is no feeding time… instead of after midnight its unbounded wait never mind I need sleep and I am rambling

Wait did the old guy say not to feed them after midnight or did he also say not to feed them after midnight or before a set time in the morning. I think I need to rent it again

Chestnuts roasted by Geek @ 08/14/2003 1:15 AM

I really enjoyed reading this one, as I do all the Gremlins articles.

A correction: In the 2600 version, I’m pretty sure Billy is using a camera with a flash bulb to ward off the Gremlins in stage 2. I *think* I remember reading that in the instruction booklet long ago…

Gremlins 2 for the NES is my favorite game from the franchise, although, the later levels are a bitch without Game Genie There are also new Gremlins games recently released overseas…I think one is on Game Boy Advance, and there’s another coming (or maybe its already out?) for Playstation 2

And Matt, I remember reading awhile back that you seem to favor VHS over DVD. Well, I hope you have the 2 Special Edition Gremlins DVDs. They’ve got audio commentaries, deleted scenes, featurettes, bloopers and more.

FIN

Chestnuts roasted by "Handsome" John Pruitt @ 08/14/2003 1:27 AM

The 2600 version features "Disco" Billy Peltzer!

Chestnuts roasted by POP CULTURE DEBRIS @ 08/14/2003 9:43 AM

Geek (and thank you so much for having that handle, so I don’t have to feel bad or anything) — let it go. It’s SUPPOSED to be arbitrarily stupid. Spielberg and the writers wanted it that way, as a spoof of all the old 50′s sci-fi flicks where there are weird rules that cause the hero to sound like an idiot when trying to convince the police what’s going on. That’s why poor Billy gets made fun of for the "eating after midnight" part in BOTH movies.

And Matt, I thank you more than words can express for letting me know that I’m not the only one who’s read the official "Gremlins" novelization. "Padded out" doesn’t begin to describe it — are you people aware that the author of this dubious classic actually went so far as giving the Mogwais a real backstory? Check this shit out – they’re actually from another planet, where they were created by some dude named, of all things, "Mogturman," or some crap like that. And the reason Gizmo is cute and fuzzy while all the other little rats are assholes? He’s one of the "minority Mogwai," who are real sweeties and live for thousands of years, while the "majority Mogwai" (999 out of every 1000) live only for a little while, but compensate for it by being complete pricks who actively try to turn into Gremlins. (Jesus, how sad is it that I even still REMEMBER all this? I read that book waaaaay too many times as a kid.) Of course, the flipside of putting up with all this inane backstory is that we also get a lot more Judge Reinhold-y goodness – zam! Fast Times fans have gotta love the exchange between him and Phoebe Cates:

"So, Kate, you haven’t seen my new place…"
"I haven’t seen your old place, Gerald."
"Oh, that’s right- the lights were out."

Zing!

Okay, I gotta go shove a burning Q-tip in my ear now, to punish my brain for remembering all that. Once again, Matt, thanks, and hey, nice article. (Ha, you thought I was gonna say rack, didn’t you?)

Chestnuts roasted by The Lucky One @ 08/14/2003 10:24 AM

> with a slight skew of one’s view, it looks more like he’s holding his hands behind
> his head in nonchalant fashion while pissing all over the bad guys.

Not to contradict, Matt, but in that screen cap, he looks like he’s doing that bit in The Bangles’ "Walk Like An Egyptian" video. But I like your interpretation better — it has more moxy.

Also, were the Atari 2600, 5200 and 7800 all that different? It all looks like the same crappy graphics to me; if you’re claiming obsolescence, shouldn’t you have something to show for the upgrade? You’ll have to forgive me: I was raised po’ and Protestant so I didn’t have any chance of getting these systems as a kid.

Chestnuts roasted by Molten @ 08/14/2003 10:35 AM

> Okay, I gotta go shove a burning Q-tip in my ear now, to punish my brain for
> remembering all that.

Don’t punish yourself. If you knew how many Castlevania novelizations I read and reread. . . And I have a degree in English; if they ever find out, it might be revoked.

Chestnuts roasted by Molten @ 08/14/2003 10:39 AM

I still get in arguments, well once in a while, over why Gremlins 2 is the greatest sequel ever. Supposedly, Escape from L.A. was going for the same awareness vibe of a sequel knowing the deal with sequels, but Escape failed in that case.

"Handsome" John Pruitt is right with saying get the DVDs. I laugh thinking about Joe Dante showing Dick Morris in the gag reel how the bat gremlin will react to the actor by flapping a cardboard cutout at the end of a piece of wood.

Chestnuts roasted by Michael @ 08/14/2003 11:06 AM

Yes! I was getting sad since there hasn’t been a Gremlins article in a while. Great job!

Chestnuts roasted by Futterman @ 08/14/2003 12:01 PM

Excellent article.The Gremlins articles are probably my favorite.
Gremlins is making a bit of a comeback lately.A company by the name of NECA is releasing action figures and plush toys along with snowglobes,a lifesize Gremlin replica and bobble head dolls.
I have one of the new games for gameboy advance as well.You choose to play as Stripe or Gizmo.As Gizmo you go around melting Gremlins with a flashlight.Stripe turns his mogwai opponents into Gremlins by forcefeeding them.

Chestnuts roasted by TBear @ 08/14/2003 1:13 PM

I haven’t seen my Gremlins 2600 manual in ages, but I’m pretty sure that Billy has both a gun AND a camera during that scene.
Activating the flash cube momentarily freezes all onscreen tiki gods.. er, gremlins, so Billy can have more time to puncture their brains with bullets.

I have the novelizations for both Gremlins and Gremlins 2, so that shows how sad I am.

Chestnuts roasted by Lynx @ 08/14/2003 2:36 PM

The 7800 had 8 bit graphics, the same as Nintendo, but the games absolutely blew compared to the NES. Food Fight was definitely one of the better games. It literally had hundreds of levels. I don’t know why Atari thought it would be a good idea to make games have infinite levels.

Chestnuts roasted by Boscoe @ 08/14/2003 6:21 PM

I only have the novelization for the first movie. Guess that makes me half as sad as Lynx.

Chestnuts roasted by DeadCousinTed @ 08/14/2003 8:08 PM

I remember reading both novels I think. Im not sure if I still have them or not.. (The oldest novel I know I still have is the Crystal Shard from 1988. Note this is purchase date, not when it was written, otherwise Frankenstein wins..)

I never played either Gremlins game.

I want those NECA Gremlins toys though. Stripe is too cool not to have.

Sadly, I got burned on Gremlins the DVD. I have the non special version they released like 6 months earlier. Nothing like getting boned eh?

But they have Gremlins 2 as a special edition DVD? Time to look for it then!

Ill buy it right after I get the 90s Gamera trilogy.

He is no longer the friend of all children. He is now the friend of a moderately cute highschool girl who happens to be related to Stephen Segall but with actual acting ability…

And he is a cranky giant flying space turtle!!

God I love silly things like this…

Chestnuts roasted by Bloodcat @ 08/15/2003 3:13 AM

Guess I qualify for "as sad as Lynx" status. Man, I read the hell out of the Gramlins 2 novelization when I got it through that whole "buying books through school order forms" program we had.

So does anybody remember the Game Boy version of Gremlins 2? Badass picture of Mohawk on the front? That game was pretty… weird. You played as Gizmo, with your only weapon a tiny pencil, bouncing on springs and crap to get through the levels and lead-poisoning evil gremlins to death. I still remember the bosses, too… first one was Mohawk, chucking giant tomatoes at you (seems to be a running theme…); he was cake, you just got close enough to be under the tomato arc and whacked the hell out of him. 2nd boss, bat gremlin… tough, but once you learned the pattern, not too bad. That 3rd boss, though, geez… the electric gremlin kicked my ass every time. I think I got by him ONCE in all the years I played that game, and got to the stage where you finally got a cool weapon, the paperclip bow. Then I think Lenny and George killed me, never made it to the spider gremlin. Damn. There’s my big deathbed regret…

Chestnuts roasted by The Lucky One @ 08/15/2003 10:54 AM

If you haven’t played the Spectrum Gremlins game, you’ve missed a treat [or not as the case may be].

http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/moviegames/gremlinsspec.gif

http://members.fortunecity.co.uk/moviegames/gremlinsspec2.gif

Chestnuts roasted by F13remix @ 08/15/2003 11:08 AM

Nothing beats the novel of Mega Man 2. I still love that Dr. Light has to run tests on Mega Man to find out that he’s magically become human. You think it would be obvious.

Chestnuts roasted by Lucky Cat @ 08/17/2003 2:57 AM

Alot of atari games were simply unplayable. Rememer how you used to "borrow" a friends nintendo game and be able to figure out the object of the game without the instructions? Not so with atari.
I wonder why they never competed
with nintendo in the 80′s? They kept changing the numbers of the systems, but they were basically the same shit grafics with each one?

Chestnuts roasted by turkey's can't fly @ 08/17/2003 4:22 PM

fuckin’ E.T. game… ::mutterbitchcomplain::. i was inseparable from the Atari 2600 and 5200 when i was 5 or so. that E.T. game was the only thing to make me throw the joystick in frustration.

i wonder how i managed to miss the Gremlins games. oh well… the review doesn’t make me want them very badly

Chestnuts roasted by zann @ 08/18/2003 11:48 AM

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