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Atari pacman - flickering question


Tangentg

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Well most people enjoyed it tremendously when it came out but it's a matter of art preference.

 

"Enjoyed it tremendously" is an overstatement. There were certainly those that liked it for what it was, but overall people were disappointed with it when it was released. It sold 7 million copies not because it was a great game, but because it had the words "Pac-Man" on the cover (and because it later became the pack-in game).

 

As for the sequel, Atari 2600 Pac-Man didn't spawn a sequel (as your post sort of makes it sound), the arcade Pac-Man spawned a sequel which had nothing to do with the 2600. That sequel was then ported to the 2600 because it was a massive success and it would have been foolish not to. And it was much better. It was better because Atari learned from the mistakes they made with the first game, that quality arcade ports matter.

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Tod's pacman is awesome and my favorite port of Pacman, everyone loved it back in the day I think folks not liking it is really more of a modern phennomena and tied to modern hardware.

 

Casual players may not realize there is a palette switch on the console that will turn the background black, and the flicker was fine on CRT - with the phosphor it was just an element of the game like Wizard of Wor; turning on phosphor emulation in Stella can help give you a closer idea to what the flicker looked like on CRT.

 

Atari is comming out with a console watch and I read somewhere recently that it may play imitation Atari games designed to remind you of Atari games instead of real ones, sort of like the first Flashback model did; I hope they follow their initiative with the Flashback consoles to quickly switch to supporting real Atari games instead.

 

I want to play Tod Frye's pacman on my Atari wrist watch console, and all the other Atari 2600 pacman ports too but I'm not going to buy their wrist computer if it has a NOAC in it instead or just plays phone games :)

 

And I also want it to have controls like the Pacman watch I had in the 80's did (that was fun too) because that's the perfect interface for a watch sized Atari 2600 console.

 

 

Pac-Man on the 2600 being maligned is most certainly not a "modern phenomena". I've been gaming since the early 80's, so my first experience with the game has not been tainted by the shifting sands of time. Here is a vintage review from the same year the game released that I found posted elsewhere here in the AA forums:

 

The indented text below is from Video Games Magazine (August, 1982)

 

Anyone who buys Pac-Man because they love the arcade game with the same name may wind up disappointed. Other than retaining the basic game concept, it bears few similarities to the "real" Pac-Man. There are dashes instead of dots and "power pills" rather than "energy capsules." A square-shaped "vitamin"—no fruits or keys—serves as a bonus. There is no music.

 

Pac-Man himself doesn't look well. He's a bit square and seems to be lacking in the motor skills one might expect of him. He just doesn't zip around those corners in the maze like you're used to.

 

(Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde?), they're all shadows of their former selves (no pun intended). They flicker and fade and it's really hard to tell when they've changed colors, much less see them at all. At least once a game l lose a life because I think they're still blue. Oh well.

 

There are eight game variations, only two of which ("fast" Pac-Man with either ghosts "jogging" or "running" after him) could challenge even novices. The exits on the top and bottom, at times, seem involuntary; on several occasions, as I passed by one, I was sucked in and spat out the other side. When the maze is completed, another one immediately—like, in half a second—replaces it. Plus there's no show.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/232660-pac-man-review-from-1982/

 

Just last year, Warner Bros proved that just having the names Batman and Superman in the same movie title guarantees $800 million box office even if the movie is edited together like hot garbage, so sales are not always a measure of how well something was received if the majority of said sales were derived by name alone.

Edited by Downland1983
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Well most people enjoyed it tremendously when it came out but it's a matter of art preference. You played it bitd when it had a positive marketing image, today before people even play the game their perspective is influenced because it gets categorized as a market crasher. It sold 7 million copies and a sequel that was even better.

There were certainly people who liked it and played the hell out of it. Plus I'm sure some people who never played the arcade would see it as the definitive version.

 

But there were also a lot of people, like me, majorly disappointed in it at the time and felt that it wasn't really Pacman.

 

I mean, if people thought it was good back then, why would Atari have run a commercial like this, using 2600 pacman to make Colecovision look bad vs 5200?

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I mean, if people thought it was good back then, why would Atari have run a commercial like this, using 2600 pacman to make Colecovision look bad vs 5200?

 

I'd completely forgotten that commercial. That's hilarious.

 

If anything, my opinion of Pac-Man has actually softened. It and Donkey Kong were the two 2600 ports I absolutely hated as kid, but as an adult collector years later, learning what went into creating them and why they're the way they are, I'm able to, if not enjoy them, at least accept them for what they are.

 

OK, I kind of enjoy Donkey Kong.

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I'd completely forgotten that commercial. That's hilarious.

The sheer balls it took to make that commercial is... astounding :P

 

If anything, my opinion of Pac-Man has actually softened. It and Donkey Kong were the two 2600 ports I absolutely hated as kid, but as an adult collector years later, learning what went into creating them and why they're the way they are, I'm able to, if not enjoy them, at least accept them for what they are.

 

OK, I kind of enjoy Donkey Kong.

Ya know.. I can't decide if Donkey Kong 2600 was a weak-ass port by Coleco done in order to make CV shine, or a reasonable port for the hardware by 1982 standards.

 

It does a few things well- one of the rare home ports with 6 platforms instead of 5, Mario actually looks like Mario-- although wearing PJs rather than his plumber uniform. But yet playing it feels like its missing its soul.

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Ya know.. I can't decide if Donkey Kong 2600 was a weak-ass port by Coleco done in order to make CV shine, or a reasonable port for the hardware by 1982 standards.

 

From hearing Garry Kitchen talk at PRGE a few years ago and some of the things I've read about it over the years, I lean towards the latter. It's possible that Coleco intentionally set programmers up to fail, giving them tight deadlines and limiting game size and hiring inexperienced coders (as I heard they did with their Intellivision ports), but I don't believe that anyone was told to make a bad game and those things were more likely done to cut costs and get games on shelves rather than some conspiracy to make the Colecovision look better.

 

If you look at Donkey Kong, it's actually kind of impressive for the hardware and the time. A detailed asymmetric screen. Lots of objects onscreen with no flicker. Two different game screens. The rivet screen is hurt by the fireballs not moving from level to level (which was done to eliminate flicker, but flickery fireballs would actually look fine), but the girder stage plays pretty well. I honestly believe that Garry Kitchen made the best game he could under the circumstances.

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"Enjoyed it tremendously" is an overstatement. There were certainly those that liked it for what it was, but overall people were disappointed with it when it was released. It sold 7 million copies not because it was a great game, but because it had the words "Pac-Man" on the cover (and because it later became the pack-in game).

 

As for the sequel, Atari 2600 Pac-Man didn't spawn a sequel (as your post sort of makes it sound), the arcade Pac-Man spawned a sequel which had nothing to do with the 2600. That sequel was then ported to the 2600 because it was a massive success and it would have been foolish not to. And it was much better. It was better because Atari learned from the mistakes they made with the first game, that quality arcade ports matter.

 

 

 

Pac-Man on the 2600 being maligned is most certainly not a "modern phenomena". I've been gaming since the early 80's, so my first experience with the game has not been tainted by the shifting sands of time. Here is a vintage review from the same year the game released that I found posted elsewhere here in the AA forums:

 

The indented text below is from Video Games Magazine (August, 1982)

 

Anyone who buys Pac-Man because they love the arcade game with the same name may wind up disappointed. Other than retaining the basic game concept, it bears few similarities to the "real" Pac-Man. There are dashes instead of dots and "power pills" rather than "energy capsules." A square-shaped "vitamin"—no fruits or keys—serves as a bonus. There is no music.

 

Pac-Man himself doesn't look well. He's a bit square and seems to be lacking in the motor skills one might expect of him. He just doesn't zip around those corners in the maze like you're used to.

 

(Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde?), they're all shadows of their former selves (no pun intended). They flicker and fade and it's really hard to tell when they've changed colors, much less see them at all. At least once a game l lose a life because I think they're still blue. Oh well.

 

There are eight game variations, only two of which ("fast" Pac-Man with either ghosts "jogging" or "running" after him) could challenge even novices. The exits on the top and bottom, at times, seem involuntary; on several occasions, as I passed by one, I was sucked in and spat out the other side. When the maze is completed, another one immediately—like, in half a second—replaces it. Plus there's no show.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/232660-pac-man-review-from-1982/

 

Just last year, Warner Bros proved that just having the names Batman and Superman in the same movie title guarantees $800 million box office even if the movie is edited together like hot garbage, so sales are not always a measure of how well something was received if the majority of said sales were derived by name alone.

 

 

There were certainly people who liked it and played the hell out of it. Plus I'm sure some people who never played the arcade would see it as the definitive version.

 

But there were also a lot of people, like me, majorly disappointed in it at the time and felt that it wasn't really Pacman.

 

I mean, if people thought it was good back then, why would Atari have run a commercial like this, using 2600 pacman to make Colecovision look bad vs 5200?

 

Those are all fair points but lots of kids loved the game for being pacman - the world had pacman fever at the time.

 

And I agree that no doubt, Warner wished they had given Tod 8k like he asked for when they saw how successful it was - with MS Pacman it was a no brainer to allocate multiple programmers, more time and double the ROM.

 

imo Pacman would have been even better If Tod had used 3 ghosts instead of 4 - there would have been no visible flicker and he could have used the extra resources from the 4th ghost for the opening tune (there were pacman variations in that timeframe that implemented only three ghosts to conserve resources - the watch, KC and I think the VIC-20 version were among them).

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I thought Pacman looked pretty poor but it played fine. i was never a huge fan of the arcade though so the maze differences didn't bother me.

 

It's just a pity they didn't let Frye spend more time on it and give him another 4k.

Edited by davyK
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I enjoyed Pac-Man for the 2600, but WISHED I had an Atari 400/800. Even though Ms Pac-Man was much better, I sold my 2600, Ms Pac, and all games, to get my first 5200.

 

I remember being shocked when I first saw Pac-Man. I had seen pre-order and catalog pictures. I knew the maze on the back of the box didn't look the same as the arcade.

Even though the monsters were all white on the box, they were tilted on the pre-release box?

 

Does anybody remember how the box/catalog drawing were always close, but not perfect? In my mind, I thought the tilted monsters were going to be animated like that.

post-13491-0-06167200-1493234214_thumb.png

 

I thought they would tilt like the picture I had seen. I didn't expect arcade-perfect; I expected give and take. This seemed better than the little LED-based handhelds.

The images were too small to tell if the monsters' eyes tracked their direction, so I couldn't wait for the release date to find out. Pac-Man didn't look AS blocky on the box as he did on the screen.

When I put the game in, I remember HOPING that the monsters' eyes tracked their direction. I was disappointed for a minute, but knew that was a possibility.

I think the extra blockiness, flicker, and HORRIBLE sounds shocked me the most. What was that sound? Is there more music? Are there intermissions? Why doesn't he face up? What is that dot missing from him? lol.

 

In the end, I think it was more take than give. lol. I played it a lot though. The all white, blocky, and flickery monsters bothered me, but not as much as it ruining the arcade history forever.

From that point on, non-arcade goers started calling them ghosts, and it ruined the history of Pac-Man forever. I think that upsets me most of all.

post-13491-0-75715500-1493234805_thumb.png

 

I started playing it with the volume low, with Pac-Man Fever playing over the stereo. lol.

 

 

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I kind of don't understand why people hate flickering so much especially on the homebrew forums where if a game causes an amount of flicker people either stop developing for the game (discussions about how Robotron and Qix would cause "too much flicker" and shouldn't therefore be developed, and how people urged people to play Juno First and Space Rocks with the phosphor settings even though the flickering was minimal). I grew up with Atari 2600 and nes games and flickering is a norm for me and my favourite nes game, 1943, has quite a bit of flickering but it seems like no one ever complains about the nes flickering but when it's Atari people complain lots (granted the 2600 does flicker more but they never bothered me other than in Wizard of Wor cause there it was a bit of headache)

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I kind of don't understand why people hate flickering so much especially on the homebrew forums where if a game causes an amount of flicker people either stop developing for the game (discussions about how Robotron and Qix would cause "too much flicker" and shouldn't therefore be developed, and how people urged people to play Juno First and Space Rocks with the phosphor settings even though the flickering was minimal). I grew up with Atari 2600 and nes games and flickering is a norm for me and my favourite nes game, 1943, has quite a bit of flickering but it seems like no one ever complains about the nes flickering but when it's Atari people complain lots (granted the 2600 does flicker more but they never bothered me other than in Wizard of Wor cause there it was a bit of headache)

The flickering doesn't bother me TOO much. The NES only really flickers in more extreme cases, where many sprites are on a horizontal line. The 2600 has 2 main sprites to reuse.

With that said, my guess is that it's like fluorescent lights. Some people get headaches from them. They don't really bother me. It might have something to do with how sensitive people are to such.

Extreme flicker can also make it difficult to track enemies.

 

I think it's easier for those of us who grew up with the 2600 to accept. We're like the parents that walked uphill, both ways, in the snow, to school! :)

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I kind of don't understand why people hate flickering so much especially on the homebrew forums where if a game causes an amount of flicker people either stop developing for the game (discussions about how Robotron and Qix would cause "too much flicker" and shouldn't therefore be developed, and

Different people have different tolerance levels. Small objects flickering at 30Hz I can deal with; but larger things like the maze in Lady Bug, the Space Rocks title in its menu, and even Asteroids from back in the day with everything flickering at 30 Hz, eventually get on my nerves. I don't have a problem with fluorescent lighting, so I imagine those games are even worse for people who can't tolerate that lighting.

 

how people urged people to play Juno First and Space Rocks with the phosphor settings even though the flickering was minimal

For me the flicker on modern computer screens comes across as worse than the flicker on an Atari hooked up to a CRT. As such I turn on phosphor mode. Likewise I find Asteroids unplayable in Stella if phosphor mode is turned off, while I can tolerate it for a while on the 2600.

 

I grew up with Atari 2600 and nes games and flickering is a norm for me and my favourite nes game, 1943, has quite a bit of flickering but it seems like no one ever complains about the nes flickering but when it's Atari people complain lots (granted the 2600 does flicker more but they never bothered me other than in Wizard of Wor cause there it was a bit of headache)

I grew up with the 2600 as well, though I'd already moved onto computers with my VIC-20 by the time Pac-Man was released. I played Wizard of War on my C= 64, not the 2600 (don't think we had the 2600 version back then).

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I kind of don't understand why people hate flickering so much especially on the homebrew forums where if a game causes an amount of flicker people either stop developing for the game (discussions about how Robotron and Qix would cause "too much flicker" and shouldn't therefore be developed, and how people urged people to play Juno First and Space Rocks with the phosphor settings even though the flickering was minimal). I grew up with Atari 2600 and nes games and flickering is a norm for me and my favourite nes game, 1943, has quite a bit of flickering but it seems like no one ever complains about the nes flickering but when it's Atari people complain lots (granted the 2600 does flicker more but they never bothered me other than in Wizard of Wor cause there it was a bit of headache)

 

I played a few rounds of PACMAN on CRT with a black background the other night and the flicker was quite pleasant in a darkened room, I like Wizard of Wor's flicker also but would not if the background were blue.

 

imo It's not always about the flicker, StarBlitz was initially sequenced entirely at 30 HZ but can run at 60 HZ too via the BW switch - it's designed to render better at 30 HZ though, particularly on CRT. Defender III and WARPDRIVE will only play at 60 HZ, but some players insist these games flicker at 30 HZ - flicker is largely perception.

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I actually understand the use of flicker on 2600. But what makes me mad is when I see this technique on 16-bit consoles like Genesis (Gunstar Heroes, Contra The Hardcorps 2 players modes to demonstrate). If 16-bit developers used the amount of effort of the 2600 guys.. there is no excuse for this.

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it seems like no one ever complains about the nes flickering

I do. It is considerably worse than Commodore 64. Even Super Mario Brothers flickers whereas Giana Sisters does not. NES is one othe the most flickering consoles ever released. It makes you think twice if such a design was even right in 1983 (Atari 7800 anyone?).

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  • 4 weeks later...

 

As per Tod's talk, the whole "prototype" story is bogus (4:30).

 

Like some of you, I was there at the talk. In fact, I'm the one (at 8:47) who prompted Tod to talk about his decision to implement the 2 player game because he and I had discussed it previously and I thought he should share it.

 

I had a chat with Tod a while back where he summarized his ghost logic for me so, and while I won't repeat it all here, he did say that there are factors which make it so the ghosts do not behave identically, saying "so there are 4 distinct 'personalities'.... and they each behave different enough to not be the same."

Edited by Big_Mo
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When I heard Tod speak at PRGE, this was something that he still sounded annoyed about. He said that Atari didn't allow a black playfield unless it was a space game, and he had no idea that the colors were so important to people, so he didn't fight about it.

 

He also said that at the time, he thought the 2-player experience was more important than perfect accuracy to the arcade, so he used more of the resources for that instead. (turns out maybe he was wrong)

Probably

 

I bought it the day it came out with my paper route money and was really disappointed. My 12 year old self understood the the flicker must have been due to Atari's technical limitations but the light blue background.. why..

I got it early. Found it at Sears before release day. Hated it the minute I played it and sold it to a teacher a week or two later.

 

 

 

 

The flickering doesn't bother me TOO much. The NES only really flickers in more extreme cases, where many sprites are on a horizontal line. The 2600 has 2 main sprites to reuse.

With that said, my guess is that it's like fluorescent lights. Some people get headaches from them. They don't really bother me. It might have something to do with how sensitive people are to such.

Extreme flicker can also make it difficult to track enemies.

 

I think it's easier for those of us who grew up with the 2600 to accept. We're like the parents that walked uphill, both ways, in the snow, to school! :)

I never liked the flicker. Only Adventure seemed to make it tolerable by slowing it down.

 

 

I don't notice Fluorescent lights at 60Hz, but at 50Hz, I don't even want to be in the room...

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

 

No way, that port was heartbreaking in 1982 when I first played it. I never enjoyed it

 

 

I'm with you... I remember when that version came out... the weird colors, stupid map with up tunnels, the non-turning pac-man, and the strange sound effects. I was so disappointed, not sure I played it after the first week. "Heartbroke" is a really accurate term to describe it.

 

Looking back, the short design time and limited cart size... I suppose it would just be okay for a regular "dot chomper" game... but I can't forgive it because it was marketed as a Pac-Man port... and that it was NOT.

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Tod's pacman is awesome and my favorite port of Pacman, everyone loved it back in the day I think folks not liking it is really more of a modern phennomena and tied to modern hardware.

 

Casual players may not realize there is a palette switch on the console that will turn the background black, and the flicker was fine on CRT - with the phosphor it was just an element of the game like Wizard of Wor; turning on phosphor emulation in Stella can help give you a closer idea to what the flicker looked like on CRT.

 

 

I was 7 when Pacman came out on the 2600. When my cousin fired it up on his 6 switch back in the day, I did not enjoy it at all. It was more of a pac man clone than an actual port. Happy to see home brew releases like Pac Man 8k.

Edited by New Horizon
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