Mindfield

Interesting. That game David mentions sounds identical to Activision's Private Eye (1983). It's listed in the Rarity Guide as a 5 (Rare) so it must have gotten released, but perhaps not in significnt quantities.

What, no one's mentioned Mythicon? Er, no... I don't suppose anyone would. :-) Right, my votes would probably go for all of the above mentioned, since they made the vast majority of the games I owned and played back in the day.

Actually, I doubt the VCS' soundchip is anything like the 8-bit's. Nevertheless, it's probably still very possible that it was a 4-bit sample at 4-6KHz. That'd be small enough to fit well within the cart's addressing space. Incidentally, and slightly off topic, you ought to check out the 8-bit Veronica demo for some truly impressive feats of audiovisual acrobatics; one of the demo screens plays a 4 channel, 4-bit, 8KHz Amiga MOD ("Crystal Hammer" for those interested) while not only keeping Antic on, but also displaying scrolltext and a few other effects to boot. Now that's impressive and something I never thought I'd ever see the 8-bit do...

Got them some time ago, and they're a permanent part of my collection. :-) Any chance of some higher quality rips? Thought I'd ask... :-)

It's possible that this existed only on the 48k 8-bit version and not the 5200 version. The 16k 5200 cartrige was shorter -- no title screen or music, and had more in common with the VCS version, though it was still larger by comparison. Anyway, I don't quite remember where Montezuma was, except that it was somewhere very deep in the maze, and was somewhere off to the left, I think. (It's been a very long time. :-)

Inky: That glitch you speak of is pretty common among many systems of the time that used tile-based colour. The Sinclair Spectrum, Spectravideo SV series, and many other home systems and arcade games of the period also used tile-based colour, which basically meant that colours were limited to an 8x8 or 16x16 "tile" on a grid. Saved on memory, I suppose, which I presume is also the reason for a fixed colour palette.

You can also grab all those and more from ftp://nostalgia:[email protected]:2026 I've grabbed all of Curt's stuff, plus a ton from other sources. Incluing The "white men can't rap" 2600 From A-Ta-Ri spot. :-)

There is no end to the VCS version that I recall. I only remember that after completing a stage you'd fall down while trying to collect as many gems and gold bars as you could along the way. In the end you'd land and start a new level. The 5200/8-Bit versions were very different; the levels were much, much larger. In fact, I remember coming across a giant, foot-stomping statue of Montezuma in this version, and never figured out what to go with him.

As a kid, I had both -- first the Coleco Gemini, then the actual Colecovision. The Atari had plenty of games that kept me occupied for hours on end, but I have to say that I don't think I was ever able to sit down at any game longer than I sat down to play Turbo with that driving wheel. I could go forever at that game, in the game realm turning night into day, day into night, travelling the cityscapes and countryside with unbridled enthusiasm. Maybe it was the fact that I got to acutally use a wheel to play the game - honestly, VCS driving games weren't the same with a joystick. Either way, that one kept me driving endlessly. I later got Destructor to play with the wheel, but I think that game could have been done just as easily with a joystick. As for the CV sticks -- I loved 'em. Comfortable in the hands, and the stick was nice and responsive. I always used the palm of my hand to control it, rather than my fingers; I found it easier for extended play, as it didn't tire you out like waggling a regular stick did. (Nor did it shred the skin like the Gemini's sticks/paddles did :-) Later on I got a real Atari, and that dominated my collection. I'd eventually purchased over 80 games for it to my CV's 5.

True, although there are a few classics that have transcended that typical sales curve -- Half Life, for example, though that is mostly kept alive by sequels inspiring people to buy the prequels along with (or after) them. Of course, even games like that aren't as enduring as the games of old. I think in large part that's due to the fact that the classic games have a much wider appeal, being simpler to learn and easier to play. Also, due to the fact that it was impossible to reproduce any semblance of reality on the machines of the time, abstraction played a large part in the games, going completely in the opposite direction of reality. Which was a good idea; developers figured that if they couldn't mimic reality, they'd instead invent fantasy. These days, fantasy exists much like it does in books; it's a reality of a sort, if not this reality. But games like Pac Man, Donkey Kong, and all manner of such games, had no basis in reality at all. That in itself made the games a great deal of fun because it was more than simply an escape into a fantasy world; it was an escape into pure fantasy itself. Modern games have lost that sense of abstraction, which is understandable given the evolution of video games as technology became better able to mimic reality, but there's still a great deal to be said for the classic games that went so far to the other side of reality that, if you were to sit down and think about it with any rational application of thought, you'd wonder just what the heck it's supposed to all be about.

I remember those days fondly. Although I started getting into things when the Great Video Game Crash of '84 was approaching, but it was nevertheless quite a magic time. In 1983 I got a Coleco Gemini for my birthday. The pack-in game, Donkey Kong, was the only one I had at the time, so it got a lot of play. I did eventually get a few more games for it. I got a Colecovision, used, the next year from mutual friends who no longer wanted it. That came with a few games and the driving controller. Then it all got lost in a move, but for my birthday of that year, our new neighbours gave me an actual heavy sixer with more than 30 games, so I was in heaven. Shortly after that I discovered Toys R Us and made a weekly habit of buying a new game with my allowance. For me it was quite a magical time. Video games, still being in their relative infancy, still had plenty of originality and flair to them the likes of which had never previously been seen. The games were almost always fun, and there was always something new and different to experience -- for me, on a weekly basis. It was quite unlike the video game empire of today, where every new game that comes out is simply some sort of improvement or alteration on an existing theme or idea, and where buggy releases reqiring numerous aftermarket patches to work properly are commonplace. Back then games were pretty well complete when they were shipped. (Of course, games back then were far simpler to create, too -- relatively speaking) I think a big part of the magic back then was that the hardware was exceedingly limited compared to today's machines, and imagination always exceeded a machine's capabilities to realize it. Developers had to distill their ideas and boil them down to a level that was within the machine's capabilities. That in itself was an art form, but the true innovation, the magic, came from those developers who somehow managed to cram more of their ideas into a title than was previously thought possible -- to expand the capabilities of the machine beyond ordinary limits, beyond even what was even believed were finite, insurmountable limitations. Adding RAM to the carts and bankswitching them to expand not only the depth and scope of a game, but also to improve it graphically and sonically. Even to use undocumented and, for all intents and purposes, unknown features of the chipset to achieve effects and functions that no one else had done. That was the magic of the time, a time when machines of a particular brand all had the same hardware and the same features -- same RAM, same video capabilities, same sound capabilities, etc. Those who pushed the envelope and really explored the furthest reaches of a machine's capabilities beyond even what the designers of the machine had done were what really made those days special. These days, nothing like that ever happens. Today, it's all about upgrading; no one pushes limits, because limits are just modern technology's way of saying it's time for a new piece of hardware. To my way of thinking, limitations foster creativity, forcing developers to either find a way to work within them, or explore ways of expanding them without changing the environment. When you create an environment where limitations are merely meant to be broken by newer, better, faster environments, no one bothers to push the existing ones; they just wait for the next. That's what the classic days of video gaming were all about, I think. Pushing existing technology to its furthest limits and beyond before moving on to the next platform. That's what really made magic.

I don't think those Wierd Paddles are Coleco's. The Gemini came stock with elongated Colecovision-esque joysticks with integrated paddles below those cheap plastic, skin-shredding joysticks. They were comfortable to hold, like the CV sticks, but too much play with the joystick usually left your fingers a bit raw due to the serration around the stick, which were presumably designed that way to provide grip -- but such a thing done in molded plastic doesn't provide much more than an instrument of torture. Despite that though I actually liked that Gemini. Anyway, I don't know if Coleco ever made separate paddles -- or if they did it was likely intended for Atari and Sears systems, or their own VCS expansion module. The Gemini didn't need them. (Mind you, they were so cheaply designed that they'd eventually die and require them. :-)

Ze_ro: The ST was initially released in late 1984/early 1985, initially with the 130ST and 260ST in Europe, which quickly died as a result of a pitiful lack of sufficient RAM. (128k and 256k respectively; the 128k was barely enough to load the then-disk-based OS) Prior to that was the XE series (1983-84), before that, the XL series (1981-1982), and before that the 400/800 (1979-1980). Glenn: The Tramiels always bothered me. On the one hand they had great ideas; even during their reign, originality and innovation were still hallmark, as it had always been with Atari. On the other, their business sense had a certain Dr. Seuss quality about it: One ad, two ads, three ads, four. Five ads, six ads, then no more. I will not spend greenbacks, no ma'am. I will not spend them, Sam I am. They had no guts. They tried to make too many things work with little more than word of mouth and press releases to announce them. That was their biggest mistake. Warner advertised quite a bit in the day; of ads during the Tramiel reign, there's precious little to be found. Tempest: Frankly, although much can be laid at Jack's feet, I'm of the opinion that he only finished what Kassar and the Warner administration started, though they did it in a completely different fashion. Where Kassar's autocratic rule stifled and practically suffocated Atari to death internally, the Tramiels essentially alienated their dealer networks, installed user base, and the press by essentially making bad decisions. Atari refused to give dealers exclusivity rights, they were constantly announcing vapourware that never saw the light of day (though Warner did their share of that, too), and they were cheap and standoffish with members of the press. (They even went so far as to require review materials to be mailed back to them at their own expense) They burned so many bridges that when things started backfiring on them, they had nowhere left to retreat except down the gully... Hell, when the Jaguar was released, they only spent $18 mil on advertising -- a drop in the bucket compared to the $200 million Nintendo spent on advertising the N64. In fact, were it not for the court settlement between Atari and Sega, which saw Sega pay Atari somewhere around $75 million over 3 years, Atari would probably have died even sooner.

To be honest, I don't think he was solely responsible for running it into the ground. Heck, as far as that goes, I think he's the least responsible. It's his sons, Gary, Leonard and Sam -- mostly Sam -- at whose feet I lay the final demise of Atari. Jack retired, after all, and handed the reigns over to these three stooges whose belief in advertising extended as far as spending 10% more on advertising than on the previous year's budget (which basically amounted to as close to nothing as makes no odds). Jack basically remained behind the scenes, having little to do with the day to day operation of Atari. However, the Tramiels merely hammered the nails in Atari's coffin. The man who built the coffin is Ray Kassar. His autocratic rule of Atari during the Warner reign, while inadvertantly spawning the creation the likes of Activision and as a result, myriad other third party software houses, nevertheless crushed Atari's spirit. His despotic policies and the poor working conditions in which the employees laboured were so stifling that they were strangling the life out of the very company he commanded. He firmly believed that the entire company revolved on his little finger, that Atari lived or died on his every word. I think that, had he been more fair in his treatment of his employees, and had been open to suggestions and realized that while he was the Big Cheese, there were thousands of people under him that did the real work of making Atari the great name that it was, then I think Atari may have been much better off in the long run. Sure, Ray's dictatorship forced many to leave, some of whom formed their own software company (Activision) and led the struggle to allow third party development. That in itself opened the floodgates for new and innovative designers to write games for the VCS. But, because of Atari's subsequent and complete lack of policy regarding third party development, it also resulted in a torrent of development houses so huge that the industry could ill support it, and in the end caused the Great Video Game Crash of '84. The Tramiels may have toppled Atari into its grave, but Kassar was the one who dug the plot. [ 08-08-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

Heh ... considering the "popularity" of Mythicon games, I'd be a little surprised if many people bid on it... Actually, I'm a little surprised it's considered to scarce. I owned all three Mythicon games once upon a time... damn. I really wish I hadn't sold my collection. :-)

In case you don't feel like waiting, feel free to grab D.R.O.L. right here. [ 08-07-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

It's just amazing what some people will give away without any thought as to its real worth. The conspiracy theorist in me is inclined to think that somewhere out there, an eccentric ex-Atari employee with a closet full of rare prototypes, unreleased games and other such goodies is travelling around the US randomly seeding thrift stores with items that, to the untrained eye, look completely innoccuous and even worthless, but for those that know what to look for, are as good as bars of gold. Call him Fuji Claus...

On collecting: The thing is, video games are collectable. One doesn't just buy a game and toss it out. Sure, many might buy a game then turn round and sell it to their local pawn shop for a few bucks to help finance their next one -- or sell it on Ebay as an "ultra rare" collectors cart. Most people though keep the stuff they pay for until it's brimming out of their storage closet simply because they paid for it. My wall is becoming plastered with CD holders brimming with games for the PC -- and every once in a while I'll pull one out that tickles my fancy and play it again. I don't get rid of 'em 'cos one day, these games will probably be collectors items in their own right -- old hat by the time the Pentium 6 5GHz with GeForce 5 512mb RDRAM QDR (that's Quad Data Rate) systems pre-loaded with Windows Bicentennial hit the streets, and people who appreciate the older, less disposable titles are going to want to hunt them down, much like many here are hunting down old VCS carts and systems. On comparisons: Agreed; it is impossible to compare anything from one era to something of another. You might as well compare the taste of fresh milk to that of the pungent, lumpy, partially-sentient stuff that's been sitting around in the back of your fridge since February, according to the expiry date. Obviously fresh milk is going to taste better ... er, then again, a taste test to prove that point is probably on the same probability level as being sucked into a quantum singularity next time you flush the toilet, so maybe that's not such a good comparison -- but you get the point. Apples and oranges. But then it's not really the comparison that's the issue at the heart of this topic; it's the shamelessly ignorant derision leveled at anything that's not today's technology on no better grounds than that it isn't. The infantile notion that new is good, that more realism means better gameplay, and that greater complexity makes for a better game. Sure, immersion is great, but there are different kinds of immersion, each of which hold their own in their respective arenas. Reading a good book, for example, is thoroughly engaging. I get utterly lost in a really well written novel, losing all track of time and place, and nothing could be said to have less realism than a novel, being that it's only words on paper, yet it involves you just the same because it engages the mind. Imagination is a powerful tool, and for those that understand, it goes a long way towards making up for the deficiencies present in classic games where the graphics and sound have no basis in reality other than being relatively symbolic. That? Oh, that's supposed to be a radish. Yes, I know it looks like a red square, but it's supposed to be a radish. Once you pass that little hurdle, guess what? It's a radish. I'm not saying realistic immersion is a bad thing, just that it isn't necessary, and doesn't do anything to add to gameplay. It just eliminates the need to use your imagination; instead of imagining a radish where there is only a red square, you have a visually accurate radish right on your screen. But then, most kids these days aren't on particularily good speaking terms with the right side of their brains, so it stands to reason that they'd put down anything that requires them to take a Hoover to it. Author's Note: Due to a profound lack of sleep brought about by attempting to resolve some rather irksome problems relating to a recent OS upgrade, Mindfield is in a worringly odd humour this morning. Please take any strange and/or out of place references to vegetables, hints of auto-communicativeness, and generally odd behaviour, including any such present in this author's note, with an entire cellar of salt. Thank you. Please tip your waiter. [ 08-07-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

On AR: Yes, I believe it was the first game to have such a cinematic opening sequence. But then, Philip Price's broad vision sort of put those touches in ever aspect of the game, from the full musical score to the natural world and weather effects (wind, rain, night, day) and all those little things that he added rolled into one mega huge game. His viosionary creativity and his programming prowess both were in abundance every time you played the game. On Pitfall: Agreed. I did play Pitfall! a lot on the VCS, but Pitfall II definitely captured my attention much stronger -- and held it there. I remember being so proud that I'd completed it on the VCS, and then upon repeating that feat on the 8-Bit being awed that there was this whole new level with completely different challenges to surmount. Definitely an attention grabber. Was it fun to play? Hell, yeah. I think that, until Pitfall, there were never any platform games of that scope in existence; just horizontal flick-screen platformers, mostly, and those were usually quite short by comparison. Plus, you had to love the music. :-) [ 08-06-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

D.R.O.L. was published in 1983 by Brøderbund. It didn't really push any envelopes, but it did make exceptional use of mode 8 artifacting, and the animations were indeed extremely smooth. In reminded me a lot of Archer McLean's Dropzone (US Gold), which some exceptionally smooth and nicely done graphics of any action game I'd played. (The C64 version of Dropzone appeared as a cocktail arcade cabinet in a recent PC Pool game whose name escapes me at the moment, but which was also done by Archer McLean)

lol. I owned all three Mythicon games once upon a time. Yes, I paid for them. And believe it or not, at the time, I liked them. Actually, Star Fox wasn't that bad of a game; it's Firefly and Sorcerer that I think earned Mythicon their reviled reputation, since they were essentially identical games with the characters changed. And then there's that mysterious, omnipresent smiley face that oozes a palpable sense of evil... [ 08-06-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

PErsonally, I don't often come across people who make such obviously skewed comparisons. Mostly what I come across are people who can't for the life of them figure out why it is that I like such old games and old systems when I could be playing the latest and greatest technological marvels on the PC. These, however, are the same people who two years ago said Half Life was the best thing since sliced bread, but who now say it sucks because it's old, and who now praise Max Payne. Personally, I love many of the modern games. Max Payne is impressively done, and while, as has already been said, it's not much more than a better mousetrap (albeit one seemingly designed by John Woo) it's still fun in its own right. However, I don't limit myself because a game is old. Heck, when Half Life: Blue Shift came out, I went back and played the entire series over again, just because I like it. And I still play a lot of old PC games -- Witchhaven, Doom, Wolf 3D -- heck, even some of the shareware games like Hexx, Oxyd Magnum, Ken's Labyrinth, etc. They all have their own charm and they're all fun for their own reasons. But then, I grew up in the days of the VCS and owned many of the systems throughout the eras, so apart from my significant lean towards things Atari, I have a pretty unbiased opinion of gaming in general. Kids these days just want the latest and greatest and tend to be spoiled to that end. I submit for your consideration the proliferation of warez pups who got their parents to buy them GeForce 3 cards 'cos they just had to have 'em to play all the latest technology. I can only dream of owning a GF3 -- yes, I do want one; as I said, I love new technology. But then, I love all technology, new and old alike. :-) [ 08-06-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ]

Heh... the effectiveness of those little security tags is only as effective as the security system, and where I work, they're almost not worth a damn. On CDs, they just remove them or, more commonly, just slit open the plastic and steal the CD inside. Ditto for DVDs. Video games -- well, I still haven't figured those out 'cos we not only use security stickers on the game boxes, but also encase every game in a plastic security case that can only be opened with a special "counter key" at the checkout. The cases also contain security tags internally, usually inside the lid, but I usually put one or two elsewhere. Despite such measures, we still lose an awful lot. But these are usually by pros -- we lost 13 copies of Office XP a few days after its launch. I'm still puzzling over how they got those huge, hermetically sealed cases out the door... Nevertheless I'm surprised they'd been doing that until only a year ago. I suppose maintenance of such a system, coupled with the inability to actually examine the product in your hands (for whatever reason, even if all sides of a box is displayed, customers still feel the need to actually hold it) became a deterrent.

Dumping's pretty easy; the hard part is doing the trial and error to try and work out the disk format. That can be a pain...

On the 2600, while I think Pitfall II was certainly a technological marvel, I also thought Tunnel Runner was extremely innovative. It used CBS' bank switching techniques for enhanced graphics and sound, and it used display list interrupts (or whatever the VCS equivalent to DLIs are) to extremely good effect, making for a colourful playfield. More than that though was the speed at which the 3D maze was drawn. Of course it wasn't actually vector graphics; just plain bitmap walls, but it was done so fast and so well that it made my jaw drop, wondering how such a simple machine could do that. On the 8-bit Atari, hands down, it was the Alternate Reality series. Masterful use of DLIs, amazing atmospheric effects, exceptional sound for an 8-bit, and such a wide scope, to say nothing of fantastic gameplay, made this one an out and out winner in my opinion. It pushed the 8-bit to its very limits, utilizing as many colours as it could on-screen at once through a combination of bitmapped graphics, player/missile graphics, and plenty of display list interrupts. And, of course, it was the first ever functioning example of precalculated 3D texture mapping on a home computer -- it took another 5 years before the next such appeared, and that was Wolfenstein 3D on the PC. On the Atari ST -- well, that's a toughie. There are tons of graphic demos from some legendary crews that just blew me away, but if I had to pick a game, I'd have to say No Second Prize. By far the fastest vector graphics I'd ever seen on the ST, coupled with intense gameplay and exceptional graphics (for vectors). On the other hand, the most innovative I'd have to say was Another World (a.k.a. Out Of This World). That was the most clever use of vector graphics combined with bitmap graphics I'd ever seen, and the first game where I was unable to tell the difference between the cutscenes and gameplay. (Note that I'm not picking anything for the STe/TT/Falcon 'cos of the disparity of the average commercial games) Lynx: Battlewheels. Definitely a CPU-pushing cutting edge game for the platform. Jaguar: Tempest 2000. While ApV had the best atmosphere, T2K had everything else hands down. Fast and furious addictive gameplay, great graphics, tremendous sound, you name it. But then, everyone knows Jeff Minter is a God among yaks...