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Massive Atari collection for iPhone launches tonight


Flojomojo

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Bought this - just be be mostly supportive and hope it wasn't as bad as people are saying. Controls are heinous. On my iPhone 4, asteroids is pretty hard to see... But appears to be pretty good emulation, just awful controls. I'd like to see tilting be a control mechanism....

 

You tried the roller version of the controls (not the disc default)? I wanted the roller version to be the default, but alas was overruled. Change it under Settings.

 

Accelerometer controls for Asteroids are completely unusable, IMHO. We tried, where the ship would face the direction you tilted the phone.

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Just a few thoughts/suggestions regarding the controls. All this is on an iPad by the way...

 

A full screen with overlaid translucent control option would be great, particularly for the vector games where the increase in available resolution can be appreciated. I also think all games should have an orientation option, possibly even display the menus in both. Many people like to lock their iPad's orientation.

 

Battlezone (coin-op) - How about a single 8-way joystick option, with the joystick on the left side of the screen and the fire button on the right? I know it's a break from the arcade convention, but no more than the Asteroids "disc" option.

 

Black Widow - Full screen landscape option please. Translucent "place anywhere" controls. See Infinity Field to see how well it can work. Perfect for Black Widow, as the corners of the screen are barely used in gameplay.

 

Centipede/Millipede (coin-op) - A trackball right option please. Atari's coin-ops with analogue controls (trackballs and spinners) alway placed them on the right-hand side of the control panels. My brain is hardwired after years of playing those games to use my right hand for controlling spinners and trackballs. The pad options are excellent by the way. :)

 

Major Havoc - A roller on the right option please. Same reasons as above.

 

Tempest (coin-op) - Spinner on the right option please. Same reasons again. :)

 

I've not downloaded and played Missile Command, Liberator or Crystal Castles yet, but I'm assuming that they could all use a trackball on the right option too. Flipped control issues aside, this is a beautifully put together collection and I'm really impressed by how much effort has gone into making them both look and play well.

 

Loving all the Gallery artwork items too. Curious where you got those pictures of the coin-op pin badges? They look an awful lot like a set I scanned in around 10 years ago. I just wish I'd done them at a better resolution. :)

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I have tried running a few different emulators for the 2600 and other classic systems on my Android.

 

Touch screen controls just plain suck (IMHO, of course). I really find most games unplayable for any length of time; you really do need at least a physical D-pad if you can't have a real joystick.

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Loving all the Gallery artwork items too. Curious where you got those pictures of the coin-op pin badges? They look an awful lot like a set I scanned in around 10 years ago. I just wish I'd done them at a better resolution. :)

 

They were provided to Atari back in 1999 by John Hardie and Sean Kelly, of CGExpo fame. They've been making the rounds through the various compilations since then.

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Bought this - just be be mostly supportive and hope it wasn't as bad as people are saying. Controls are heinous. On my iPhone 4, asteroids is pretty hard to see... But appears to be pretty good emulation, just awful controls. I'd like to see tilting be a control mechanism....

 

You tried the roller version of the controls (not the disc default)? I wanted the roller version to be the default, but alas was overruled. Change it under Settings.

 

Accelerometer controls for Asteroids are completely unusable, IMHO. We tried, where the ship would face the direction you tilted the phone.

 

Yeah... I don't like the roller either. I suppose the only good thing about it is now I actually "own" the ROMs, I suppose, and thus using in a different emulator might not be illegal.

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Accelerometer controls for Asteroids are completely unusable, IMHO. We tried, where the ship would face the direction you tilted the phone.

 

Did you try tilt for rotate and thrust, not pointing where you tilt...

 

Yes. The problem is that the rotate buttons are digital: on or off. Tilt is an analogue control. So you tilt, but you're not sure how much, until suddenly it starts responding (goes "on"). Then you're not quite sure how much to tilt back to stop the motion, so you end up overcompensating.

 

When it comes down to it, tilt suffers from the same problems as touch screens in trying to reproduce button-like inputs: no feedback in a situation where you don't intuitively know where the threshold is. At least with a touch screen you can tell when you're touching it and when you're not.

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Just installed it on my iPad - very nice!  I have fling and it worked well in the joystick VCS games.  Hmm, Tapatalk's photo upload is ghosted on AtariAge :( I'll upload a photo of it in action tomorrow. 

 

It looked like it would work well with the disc setting in Asteroids and other arcade games, but the disc is a tad too large to work with the fling as it's very difficult to get thrust to trigger. It'd be really slick if a future update added a "fling" control option that uses the same disc control, but with a slightly smaller radius for the threshold for triggering thrust.

 

I liked the portrait mode for Warlords, though the colors for the dragon and fireballs are incorrect - they should be red and yellow.

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As promised, here's an action shot. I turned on some extra lights as the camera flash glared out the display.

post-3056-0-53639200-1302794415_thumb.jpg

 

However, the extra light made the fling stand out more than it really does. Without the extra light it blends into the display like this:

post-3056-0-70620000-1302794419_thumb.jpg

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I liked the portrait mode for Warlords, though the colors for the dragon and fireballs are incorrect - they should be red and yellow.

 

The fireball is red and yellow only in the cocktail variation. The upright variation of the game is actually black and white with cellophane over the screen to give it the colour. To see it red and yellow, go into Settings and set the Cabinet option to Cocktail.

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Using a jailbroken iPod touch I was able to replace roms. I replaced bowling with my favorite Demon Attack, and while it plays the VCS toggles stay on screen blocking the virtual joystick. Hoping there is a way to fix it...

 

You replaced Bowling??? That's one of my favorite crap games. (Yeah, it's crap, but it has nostalgic value... it was one of the games I got on the day I got my Atari.)

 

Couldn't you have replaced something like Video Chess or Star Ship? Oh the humanity!

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My daughter got a kick out of Bowling..."Really realistic Dad..."

Anyways I replaced Basic Math and Demon Attack seems to work ok. I think it may have something to do with the number of games on each cartridge.

 

Using a jailbroken iPod touch I was able to replace roms. I replaced bowling with my favorite Demon Attack, and while it plays the VCS toggles stay on screen blocking the virtual joystick. Hoping there is a way to fix it...

 

You replaced Bowling??? That's one of my favorite crap games. (Yeah, it's crap, but it has nostalgic value... it was one of the games I got on the day I got my Atari.)

 

Couldn't you have replaced something like Video Chess or Star Ship? Oh the humanity!

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I'm happy to report that I just triggered the HSWWSH Easter egg.

 

Heh....I was trying to do that all morning yesterday; glad it can be done. :)

 

I gave it a 3-star review....mainly because of the playability. Specifically, I don't like that if you don't use the D-pad option, you're forced to use a left-handed controller. When these games came out first, they were all right-handed, and that's how I learned 'em, and that's how I've been playing video games ever since. (And undoubtedly this is why I always sucked at the arcade versions of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye -- I couldn't get used to the left-handed controls!) Hopefully an update will offer a right-handed option. Crystal Castles (arcade, at least) was especially tough with this...and pretty unresponsive to the fire button, too...

 

I was also disappointed by the non-inclusion of Food Fight!...

 

But overall, though, it is a neat little thing....and yeah, $15 for almost 100 games is NOT an unreasonable price.

 

But my REAL dilemma: I have two directories on my iPhone for games -- one simply labeled "Games," and another labeled "Arcade," where I have things like Pac-Man, Dig Dug, etc. Where should I put Atari's Greatest Hits???

 

BTW -- I'm actually happy that some of the more questionable ones -- like Math Gran Prix -- are included.....because I never owned them, so now I can check 'em out. :) (Yeah, I know, the ROMs are there for emulation, but still....)

 

 

I definitely agree that the 2600 games need right-handed controls. And that goes for the paddle games as well as the joystick games. It just doesn't feel right.

 

One game I've been meaning to ask about, i.e. where is it??? is Solaris. I wondered if maybe Atari didn't own the rights to it anymore (since the original game said copyright Doug Neubauer), but didn't he do Radar Lock (which was essentially a hack of Solaris, and is included) too?

 

I've long believed that Solaris was the highest quality game Atari ever released for the 2600, and it would be nice to see it included here. I'm also realizing how many of the great Atari 2600 games were licensed arcade titles. I knew most of the early ones like Space Invaders and Pac-Man wouldn't be included... but for some reason I have a mental disconnect when you get to the silver label era. I knew most of those games were licensed arcade adaptations but it's easy (for me) to forget that Atari didn't own the rights to games like Dig Dug, Moon Patrol, Galaxian, Phoenix, etc. In other words, most of the games I actually enjoyed playing on the Atari 2600 as a kid.

 

Sky Diver? Human Cannonball? Slot Machine? Star Ship? Night Driver? Rubbish. I don't think I ever even saw a lot of those pre-1982 games for sale, and no one I knew owned any of them. I'm not complaining that they're in there. I'd be disappointed if they weren't. It's just... hmm. Due to licensing issues, we're left with a not-very-flattering portrait of the original Atari 2600 experience.

 

I'd be happy if Activision would finally release an iOS collection of their Atari 2600 games. Maybe if Atari's Greatest Hits has success they'll consider it. I still remember my excitement about the Activision Anthology for Game Boy Advance a few years ago, and that was nowhere near what's possible with iOS.

 

What is the deal with Solaris? Does Atari not have the rights to it? It was also left off the Flashback 2 and off the PC/X-Box/PS2 Collections. Strangely enough, Radar Lock is sometimes included in Atari compilations. Does anyone know about Solaris' copyright/ownership?

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I wonder if Missle Command will be offered as a free download. Still hoping for an update to address some of the control issues. I can say I've gotten quite comfortable with the Tempest controls and really enjoy being able to play this on my iPod touch. :)

 

Check your updates. It's now the free game and Pong is now longer free. It's included with the current version, which was updated (some of the control issues still need to be addressed.

 

Some suggestions:

-Missile Command is fine with finger controls and visible buttons. Button orientation should be an option. Track ball doesn't need to be visible, but the trackbll needs to be more responsive.

-sensitivity settings should be an option

-horizontally oriented games should allow horizontal orientation and vertical games should have an option for vertical orientation. Too many games like Q*Bert are stuck in horizontal mode with too small of a screen when the joystick isn't needed and swipe controls work best.

-games should have as much screen as possible while keeping the controls intact. Controls need to work, but they don't need to take up half the screen.

 

I'm also curious about Solaris. It was in FB1, but it keeps getting omitted from collections, despite Radar Lock and Star Raiders making it in.

 

I have no problem with the early 70s being included, especilly since some like Sky Diver, Combat, Circus Atari, the Breakouts, Air Sea Battle, and Canyon Bomber are quite fun, but, aside from those that can't be emulated like Tank, is there a special reason why many of the arcade versions of Atari's 70s arcade games like Canyon Bomber, Video Pinball, and Ultra Tank aren't included? Some of these are quite fun, and it's disappointing not to see closer versions of the games that can be emulated.

Edited by BrianC
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