Wanted: Feedback For Basketbrawl & Midnight Mutants

[nosweargamer]

I'm looking for feedback for the next episode of the Atari 7800 Game By Game Podcast (you can find it on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube or use this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/78gbg )

What are your memories and/or thoughts on Basketbrawl & Midnight Mutants on the 7800?

Also, how would you rate them? I use a system of 4 choices (From Best to Worst):

Hall of Fame Game (Top 5 game on the system out of the original, non homebrew games)

Solid Game

"Meh" Game

Trash Game (Bottom 5 game on the system)

These games will be covered on Episode 30

You can also e-mail text or audio to atari7800podcast@aol.com

Just keep it family friendly

You can also send feedback on any of the other officially released game or the system itself.

[toiletunes]

Basketbrawl: Meh or Solid. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing special either. You'd think a basketball fighter would be a bit more- something.

Midnight Mutants Solid. A nice enough run around and find things game, it could use more things to find and better animation. Heck, you have NO animation on the boss screens! WTF??

[Jinks]

Brawl solid - good enough of a 8 bit game

Mutants HOF - It is legendary there should be a part 2 and 3 actually today we should have the 15th version of it in high def on modern consoles all done by the orignal authors and same amount of drugs must be smoked through out the development cycle to keep it retro..

[DracIsBack]

Midnight Mutants - Hall Of Fame. One of my absolute faves on the system. Lots of depth, quirky humour, good use of the limited sound chip, boss characters. I think this was the last official game for the 7800 in North America and what a way to go out! Absolutely love it and play it every Halloween.

 

Basketbrawl - Solid. Controls a little stiff, the scrolling is a little weird, but I always found amusement in this goofy game. Graphics are great. Not a classic, but I really liked it, so that's solid to me.

Edited June 21, 2016 by DracIsBack

[+save2600]

Basketbrawl - meh+ to solid, what toiletunes said is how I feel about it. Might be the best sports game on the system, but that's not exactly a glowing endorsement. Should be more fun than it is, but it's not.

Midnight mutants - solid ...is a game that I want to like a lot more than I do, but something's missing. A must have for the system for sure, but wish it were a little deeper. Good enough game considering the system/original releases and the theme with Grampa bump it up a notch for uniqueness. Will have to give it another try someday and see if I still get bored lumbering around the screens killing bats. lol

[King Atari]

Basketbrawl: Solid. Had it once, later (stupidly) sold it. Not a bad game, I like the quirky concept.

 

Midnight Mutants: HOF, easily. I *love* MM, it's everything that, I feel, a 7800 game should be: a fairly big quest, engrossing plot, great atmosphere, good graphics and sound. The presence of Al "Grampa" Lewis just makes it all the better, and gives the proceedings a unique, quirky vibe. ("Quirky" seems to define many of the later 7800 titles, which I really, really like.) Honestly, even if it was the last US 7800 game, this to me is THE game for the console. Y'all can keep your NES Startropics, *I'm* gonna rescue Grampa from a Plasmic Pumpkin!

Edited June 21, 2016 by King Atari

[Inky]

The only thing that keeps Midnight Mutants from being Hall of Fame is the lack of a save or password feature. It's a great adventure style game that's hard as all get out, but really needs some way to store your game and come back to it.

Thinking about this game further, it seems to me that if the setting was transported back to the medival days of yore, it would be a sequel to 2600 Adventure. IMHO, it plays exactly like what an Adventure sequel should play like.

Edited June 21, 2016 by Inky

[Dauber]

Forgot to mention Midnight Mutants in my audio submission.

 

Midnight Mutants COULD BE a hall of fame game, IMHO, but it's got just too many faults, in particular the collision detection when you try to protect yourself against bats and other enemies. You have to be a trillion percent precise and *maybe* the game will decide that you just might have hit your target. And the game would have greatly benefited from some sort of save mechanism, like a battery backup or something -- heck, if you can have a little high score device that you can plug into a joystick port of a 7800 and have it save your high score (I own such a device), Shirley a similar device could be devised to save your game position.

 

But I'm going to rate Midnight Mutants a "meh." It has a lot potential, but to be quite honest, I hardly ever go back to it. I just don't have the patience to have to start fresh every time and re-fight the bats every time.

[DracIsBack]

But I'm going to rate Midnight Mutants a "meh."

 

Blasphemy! :-)

[thursday83]

Love both of these games, MM being HOF, BB being solid.

[gambler172]

Brawl is solid

MM absolutely top

[Trebor]

Basketbrawl = Hall Of Fame. Street basketball presented with a twist. Having available two-on-two, or one-on-one hoops action, head straight to playing, or set a series of options and tweak to your liking, in this highly competitive and challenging game. While having the option of playing cooperative or competitively with a second player is a part of all the choices available, the one player game dazzles too.

Well presented court environments rotate among three different settings, with large detailed sprites. Players move fluidly across the courts with smooth animation and responsive controls. Combining skill, dexterity, and a touch of luck, you race against the clock and your opponents in obtaining the highest score possible.

Respecting negatives of the game, the power-ups system is somewhat off balance at times. Infrequent, on occasion, it is fairly easy to accumulate too many or too few of them, resulting in a gapping distance in abilities among the players when that transpires. POKEY sound effects would be welcomed over the TIA ones that are present. Although not really needed, a POKEY background melody could have notched up the fun and enticement of this title even further.

Nevertheless, even for those who do not have an interest in basketball and typically do not take an interest in sports titles, this is still a fun game to play for the beginner or even the most expert of players. The referee flinging a knife indiscriminately onto the court is a great element in the game. Little touches, such as the background particulars, including spectators talking to each other, various window lights being on in buildings, and the details found on the cars stacked in the junkyard, really put the polish on this title. It keeps you coming back for more, whether alone or with a friend, and it is definitely one to own in your 7800 library.

Midnight Mutants = Hall Of Fame. Midnight Mutants answers in spades how well the 7800 can handle a 'larger scale' game. Containing subtle RPG elements, this action-adventure is fairly big, accompanying excellent graphics, well-rendered TIA sound, and a captivating storyline.

Highlights include some awesome huge boss battles:

Radioactive material exudes from the hideous and enormous mutant ram, formerly known as Simon Yager. By means of his telekinesis, the deadly material is thrown at you while the ram protects its one vulnerability, rocking back and forth in both displeasure and anger.

A monstrous, mutated, gigantic skull is all that remains of Damon Mohler attacking with eyeballs having blood vessels dangling behind, approaching with various velocities and trajectories. Their pace becomes even more difficult to determine and avoid as the skull is constantly changing its distance from you.

All that fits on the screen is the bust of the larger than life final boss, Dr. Evil. He moves in a hypnotic sway trance, forming Cthulhu-like creatures, often a dozen at a time, created from the doctor's mind. They exit via his ear canals and some, on occasion, even attack directly from the sides for a distant but focused attack.

Downside includes...Absolutely, it could have used POKEY sound to make this game shine further. A save game feature would assist quelling trepidation some could possibly have regarding being able to complete the game. One or two more boss battles would have also been nice to have seen included. Wandering around in the beginning of the game can get you killed quickly, you need to follow Grandpa's advice.

Nonetheless, extensive areas to explore and conquer, with numerous landscapes and scrolling backgrounds, promote a griping and engaging game. The isometric screen [i.E. Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters] perspective may provide an additional layer of challenge for some, including targeting; however, it also serves as a nice change from the typical top-down platformer and truly adds to this hall of fame title for the 7800.

Side note: Supplemental material for the game is here.

[SoulBlazer]

Basketbrawl: This feels like a earlier version of the NBA Jam/NFL Blitz games that would be popular in later years. It's a simple concept -- take basketball and add in a 'wild and rough', no holds bared and very few rules approach to it. Graphics are very good -- the characters are large and detailed, the colors work for a pleasing to the eye experience, and the detail on the background and on the objects such as the cracks in the pavement is very impressive. Not much music, but what's there sounds okay, and I like the sounds used in the game. The whole overall look and feel really captures the time period very well also with the punks and the rough clothing and the graffiti, and helps to sell the overall game as being a 'rough and tumble' game of basketball. Controls handle well and I enjoy all the options on the options screen. I like the fact there are powerups in the game but they don't seem to appear very often and it's hard to know what they do. However, with all the game options here it's easy for anyone to pick the game up and enjoy it, even if you don't like basketball, and I had a lot of fun with it. I also really like how there are different 'courts' you can play on. My main complaints are that as a basketball fan I don't like the ball physics used....you can make shots here you could never make in a real game and the shots don't 'feel' right at all, and sometimes it can be hard to get the ball to drop in even when it looks like a perfect shot. Some music during gameplay would have been nice also. All in all, this is a really fun 'alternative' sports game and it's one of the better titles on the system. Too bad it came out so late in the system's lifetime and hardly anyone saw it due to that. Rating: Solid

 

Midnight Mutants: Speaking of great games no one saw, we have the last game released in the 7800's lifetime in the US here. I've said before how I think one of the biggest weakness of the 7800 game library is too many older ports of computer games and not enough 'new' original games. Also Atari didn't seem to understand the types of games that were popular on the NES and SMS at the time -- platformers, action games, and RPG's. Either they didn't want to spend the money to make good original games, or they felt if they offered games of 'different' types they could draw in gamers. Sadly this approach didn't work and when great original games like Midnight Mutants DID finally come out it was too little, too late. The only RPG for this system (Well, really, it's a action RPG like Zelda but I'm sure no one called it that at the time!) I was really impressed when I first played this game via emulation several years ago. I would have loved this game had it come out at the time on the NES. There's so many things it did right -- a unique and interesting if goofy story, great graphics, fun gameplay, items to find and puzzles to solve, and hints and quips given to the player at the top of the screen. Also the fact that you have not just one but TWO 'health' meters -- a HP gauge and a blood purity gauge -- is a really neat concept and quite ahead of it's time. And bosses! There's actually boss fights in this game! My only complaints with the game is the lack of a password system to save your progress -- this is a LONG game to play in one sitting and makes playing it in emulation much easier due to save states -- the music is nice but gets old and grating on your ears after a while, the controls feel a bit 'loose' and the hit detection seems to be slanted a bit in the AI's favor. It's also a very TOUGH game. Still, this is a great game, very unique for the 7800 and in some ways way ahead of other games of it's type when it came out. To make room for this, I'm bumping Ace of Aces down to Solid status and putting in Midnight Mutants as my fifth and final Hall of Fame game. Rating: Hall of Fame

[Dauber]

Basketbrawl: This feels like a earlier version of the NBA Jam/NFL Blitz games that would be popular in later years.

 

IIRC, that's not far from the truth. More than likely, Bastketbrawl was a knock-off of the arcade game Arch-Rivals: A Basket-Brawl. If I'm not mistaken, the basketball engine used in Arch-Rivals was eventually recycled and further developed for NBA Jam.