Colecovision...my old friend

When I was a young lad growing up in the 80's like most American kids I was stuck on video games. The first video game system I ever owned was the Colecovision. This system was a powerhouse of gaming back then. Back in a world where Atari ruled with an iron fist providing games that looked nothing like their arcade counterparts Coleco stepped the game up. The system came with two joysticks which operated more loosely like an arcade stick than Atari's (before the 7800) and the games had better graphics. The game that came with the system initially was the arcade classic Donkey Kong (produced by Nintendo). This version unlike Atari's looked pretty much just like the arcade version.

I didn't realize how great this system was at the time, at least until I got Turbo. Turbo was a cool driving game in the arcade, and it came with an actual steering wheel and gas pedal for the Colecovision. It doesn't get much better than that my friends. This is before any light zapper or a power pad was created by Nintendo. Other Colecovision classics I owned were Smurf, Ladybug (MAN I LOVED THAT GAME) and Time Pilot.

Unfortunately the Colecovision came out right before the Video Game Crash of 1983 and it suffered the wrath of low popularity. When Nintendo came in 1985 and gave life to video games again the Colecovision was officially dead and gone.

I'm paying tribute to an old friend who held me down before I knew what a Mario brother was. This weekend I'm going to my mothers to pull out the Colecovision. I think I need to get a game of Ladybug going.