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pocketmego

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Posts posted by pocketmego

  1. Posted

    How about TV shows in to 2600 games? (Someone start a new thread?)

     

    I'd like a Three's Company game. :D

     

    I can see it now...

     

    You play Jack and you have to hide your dates in various places in the apartment, while avoiding first the Ropers and then Mr. Furley, so they never figure out you're not gay.

     

    I envision an A-Team game for the Atari 2600, but it HAS to have a big Mr. T head that fires lazer beams from his eyes. :D

     

    -Ray

  2. Posted

    Remember the game patches u could get for getting high scores on some Atari 2600 games i wonder if those are still around if so anyone know where u could buy those online :?:

     

     

    These were given away for beating the defined high scores in games produced by Activision. I don't know about finding any On-Line. Although I argue that since none of those offers came with expiration dates, technically you could call Activision and demand a patch. :D

     

    I can easily beat that 40,000 High Score they put on Spider Fighter. :D

     

    On the Playstation Activision compilation you can instantly win the patchbes virtually. I've won like a dozen so far. They even put them in a case in your virtual room.

     

    -Ray

  5. Posted

    After much trial and tribulation I finally got a working Pitfall 2 yesterday!

     

    When I was growing up I never knew they had released Pitfall 2 on the Atari as I had already made the jump to commodore when it came out.

     

    I played PF2 like a mad man on my C64, though. So when I discovered the existence of the thing I wanted it, only to loose the few E-Bay auctions I've seen it on, buy it from a shop only to find it Bit rotted to nothing...

     

    Finally I found it at a shop yesterday and feared it wasn't working again. But, a little cart claeaning and it sinbgs like new.

     

    I love this game and in many ways I owe my possesion of it to you guys and your great reviews of it.

     

    Thanks

     

    -Ray

  6. Posted

    It certainly seems like Atari and DC should have turned out more than one game. I wonder if there was some conflict between the two Warner divisions.

     

     

    It is strange that so many DC characters never got games on Atari, DC comics were pretty big at the time. The lack of a 2600 Batman game boggles the mind. Even though he wasn't quite as big then as he would become in the late 80's/90's.

     

    A Superman the Movie game seems like it should have been a no-brainer, not that I don't love the Superman they did make.

     

    I'd love to have seen a Defender or Space Invaders shoot em Up using Green Lantern.

     

    -Ray

  7. Posted

    Plus, I always thought the 2600 version of Kong was wretched. So one based on the Jessica Lang movie where you have to controll a plane and shoot Kong off a building would have been an easy one for the 2600.

     

    -Ray

     

     

    That's a cool idea. Like a combination of Looping and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Kong can absorb x number of hits before he falls off the building And your plane is always moving, dodging stuff he throws at you and maybe trying not to crash into birds, other planes and the building

     

     

    Thanks. I've thought abput it for years and had I any programming knowledge it would have certainly been a game I'd do. I never could understand why no ever thought to do this as a game, it is really the only part of the Kong movie (original or otherwise) that lends itself to a game.

     

    -Ray

  8. Posted

    Of course I have to say some sorta Godzilla game

    War Games (even a port of the Coleco Vision game)

    The Road Warrior

    Buckaroo Banzai

    Cannonball Run

     

    Superman: The Movie

     

    I also second the Godzilla movie idea

     

    Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park

     

    Young Frankenstein

     

    The Pink Panther

     

    Plus, I always thought the 2600 version of Kong was wretched. So one based on the Jessica Lang movie where you have to controll a plane and shoot Kong off a building would have been an easy one for the 2600.

     

    -Ray

  9. Posted

    I read up on the 2600 Hulk and apparently it never saw the light of day. Apparently only a screen shot and little info exists for the thing.

     

    Any exisiting workable prototypes?

     

    Yet, despite its non-existence, I'm posistive I saw a commercial for that game when I was a kid. I distinctly recall it being one of those Atari adds where one kid explains the games concept to another.

     

    Does anyone else remember this?

     

     

    -Ray

  10. Posted

    I never could figure out how to play. You try to keep the bad guys from blowing something up right? I suppose this is a game that you need the manual for. Any I traded it away over 20 years ago.

     

    I was a bit confused as well, until I read the Atari Age re-print manual on the site. Then it made perfect sense. It also helps if you consider it as Superman prior to 1986, in which the rules were certainly different for the character than they are today.

     

    Basically you start the game as Clark and walk over in time to see the crooks and Luthor blow up the bridge. Then you need to catch all the crooks and Luthor and reasemble the bridge. Once you do all that you have to become Clark and ge tthe story to the Dailey planet.

     

    If any of Luthor's Kryptonite satelites nail you, you loose your power of flight and super strength. You can only recoup that power by finding and touching Lois Lane (kind of Freaudian actually).

     

    So, it looks a lot more complex than it is.

     

    -Ray

  11. Posted

    Paul Norman - Aztec Challenge and Forbidden Forest were both WAY ahead of their time and the guy has no clue he really was a genius.

    There's a nice story about Forbidden Forest in one of the latest issues of Retro Gamer Magazine. He wasn't a game player, he was a movie buff. Which is why he designed Forbidden Forest with such a cinematic style. I'd like to see that kind of approach to games done more often.

     

    I vote for Cosmi. I always appreciated them for throwing on a TI-99/4A version to a few of their multi-computer games like Aztec Challenge, Spider Invasion, and Slinky. I have to hand it to any company that would even attempt a Q*Bert clone like Slinky, programmed in TI BASIC. With their other games they moved on to Extended Basic, but Slinky was done for a base machine, which was a great technical feat.

     

    Can anyone please explain to me the lasting appeal of these two games? I bought the A8 version of Aztec Challenge (cassette) in '84, and was repeatedly frustrated by slow loading times (not to mention load errors), crappy graphics, and terrible gameplay (I recall the title character's tendency to "float" into course hazards). Compared with something like B.C.'s Quest for Tires, which I also bought at the same time, I thought it was a complete stinker. Am I missing something? :ponder:

     

    I never had any of those problems with the C64 versions. It may well havew been your machine and not necessarily the games.

     

    -Ray

  12. Posted

    Atari VCS Mario Bros has just enough arcade elements missing from it for me to not like it very much:

     

    -not allowed to stand on POW switch

    -fireballs (when present) act differently

    -no bouncing off each other/into enemies etc

    -no multiple creatures on a single level

    -no ice bonus coin phase

    -no icicles

    -other visual elements (different floors, creature animations, etc) that really have no bearing on gameplay

     

    I realize the VCS limitations couldnt allow for a decent arcade port, & the programmers probably did their best w/ what they had. People may like it FWIW, but to me a simplified version just dont cut it bc some missing elements are what make the game. I bought the NES version w/ no hesitation. Although it's also missing certain elements, it's close enough to satisfy me.

     

    Play through a few rounds of 2600 Donkey Kong and Mario Bros will look like the finest arcade port ever done for the 2600.

     

    -Ray

  13. Posted

    :D Not the best editing, but a fun version of "Axel F" makes up for it. Sometimes I think playing montages of old games like this would be better than sitting down with one game at a time. It's certainly more dynamic when there's lots of variety like that. I can't wait for the Atari take on Wario Ware, with lots of oldtime homages. It's called "Hot PXL" and hasn't gotten much press. also WTF: Work Time Fun should be neat, too.

     

    This is still my favorite, though: the

     

    Dude that was awesome!

     

    Here is a video for Hot Pxl.

     

     

     

     

    I had been hearing about it, but I never realized it was a Atari publishing it. If they pull this off it could be a HUGE hit. Plus, its coming out on the one portable system that best suits us retro-gamers.

     

    -Ray

  16. Posted · Edited by pocketmego

    Paul Norman - Aztec Challenge and Forbidden Forest were both WAY ahead of their time and the guy has no clue he really was a genius.

    There's a nice story about Forbidden Forest in one of the latest issues of Retro Gamer Magazine. He wasn't a game player, he was a movie buff. Which is why he designed Forbidden Forest with such a cinematic style. I'd like to see that kind of approach to games done more often.

     

    I vote for Cosmi. I always appreciated them for throwing on a TI-99/4A version to a few of their multi-computer games like Aztec Challenge, Spider Invasion, and Slinky. I have to hand it to any company that would even attempt a Q*Bert clone like Slinky, programmed in TI BASIC. With their other games they moved on to Extended Basic, but Slinky was done for a base machine, which was a great technical feat.

     

    yeah I read that article. Its what made me think of him. You have to admire a man so involved in his work he didn't even notice that his company got sold to someone else. LOL

     

    FF was the only game I ever owned on my VERY short lived C64 cassette player before making the transition to disc drive. That it still holds up so well even being one of the EARLY C64 games is just testiment to the man's brilliance.

     

     

    I also have to agree with the other poster about Micropose. They were great, its a shame the entirety of that company has become Civilization.

     

    -Ray

  17. Posted

    Actually the way I see it, since the advent of the USB flash drives, memory sticks / cards, and other media along those lines, I feel like there's great potential for using that kind of media in substitute for CD or DVDs. In fact if you look at the Nintendo DS (and all previous Nintendo handhelds), none of them have used disc-based media of any kind.

     

    Consider: Flash media (collectively, all the aforementioned devices) can store any type of file. This includes music, video, artwork, code, etc., just as a CD, DVD, or hard drive can. The sizes of flash media are growing by leaps and bounds (a 2GB memory stick or SD card is not all that uncommon anymore), and they're becoming much more affordable than ever before, far eclipsing the size of a single CD and approaching quite rapidly the sizes of DVDs. This means that cartridges (or in this case, flash media) are not limited by memory size or speed. Flash media provides fast to no load times, plus the ability to hold nearly as much, or equally as much, as a disc... ideal for gaming systems. Also, comparing physical size, flash media is much smaller than discs, and almost as thin. Another big plus.

     

    For these reasons, I propose that, as flash memory comes closer in size to DVDs, game companies may in the future abandon disc-based media in favor for flash media (albeit a proprietary "read-only" type media or at least limited in how things can be recorded to it, such as game saves). So in a sense, I see a return to cartridge based media, in some form, although the cartridges may not take the form as in times past. They'll simply be modified, proprietary flash media. In a way we have already seen this with the Nintendo DS. So it wouldn't surprise me to see later on the same flash media flow right on over into "at-home" game consoles as well.

     

     

    I totally agree with you and I can easily see the next evolution of the PSP going in this direction and possibly the PS3 if this Blue Ray thing explodes in Sony's face as I personally believe it might.

     

    We have made so many FAST leaps in computer storage devices in just the last few years that it is UNreal.

     

    -Ray

  18. Posted · Edited by pocketmego

    Thankfully, Cartoon Network has been playing Futurama lately. I liked the show when it originally aired, but could never catch it since it was on at a different day/time each week! Nowadays, my DVR records it for me.

     

    So, I recently updated the screen shots on my Atari on TV page. :D

     

    GREAT page Greg and glad I could be of some small help to you. But, I love the idea of what you did there and I personally agree that the mooninites are homages to Space invaders, nothing else really fits what theya re supposed to be.

     

    :)

     

     

    I also like seeing another Threes Company fan. I'll say it to the day I die, ONE OF THE BEST WRITTEN TV SITCOMS OF ALL TIME.

     

    I still recall Joyce Dewitt in one of those NBC Saturday Morning preview shows when they tell her Space Ace is joining the Supercade line-up. She says, "I've played that game!"

     

    But, even as a kid it sounded so forced and fake, you could so tell she had NO clue what Space Ace even was.

     

    :D

     

    -Ray

  19. Posted

    ok..clicked the link. Just wondering are you posting that to discuss it again, or do you think there are some resident atari freaks here who haven't seen it yet over the past 3 years :P

     

    Aparently, from what I've gathered, you people that have been posting here for the last 150 years think that everyone that posts here needs to apologize everytime they post something, in case it was already discussed.

     

    Actually that's kind of the wrong take on it... It has less to do with Atariage posts, and more to do with Futurama being such a popular show amongst our demographic :lol:

     

    Here I got a vid for you. :D

     

     

    Sorry for being so snippy with you NE, I was having a bit of a bad day.

     

    -Ray

  20. Posted

    I haven't played Superman on the 2600 in YEARS. So I had forgotten that it is the only Superman game EVER to actually make the character invulnerable.

     

    Sure he could loose his strength and powers by way of Kryptonite. But, he still couldn't be killed and that is very cool. So many games that would feature the character later just treated him like an average video game character.

     

    I also like the fact that game FEELS very much like a 70's Julie Schwartz Superman story. None of the nonsense associated with the character these days.

     

    -Ray

  21. Posted

    The only problem I have with the Coleco Vision is that it has fantastic graphics, but its game play seems weak. 2600 games look like crap. Although, the right people could do magic with that sytem (Imagic). But, despite its graphical weakness very few of its arcade ports played anythign but GREAT. The 2600 DK may look awful, but when you play it, it feels like DK is supposed to feel when yopu play it. It also sounds pretty decent. The Coleco DK feels and sounds very awkward. Yes, it moves the same, but its level design is bad, its got everything mixed up and the sounds throw you right out of the game.

     

    Coleco knew they had game play issues, otherwise why make an add-on for their system that used "inferior" graphics?

     

    When you think about it, it's really unfair to compare Coleco's CV games with what was being created for the Atari 2600 at the same time. While the CV console was supposed to be more advanced, you have to factor in the "learning curve" effect when evaluating the two system's games. The 2600 had been already been around for four years when the CV debuted. The 2600 game designers/ programmers had plenty of time to hone their skills with that system and a good number of games produced should be better in gameplay than the CV's games. Think of it this way: If kid #1 has had four more years to learn how to ride a bike, then he'll naturally be more adept at it than kid #2 who had just received his bike a few months ago.

     

    Try comparing the 2600's first year of games to the CV's inital releases. Better yet, compare the two system's homebrew games. I haven't played that many 2600 homebrews, but I find it hard to believe that many can outshine what today's programmers are doing on the CV. Also, how does the two system's homebrews compare with the best titles from the 1980's? It seems like there's been a greater leap in improvement and development with the CV, but that's just my opinion.

     

    Also, you're theory on the 2600 Expansion Module is interesting, but I think they made it more for marketing purposes then a lack of confidence in their own products. If you're the new kid on the block, you need to convince everyone to come play at your house and a good way of doing this is by allowing others to bring their own toys. If they really thought the CV was the pits, then they would have stopped making it all together and put all their resources in making cheap Gemini clones.

     

    To put the post back on topic though, Coleco games that I rarely wanted to play were: Zaxxon and Omega Race. I don't know if it's because they were bad as much as I just didn't enjoy playing them. Technically, most games done by Coleco could be criticized, since they were based on existing (more advanced) games. The CV could only do so much to mimic the arcade machines at the time. Many have dissed Donkey Kong, but I think it's pretty good for the being a launch title (how many still get excited over Combat?).

     

    + Nathan

     

     

    I think a more fair comparison would be between Cv with Donkey Kong and the VCS with Space Invaders. Both represent Killer Arcade Apps that "made" both systems.

     

    However, even then the Atari had at least a 2 year ecperience lead. So you do make a valid point ultimately.

     

    -Ray

  24. Posted · Edited by pocketmego

    I knew three people with Ataris - one 6 switcher in the early 80's (I still have a slightly funny feeling when faced with a text label cart as it reminds of me of then - particularly basketball), one 4 switcher in the mid 80's and a junior in the late 80's.

     

    Myself though I grew up from Tandy TRS-80 model I (unusual in this country) -> Sinclair ZX81-> Sinclair Spectrum-> Commodore Amiga. I got my first console about 6 years ago and my first Atari was a CV with an expansion module. :)

     

    Atari was quite big but nothing like as big as the home computers from what I remember. I rarely saw any Atari games (though of course I wasn't really looking) and saw truck loads of cassettes for the home computers, which were cheaper and more plentiful.

     

    The UK always was a much more computer-oriented than console-oriented society - at least until the PC started taking over and people started needing consoles because PCs were so expensive to keep up to date and not terribly good when they were new. In the olden days it wasn't a problem - you bought your Amiga or ST or whatever and it played games out of the box brilliantly and lasted years. Now we don't have that the console has become king.

     

    If PCs were designed the way the old machines were, consoles would still be much more minority in the UK as we're a nation of tinkerers, but because they've been dumbed down to the lowest common "what's a mouse?" denominator, no longer do kids cut their teeth on programming and enjoying computers, the only choice they have is whether to play a game on a console or play a game on a PC.

     

    Maybe I'm just getting old. It were all different when I were a lad.... :)

     

    Amen to that BROTHER, AMEN to that!

     

    I will be the firs to stand tall and say that had it not been for the brilliance of MANY fine British creators that the Commodore 64 would have been long dead before it had taken off properly. Every truly memorable and great game, with few exceptions, is programmed by a Brit.

     

    I would LOVE to have seen what the Palace software guys could do with the 2600. I still say Cauldren 1 and 2 are MUSTS for homebrewers.

     

     

    As for the topic, near as I can tell the 2600 was eaither really available and popular in some areas and in others later home computers opened the door. However, regardless of popularity or not the system gave way to the Spectrum when it came from Sir Uncle Clives dreams into reality.

     

    I find the paralell's absolutely fascinating. For years I never even knew there had been a video game crash in the states because I got a Commodore 64 early on and I just made the jump straight to it. I was playing Pitfall 2 and Ghostbusters on my C64 never even dreaming they had made versions of them for the 2600. When the Tramiel era Atari stuff started I never even knew it was a new company with an old name. I just assumed that Atari was the same as ever.

     

    Apparently, I followed the pattern set by many British and UK children who made a natural progression from the 2600 into Micros.

     

    So what makes those of you who didn't really grow up with the 2600, part of this new generation of retor collectors and enthusiasts?

     

    What brought you into it?

     

    -Ray

  25. Posted

    When I think of "adventure" I think of Remo Williams.

     

    And you think alone...

     

    :D

     

    Just kidding.

     

    Fred Ward's Remo movie would not see the light of day until the later part of the 80's.

     

    However, Pitfall makes me think of Doc Savage and Race Bannon, who was of courser inspired by Doc. I am sure some of Indy's repoirte comes from Doc as well, especially considering what uper sci-fi nerds both Lucas and Spielberg were when growing up.

     

    The fact is that Harry might have been in the Indy mindset for the generation upon which he was born and I don't deny that a part of that success was most definately derived from Indiana Jones. It is the same reason some of the ships in Star raiders look like Tie Fighters, because they most certainly were supposed to.

     

    -Ray

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