The Moon Patrol ad was just as accurate as the game in its depiction of lunar exploration

Remember when astronauts used to actually go places and explore, not just sit around the International Space Station and fix satellites? How quaint.

I had a copy of the side-scrolling pioneer Moon Patrol for my old Atari 2600, but it never quite lived up to the arcade version’s grandeur. (Maybe I was just too depressed at home from playing the Spider-Man game and watching the web-slinger die over and over and over again.) There was something exciting about seeing how far you could get before your mother worked her way through the Ames checkout line and your jumping of craters and shooting of UFOs had to come to an end. I guess the home/store-entrance dichotomy is a bit like the difference between heading to OTB or the track.

Anyway — oh, those tiered backdrops and their illusion of depth. And the sound effects. One goofy step for mankind. Up yours, Call of Duty.