_The Doctor__ Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 (edited) here is a general walk through with pictures and addendems, characters can be observed and their respective colors as some points. https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Xenophobe I got tired on 8 bit version at about 9 million or so points... I will have to play through again I guess. Edited November 18, 2018 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 18, 2018 Author Share Posted November 18, 2018 (edited) here is a general walk through with pictures and addendems, characters can be observed and their respective colors as some points. https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Xenophobe I got tired on 8 bit version at about 9 million or so points... I will have to play through again I guess. You misunderstand me Doc. I'm not talking about the arcade version; I'm just interested in what the sprites need to contend with in the Atari version. I know about the Strategywiki already... Edited November 18, 2018 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supergun Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 Video61 owns nothing but a prototype cartridge. Pretty much, yes. Nothing would be enforceable here anyhow. And even if it was, it wouldnt be worth the financial cost. But if anyone here thinks that this rom is still unavailable on the internet & hasnt been shareware for many years now, then not only are you living in a fantasy world, but you also really dont know how to search the internet. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 18, 2018 Author Share Posted November 18, 2018 But if anyone here thinks that this rom is still unavailable on the internet & hasnt been shareware for many years now, then not only are you living in a fantasy world, but you also really dont know how to search the internet. Nobody made any claims about it being unavailable; and nobody is trying to publicize the contrary either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 as I stated playing the 8 bit version- not the arcade.... I wanted to make sure you saw the wiki since you said you might change the room colors at one point, though changing the characters I still like them vivid and bright like the arcade of course I can't truly judge till I see the hack in the flesh so to speak... You have some flexibility, very interesting to see what you come up with. It just gets tougher as you get past the low hanging fruit and move into the tougher stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 In truth, nobody has any rights to distribute the ROM, besides those whose names are on the copyrights, including Video61. So, any agreement between them is fantasy, and has nothing to do with any kind of court-presentable legality. Everything the community is doing is out of respect for Fandal putting up the money to save it from rotting in some collectors glass case; and everything Fandal is doing in regards to their agreement is so that he'll continue to get money from Video61. The owner of the IP is WB Games since they are the current owners of all Williams/Midway and Atari Games IP. Source code is a different story of course. One could hack it further and call it Not Xenophobe and try to float it as a video game parody much like a lot of the adult video companies are doing with television and motion-picture IP, much to the chagrin of the Hollywood studios. Now when push comes to shove, Warner probably wouldn't want to touch this with a 10' pole because Xenophobe's monster design would run afoul of the Alien Xenomorph design which was owned by 20th Century Fox - and credited to H.R. Giger which probably included some sort of financial compensation -which is now owned by those IP-loving folks at the Walt Disney Company. Fandal does deserve compensation from the community. Now, with that all having been said, assuming the source code is available, how many think it possible to mod it further to support 3 players like the arcade original? Does anyone think that would push the CPU and/or the ANTIC/GTIA to their limits? Obviously, the size of the existing split-screen graphics would have to be reduced in size further. And a 3-player scheme would have to incorporate the keyboard as a controller stand-in, or support the MultiJoys or run on a 400/800 [if possible] for a 3rd joystick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 18, 2018 Share Posted November 18, 2018 (edited) Fandal deserves to be made whole... that is a given. Two Player split screen is perfect adding a third will not be pleasant (visually as well). Complete joystick base keyboard is doable and/or a joy-net for up to 3 players in same game. (getting 3 players in the same room could be evil flicker mess or worse) A great hack would be to let us play as a choice from all the characters or at least a few more... Edited November 18, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 18, 2018 Author Share Posted November 18, 2018 (edited) A great hack would be to let us play as a choice from all the characters or at least a few more... That's feasible. If nothing else, some alt character versions could be created. The nice thing about it is that they're all almost identical; so it normally just amounts to changing their head and colors. Edited November 18, 2018 by MrFish 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 18, 2018 Author Share Posted November 18, 2018 BTW, the 2 characters available in the game ATM are: "Mr. M. Brace" (obviously) and "Mr. Eeez". 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 18, 2018 Author Share Posted November 18, 2018 (edited) At least we have the option for 2 characters in the game. Apparently, the 7800 just uses the same character with a different shirt. BTW, I was looking at hacking the 7800 ROM to get the arcade font in there, but I think it's using the on-board system ROM for displaying the character set (if the 7800, in fact, has that -- not completely sure). Either that or the 7800 stores hi-res fonts in some odd format that I'm not familiar with; at least I wasn't able to locate it in the game ROM on a couple of quick searches. Maybe I'll check out the forums on hacking 7800 ROM's and see what I might be missing. Edited November 18, 2018 by MrFish 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted November 19, 2018 Share Posted November 19, 2018 (edited) Fandal deserves to be made whole... that is a given. Two Player split screen is perfect adding a third will not be pleasant (visually as well). Complete joystick base keyboard is doable and/or a joy-net for up to 3 players in same game. (getting 3 players in the same room could be evil flicker mess or worse) A great hack would be to let us play as a choice from all the characters or at least a few more... Your suggestion for a "great hack" is definitely a good idea. The unthinkable hack - which wouldn't be easy at all - would be to display a single screen for all of the action on a single screen. Then you could have all of the graphics detail without the flickering. It would be more like the Lynx version than the arcade original. And then one would have more overhead available for controller options, whether to support 2 joysticks plus keyboard, 3 joysticks on a 400/800 or via MultiJoy, or throw in networking like A8 MIDI Maze... Lots of work... The A8 version could use some spicing up on the graphics; actually, the same could be said for the 7800 version. The NES version is pretty ugly too. The C64 version isn't exactly pretty but I hate to say it's slightly better looking. The sound is better too but the A8 POKEY audio work seemed to be an afterthought. Edited November 19, 2018 by Lynxpro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 19, 2018 Author Share Posted November 19, 2018 The A8 version could use some spicing up on the graphics; actually, the same could be said for the 7800 version. The NES version is pretty ugly too. The C64 version isn't exactly pretty but I hate to say it's slightly better looking. The sound is better too but the A8 POKEY audio work seemed to be an afterthought. Funny, I didn't even know there was a C64 version of Xenophobe. I'd definitely put the NES on bottom of the list of systems you named here, but the C64 version?? Haha... you have to be joking?? All graphic and sprite work are sub-par at best and hideous at worst. That title screen is laughable; the chick on the title screen looks like Alice the Goon from Popeye. Seriously, about the only thing the C64 version has going for it is all the hi-res text (if you're trying to copy the arcade); but I honestly find all that text on screen annoying, even in the arcade; it's more of a distraction. I could pick out at least a dozen other things to critisize on the C64 version too. The graphic/sprite work on the Atari versions is excellent throughout, and I prefer it's economical screen layout. The only downside for the Atari 8-bit version is the monochrome-ish sprites (aside from the protagonists, which have their own colors). There's not much that can be done about that. All the P/M's are needed for the characters. It might be possible to add a few more color changes to the upper and lower parts of the landscape with DLI's (there's already one for the floor). But the central portion is about as good as it will be, for using large bitmapped softsprites. I'd doubt using character mode -- which would give one more playfield color -- is feasible, in terms of performance and all the preshifting that would eat up gobs of memory (a giant cart would be needed). Keep in mind too, the Atari 8-bit version is a Prototype; a nearly complete prototype, but none the less. So, we don't know what all finishing touches may have been added in completing it. I'll have to try out the C64 version and see how it feels (only watched videos so far)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted November 19, 2018 Share Posted November 19, 2018 Funny, I didn't even know there was a C64 version of Xenophobe. I'd definitely put the NES on bottom of the list of systems you named here, but the C64 version?? Haha... you have to be joking?? All graphic and sprite work are sub-par at best and hideous at worst. That title screen is laughable; the chick on the title screen looks like Alice the Goon from Popeye. Seriously, about the only thing the C64 version has going for it is all the hi-res text (if you're trying to copy the arcade); but I honestly find all that text on screen annoying, even in the arcade; it's more of a distraction. I could pick out at least a dozen other things to critisize on the C64 version too. The graphic/sprite work on the Atari versions is excellent throughout, and I prefer it's economical screen layout. The only downside for the Atari 8-bit version is the monochrome-ish sprites (aside from the protagonists, which have their own colors). There's not much that can be done about that. All the P/M's are needed for the characters. It might be possible to add a few more color changes to the upper and lower parts of the landscape with DLI's (there's already one for the floor). But the central portion is about as good as it will be, for using large bitmapped softsprites. I'd doubt using character mode -- which would give one more playfield color -- is feasible, in terms of performance and all the preshifting that would eat up gobs of memory (a giant cart would be needed). Keep in mind too, the Atari 8-bit version is a Prototype; a nearly complete prototype, but none the less. So, we don't know what all finishing touches may have been added in completing it. I'll have to try out the C64 version and see how it feels (only watched videos so far)... The A8 version may be a prototype but it looks similar to the 7800 version. Both are very "economical" in the graphics department. The C64 version had better graphics in terms of the background visuals in the ship. The characters are slightly more detailed as well. The audio is also better, and I'm not saying that's due to the SID because it's not. The audio is just more polished. A lot of the XEGS titles had their POKEY audio capabilities short-changed. I'm looking at you, Desert Falcon, Food Fight, and Dark Chambers... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 19, 2018 Share Posted November 19, 2018 (edited) Just played one of the ugliest, crappiest versions ever of Xenophobe on the C64, all I can say is, how... why... wtf... terrible... just terrible... annoying and terrible. the characters are well aweful... the music after a short minute... just mute it... the rooms... all the same practically... no color diferences... did I mention the unrecognizable terrible muddy players? weird cartoon sqashed monsters... the typical billboard at the top (that also looks like sh*te) to limit the screen window so it has a chance to play at a reasonable speed but still sucks on the c64... this just is not at all what I expected.... oh my... I wasted 5 minutes loading this and abused myself for 10 minutes hoping level changes would surprise me... nope same crap again.. Mr. Fish has hit the mark on his observations... lets just concentrate on fixing up the Atari 8 bit version using nothing from Commodore version... it's that bad, I am afraid to tell you to try it for yourself as you are liable to gut punch me for it when you see me in public. I say sticking with the arcade as reference and not dulling the colors or characters in any way because omg that will remind me of what I just endured... I am so glad we have the 8 bit Atari version. here .... watch a hot mess, only if you promise NOT to hurt me for it... expand it to full screen and you will see just how terrible terrible can be even using a little extra help to make it play and look better... Edited November 19, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 19, 2018 Author Share Posted November 19, 2018 The A8 version may be a prototype but it looks similar to the 7800 version. Both are very "economical" in the graphics department. The C64 version had better graphics in terms of the background visuals in the ship. The characters are slightly more detailed as well. The audio is also better, and I'm not saying that's due to the SID because it's not. The audio is just more polished. A lot of the XEGS titles had their POKEY audio capabilities short-changed. I'm looking at you, Desert Falcon, Food Fight, and Dark Chambers... I actually had a play with it last night, after I typed my message and before I saw any of these replies (didn't see them till this morning), and (after I finally got the game loaded) my opinion of it is a little higher now. The gameplay is actually pretty decent. The C64 version has some details in it too, which aren't in the Atari versions; for instance, you can shoot at an angle and some of the other graphics are in there, like the tentacle in the floor and the robot that brings out another weapon (although they left out what was actually funny about it in the arcade, where it rolls out and then just spits the weapon out on the floor; on the C64 the weapon just appears on the floor). I also think they did a fairly polished job on the backgrounds, with the shading; but I think the Atari versions have much more interesting backgrounds, with more items against the walls, etc. and all nicely rendered. I wouldn't say the characters are more detailed in the C64 version at all. In fact in almost all cases I'd say the Atari characters are more detailed, larger, and definitely more accurately designed. I could do a side by side comparison, but I'm really not interested in getting sidetracked about a version that I find pretty unappealing to begin with. Everyone can just judge for themselves. I do like some of the sounds in the C64 version; but I wouldn't say they're better, just different. I like a lot of the POKEY sounds, like the electric gun and explosions. POKEY has some great distortions (TIA does too, but it often falls down when it comes to music). The C64 version seems to hype itself up, with the unneeded music not found in the arcade version (doesn't even play the arcade theme) and flashing colors; but I don't get hyped up about hype. It's got some merits, but I'd play either Atari version over it any day of the week. Just played one of the ugliest, crappiest versions ever of Xenophobe on the C64, all I can say is, how... why... wtf... terrible... just terrible... annoying and terrible. the characters are well aweful... the music after a short minute... just mute it... the rooms... all the same practically... no color diferences... did I mention the unrecognizable terrible muddy players? weird cartoon sqashed monsters... the typical billboard at the top (that also looks like sh*te) to limit the screen window so it has a chance to play at a reasonable speed but still sucks on the c64... this just is not at all what I expected.... oh my... I wasted 5 minutes loading this and abused myself for 10 minutes hoping level changes would surprise me... nope same crap again.. Mr. Fish has hit the mark on his observations... lets just concentrate on fixing up the Atari 8 bit version using nothing from Commodore version... it's that bad, I am afraid to tell you to try it for yourself as you are liable to gut punch me for it when you see me in public. I say sticking with the arcade as reference and not dulling the colors or characters in any way because omg that will remind me of what I just endured... I am so glad we have the 8 bit Atari version. Haha... I think you're exaggerating a bit; but, yeah, I'm not too impressed, to say the least. The C64 could have done a lot better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 19, 2018 Share Posted November 19, 2018 Yes in all honesty the outcropping from the floor was about the only thing worth taking from the C=... but it might have been coming along in our proto... we just don't know... I can't get over how dull it was and the billboard so ugly in my face the whole time(wish that wasn't there at all.....the character are so disfigured, and the enemies so oddly squished. Why!!!!! at least my over the top posting above kept you from wanting to hurt me for watching or playing phew!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted November 19, 2018 Share Posted November 19, 2018 (edited) In the video, does it sit on that title screen so long because the game is still loading? If that's C64 disk, I'd just as soon load it off of Atari cassette! Whom ever made the video really should have edited the load screen time...wow, what a waste of time, yes the game is bad as you say Doc, but just waiting 7 1/2 minutes for the game to load through all the screens just to see one minute of actual game play, though that was MORE than enough, I just wish I'd skipped to 8:00 on the video timer... I'm glad I still have the patience to wait for cassette games to load with my 1010, it's good preparation for when for when I finally get a C64 and 1541 drive...I knew they were slower than even the 810, but I had no idea C64 disk drives were competing with Atari tape drives for slowest loading times! But I agree, everything is better on the A8 prototype version, even the monochromatic backgrounds are better than the ugly, muddy C64 colors used in this game (not that there is a lot to choose from in the first place) Is that the C64's graphics chip and color palette, or is it just poor chroma output on C64's that can be corrected like poor chroma/video out on some Atari computers? I pray fro the latter, or I may change my mind about getting a Commodore again. (I just don't remember such poor colors when I owned a C64 for a minute a decade and a half ago...but maybe it's because I was used to washed out colors on my stock Atari and have just gotten spoiled with near VGA quality color now. Edited November 19, 2018 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted November 21, 2018 Share Posted November 21, 2018 I tried to play the Commodore 64 version and found it very unplayable and annoying. The Atari version is so much more playable and enjoyable! That is my opinion. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 (edited) I never got around to posting a patch for the latest changes, so here it is. Changes so far: 1. New Hi and Low res fonts 2. Misaligned title-screen P/M fix 3. New character colors Usage instructions for the patch: 01. Get some decent hex editor, like HxD. 02. Make a copy of your ROM file. 03. Open the ROM file in your hex editor. 04. Extract the patch file from the ZIP archive (in the post above). 05. Open the extracted patch file in your hex editor. 06. Select the entire contents of the patch file using the "Select All" and "Copy" commands in your hex editor. 07. Go to viewing your ROM copy file in the hex editor. 08. Use the "Go To Offset" command and enter "011CDF". 09. From the current spot of the cursor, use the "Paste Write" command, to paste what was copied from the patch file into your ROM. 10. Save the changes. Xenophobe Patch 0.2.zip --------------------------------- A little bit of info that some might not be aware of: you don't need to have the first player active in order to use the second player. You can start a game with the second player alone. This means that even though we have no "player select" option per se, the second joystick can make it so. Edited April 20, 2019 by MrFish 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 20, 2019 Share Posted April 20, 2019 (edited) can you copy paste the instruction you gave into a text/ascii file and re zip the patch with them included? that way it's all together forever and can be viewed on a real Atari as well as notepad or what ever on an x86 wintel/lintel machine Edited April 20, 2019 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 (edited) you didn't link your attachment properly.... You probably clicked when I was editing my post. I had the wrong version number on the file when I posted it the first time. So, I updated it quickly, but not quick enough for "_The Doctor__". Edited April 20, 2019 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 20, 2019 Share Posted April 20, 2019 my interweb tubes are all connected now... much faster, re read my post though... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted April 20, 2019 Author Share Posted April 20, 2019 (edited) my interweb tubes are all connected now... much faster, re read my post though... can you copy paste the instruction you gave into a text/ascii file and re zip the patch with them included? that way it's all together forever and can be viewed on a real Atari as well as notepad or what ever on an x86 wintel/lintel machine I'm eating an omelet sandwich right now... Edited April 20, 2019 by MrFish 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted April 21, 2019 Share Posted April 21, 2019 It is always nice when a patch or update is documented. There should always be a README.TXT in the ARC or ZIP of the patch distribution file. Without it leads to chaos in the future. It is our mission to prevent that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spspspsp Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 Nice hack. I liked it so much I put a socket on my cart and burned the hacked version to a new chip, which now lives inside my cart. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.thumb.png.ded02932a275f1b65822894720661bc4.png)
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.