by BoneSnapDeez Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:57 pm
Alright boyos, I dusted off the Channel F, which comes courtesy of one Jerry Lawson.
For those who don't typically play games this ancient, this is generally regarded as the second home console, released four years after the Odyssey and one year before the Atari 2600.
I gotta say, there are a couple things about the hardware I absolutely love. First, there's a cartridge eject button. Similar to what's on the SNES, except this is a side-loading machine. I adore this and have no idea why it never became standardized across all gaming systems. Second, the cartridges themselves are amazing. They're big and hefty with spring-loaded dust covers that can actually be flipped up with your fingers (no sticking a steak knife into a "slot" like Atari games). As such, all my Channel F games are in great condition, minus some label mottling.
Okay, on to some gamez. The system has some built in, which is additionally fantastic. Tennis is basically Pong designed to resemble a game of tennis, but Hockey is something else altogether. Again, it's like Pong, but each player controls two hockey players (one of whom is the goalie) with one controller. How? Well, you have to understand something: the Channel F controller, like the Odyssey controller, is one odd duck. This was released before the days of the d-pad, before the "telephone" controllers, and when a joystick was something a pilot used. Channel F controllers consist of an ergonomic grip and a "top" that can moved in cardinal directions, twisted, or "plunged" up and down. It takes some getting used to, but once it clicks it's quite the satisfying experience.
I also played some Videocart 1: Tic-Tac-Toe / Shooting Gallery / Doodle / Quadra-Doodle, which I believe is technically the first commercial game cartridge (the Odyssey game cards are not actually ROM cartridges). So, a lot of Channel F games are really a collection of minigames, this one being no exception. Tic-Tac-Toe is somewhat self-explanatory. It's one player versus the computer AI. Worth losing once on purpose to see the YOU LOSE TURKEY message. Shooting Gallery has the player controlling a "gun" which resembles a Pong paddle, shooting at ducks. You can't actually move the gun-paddle, so you'll have time your shots to ricochet off the walls to hit the targets. After a successful hit the game changes the position and angle of the gun-paddle. Game "modes" that alter how much time each round lasts can be chosen by pressing buttons on the console itself (Atari style). Doodle is a very primitive paint program. The controls aren't exactly intuitive, and if you don't know what you're doing you'll likely delete your image repeatedly. Quadra-Doodle is more like a tech demo, where the game creates elaborate geometric designs.
Graphics are as primitive as you'd expect. The sound (boops and beeps) comes from the console itself. In fact, I have to mute my TV when playing this otherwise I hear an extremely irritating hiss/buzz. Something to do with a 40+ year old system on a modern TV.
I also tried out the emulation the Games Professor provided in a link. Took a few minutes to get it going (holla at me if you want the BIOS) but it works well. You really can't grasp the weirdness of the controls via emulation though. The same is surely true of the Odyssey, which has an "English" (spin) knob on the controllers.
Overall, it's hard to rate these games "objectively" in 2020, but I find the Channel F quite charming. And, needless to say, the creation of ROM cartridges was an enormous innovation.