20 replies to this topic

[gorfcadet]

Hope everyone is doing well! The awesome folks at Penguinet let me kick the tires on their new game and WOW! I cant wait to play more!

Footage capped on real hardware with the RetroTINK.

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

Looking good through the UAV! Excited to order this one once it is made available!

[chicgamer]

Really looking forward to this game. Too bad the 7800 didn't have something like this during its lifespan.

By the way, and I may have mentioned this before, but I love that you include your kids in your reviews. They're so damn cute!

Sent from my SM-J700P using Tapatalk

[RushJet1]

"We're going to Misery Land!!"

[TailChao]

Thanks a bunch for the thorough review!
 

"We're going to Misery Land!!"

This is the best thing.

[gorfcadet]

Thank you guys so much for letting me review your game! My students are in love with this btw! Were working on a group we play today and tomorrow.
This game is absolutely brilliant and I cant say enough good things about it! Everyone should own this!

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

It looks fantastic, but I do have one criticism on this...

 

I think you should have kept the video footage limited to what has been shown already since it appears you did show several other boss fights in this review. So kinda a spoiler in a way from what has been shown. At least..that is how it was for me.

[gorfcadet]

It looks fantastic, but I do have one criticism on this...
 
I think you should have kept the video footage limited to what has been shown already since it appears you did show several other boss fights in this review. So kinda a spoiler in a way from what has been shown. At least..that is how it was for me.

I hear ya CB, believe me, there is still a ton of stuff to see. My favorite boss, I didnt even show and the bosses in multiplayer are completely different. Ill keep that in mind going forward. The folks on the Steam version already have speed runs, but I did need to show enough to illustrate my points. Ill try to balance footage from the front end of the game going forward.

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

I guess that is a good point about the Steam version and you are right there are speed runs all over YT etc. But then I hadn't paid attention to any of that and I do pay attention to 7800 and other Atari related videos and reviews. I'm getting this game regardless LOL!

[cvga]

Great review! I'm super excited for this game and will be ordering as soon as it's available.

[phoenixdownita]

It appears the gfx for the game calls for artifacting (or at least analogue blending), any chance you can look at it via composite (or even RF) direct to TV and see how the vertical lines in many stages blend?

I am not sure you can do it justice with SVideo -> line doubler -> HDMI .... it may not be as bad as Tower Toppler in that dept but I think it does call for a CRT (or as CRT as you can get) quick look.

 

Let us know.

[gorfcadet]

It appears the gfx for the game calls for artifacting (or at least analogue blending), any chance you can look at it via composite (or even RF) direct to TV and see how the vertical lines in many stages blend?

I am not sure you can do it justice with SVideo -> line doubler -> HDMI .... it may not be as bad as Tower Toppler in that dept but I think it does call for a CRT (or as CRT as you can get) quick look.

 

Let us know.

 

We played on crt all day yesterday in the lab.  It looked great.  I'll take my phone and record some shakey cam footage off of the crt if I get a chance for you.  I can't do any direct recording that way unfortunately.  It did look stellar on the crt though.

[phoenixdownita]

 

We played on crt all day yesterday in the lab.  It looked great.  I'll take my phone and record some shakey cam footage off of the crt if I get a chance for you.  I can't do any direct recording that way unfortunately.  It did look stellar on the crt though.

If you have not done it already it will be educational for many to show how Tower Toppler plays on the SVideo-> doubler -> HDMI path vs direct composite to CRT TV .... just so we don't lose track of a lost art 

(I've seen a few reviewers being surprised by it, meaning they did not know what they were looking at and made incorrect remarks on the gfx).

 

NOTE: some HDTV on their composite path do show artifacting but the overall quality of the picture is not good compared to CRT

[Jinks]

Always rf always crt. Thr only way to play!!

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

If you have not done it already it will be educational for many to show how Tower Toppler plays on the SVideo-> doubler -> HDMI path vs direct composite to CRT TV .... just so we don't lose track of a lost art 

(I've seen a few reviewers being surprised by it, meaning they did not know what they were looking at and made incorrect remarks on the gfx).

 

NOTE: some HDTV on their composite path do show artifacting but the overall quality of the picture is not good compared to CRT

 

I actually did make this comparison over a year ago using s-video through an HDMI converter vs my PVM on composite. I would post them but I just noticed in looking over those old pics, that the color on my 7800 was off since the composite is very green tinted. I might have to redo that comparison again soon.

[gorfcadet]

Just put together a video walkthrough for the first three areas of the game.  My audio is a little out of sync, but I managed to resync the boss area sound in each of the three parts.  Not sure when I'll get to areas 4 and 5.  I'm getting into my busy season at work (yearbook deadlines and competition on top of standardized tests meh.)  But I'll monitor and adjust if the guide videos are popular.  

 

Maybe I can pester my brother to help me get through areas 4 and 5 over spring break.   I imagine it will be an all day project!    

 

I'll try to get part one uploaded this week.

[phoenixdownita]

Always rf always crt. Thr only way to play!!

I didn't mean it that way, just reported as a fact that a few games on the 7800 (and other consoles too) have to be seen on a CRT first to be appreciated in the gfx dept, as I said some HDTVs on their analog path do try their best with "better than nothing" results ... usually the problem is that the overall picture is very poor (it varies by TV so maybe modern HDTV sets are fixing it).

My gaming TV only gives me a blurry pic on my composite mod 7800, via SVideo it is much much much sharper but it desyncs every so often to the point of being annoying enough that I had to go through an SVideo-HDMI converter (they seem more lenient on the signal specs but the quality worse than my HDTV by itself plus no 240p while the TV seems to be handling it somewhat better than expected).

On the same TV a MD2 is literally unsightly over composite with extremely weird gfx errors all over the place, over SVideo it is instead gorgeous, YMMV.

 

EDIT: wrt Tower Toppler even the critic got it "wrong"

https://videogamecri...?e=88752#rev608

 

This

is not how it looks on composite/CRT, those black vertical lines all but disappear and a new solid color is displayed.

 

Once again Trebor's video to the rescue:

 

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

Anyone know if Tower Toppler is using different modes between the tower sections and the underwater sections? I'm asking because  on s-video the tower section do look as shown above due the lack of artifacting through the s-video connection. However, the underwater sections always look correct including the bottom of the tower at the end of the level as I recall. 

 

Now if you have a UAV installed in your 7800, then even on composite tower toppler isn't correct. For some reason, the UAV makes tower toppler look like a purple and orange mess through composite, but then looks like the s-video pic above through s-vid. The Magic knight s-video does a better job of the artifacting when you use an s-video to composite adapter off his board but then his boards are the same as the Saundby s-video mod with some different values being used for the resistors and removing the extra cap off the power +5. 

 

I really need to get the PVM set back up and have them both running at the same time for better comparison. 

[SmittyB]

I'm pretty sure the underwater section is using 160A.
Given that the extra colour effects are caused by the luma interfering with the chroma it could be the luma strength between boards differs or maybe the frequencies that are output are slightly offset from normal. Just a guess.

[gorfcadet]

Here is part one of my co-op playthrough.  Apologies in advance for the audio being out of sync.  I recorded this at work on an Elgato HD60 S model that I don't normally use.  Parts 4 and 5 will be back to my normal audio in-sync setup.  I do plan on redoing parts 1- 3 later to get better audio, but I wanted to get this up in time for the game to go on sale.

 

 

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

 

Apologies again to you guys and the kind folks at Penguinet.  I will be redoing this soon to get the audio lined up properly.  This is Atari 7800 footage on a UAV modded system (thanks to Crossbow) ran through a RetroTINK with the sound butchered by the Elgato

Edited by gorfcadet, Sun Feb 17, 2019 2:58 PM.

[VintageGamer74]

Awesome looking game! I'll have to get this for Windows since I don't have a 7800. Great review 👍!!!