Retro Gaming Australia

The Colecovision had the misfortune of being released about a year before the bottom fell out of the North American video gaming market, so it missed out on a great many arcade ports. Over time, homebrew developers have sought to right this wrong by porting many arcade games to the console, including the Taito classics Lock n Chase, Chack n Pop, and Elevator Action.

CollectorVision has decided to bundle these three Taito classics together in a new compilation called Taito Legends. To sweeten the deal, they’re throwing in a fourth, previously unreleased game – Jungle King. The bundle will be available at a special price too.

For those that already own the previous releases, Jungle King will be available separately.

No price or release dates have been announced as yet.

So often we hear of the video game championships in other parts of the world – the Billy Mitchells, Steve Wiebes and Danny Curleys, but rarely do we hear of any Australian champions. I was lucky enough to be contacted by one Victor Coleiro, who can be seen in the above segment from Terry Willisee Tonight winning the Australian Colecovision Championship in 1982.

Victor says that he was 14 when the championships took place. The championships were tiered – the winners of the regionals went to state, and the state winner went to the national championship held in Sydney. Victor won the Victorian championship before conquering the Australian title.

The national championship was awarded to the player with the best combined score from three games: Donkey Kong, Zaxxon and a third mystery game, which turned out to be Time Pilot. This gave Victor an advantage, as Time Pilot was his favourite arcade game at the time. Victor says that he remembers “leading after Donkey Kong, bombing badly on Zaxxon but still narrowly leading the comp, and then kicking ass on Time Pilot to win.”

In addition to a cash prize, Victor was to be sent on a trip to New York to participate in the World Colecovision Championships, but the event was cancelled after the infamous North American video game crash took its toll on Coleco. Tough break.

Victor says that he’s always been a little embarassed by the experience, having hung onto the tape for nearly 30 years. “At least I didnt come off as bad as the Gold Caped self proclaimed ‘Super Hero of Video Games,'” he adds.

I’ve got to admit that I’ve never heard of Jim Welch before – if anyone knows anything about him, feel free to contact me.