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almightytodd

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Posts posted by almightytodd

  2. Posted

    Well, it looks like there is at least one request that the Discovery Channel Myth Busters take a look at this. It's not really their "kind" of myth to confirm or bust though, since they usually work the angle of "could it be done"... ...in this case, "Could earth-movers, dump trucks, and cement trucks bury millions of plastic game cartridges in the desert"? Well of course they could... ...the question is, "Did they"?

  3. Posted

    Asteroids, Space Invaders, Battle Zone, Q*Bert... These are classic games I played as a teen and young adult. I felt like I could never get to where I was really good at any of these, because to get in the amount of practice I would need would require an expenditure of more money than I had access to, or was willing to devote to that purpose. Now, years later, I have access to these classics again - through emulation, ports to home systems, and MAME. In theory, so it seems, if I were willing to devote enough time to any one of the above mentioned games, I should be able to get progressively better, shouldn't I? And yet, as I play them, I don't feel like my playing (...or the resulting score) is even remotely near the level of skill that I recall observing demonstrated by the arcade "Masters" of almost 30 years ago. Is that just the way it is? Is there just some kind of "twitch zen" that some players have and others don't, propelling them to the tops of the high score lists? Fortunately, I'm not a particularly competitive person, so I can still derive a great deal of pleasure from the game play itself, even with the knowledge that my skill would not impress anyone and would be laughed at by any group of serious gamers. Just wondering how many here have had a similar experience?

  7. Posted

    Hey Stephena,

     

    I just wanted to chime in with a big THANK YOU for all of your hard work on this. I'm a programmer/analyst by profession, but I wouldn't even know where to start in taking up a project like this. I see by the notes in your profile that you started just wanting to be involved in maintaining the Linux side of things, but you've ended up supporting upgrades for all systems. Your work has resulted in my ability to enjoy the classic games of my youth on my computer, as well as to try out the awesome growing assortment of home brews and hacks.

     

    I have no criticisms and no requests. I just want to give you my thanks.

     

    THANK YOU !!! THANK YOU !!! THANK YOU !!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

  8. Posted

    First of all, my apologies if there is already a thread discussing this title. As you can imagine, trying a search for keywords "Wii Play" results in a thousand hits; none of which is specific to the game, "Wii Play".

     

    Our family, like most, bought this game as a means of gaining more value during the purchase of an additional controller... ...er, Wii-mote. The implication is that these are head-to-head games that you're going to want to have two controllers for, which is why the game is sold as a disc/Wii-mote combination.

     

    But the thing that surprised me, is that I find some of these games to be really fun to play alone, for an old-school, casual gamer like myself. My lifestyle just doesn't lend itself to the kinds of modern games that require a serious investment in time. But with Wii Play, if I find I have 15 minutes or so to kill, I can fire up the Wii, and have a quick game of billiards, or play the tank battle game that reminds me of a sort of combination of the original Atari 2600 Combat, and the tank battle game in Tron.

     

    I grew up with video games. I was 17 when our family celebrated Christmas 1977 with a Heavy Sixer. I've watched as video games made their way into people's homes, first as a "play for free" alternative to coin-operated games, then turning into time-consuming, isolating, alternate reality quests that were not as appealing to someone who has a pretty full life. Then, online gaming became the craze, but then again, the advantage went to those who had more time to put into playing... ...to paraphrase the line from South Park's "World of Warcraft" episode - "How do you kill something that has no life"?

     

    I felt like Nintendo really got it right when they introduced the "Get off the couch and play together as a family" Wii console. I'm happy to find that it can also provide some good fun for one without a huge investment in time. It ranks right up there with my Flashback 2...

  10. Posted

    So help me understand the process here... ...I've read that Space Invaders was the first commercial game that used a CPU instead of TTL. But SI didn't come out until '79 and I have several ROM images that I play on MAME that are earlier than that (...including some Cinematronics titles), and they reference early 8-bit CPU's (6800, 8080, Z80, and 6502). So did the engineers program these games using CPU-based prototype systems, and then re-engineer them to be manufactured using TTL? I seem to recall some folklore around Steve Jobs having a position at Atari doing this type of engineering, and being paid bonuses on reducing the number of chips used. (...an additional part of that folklore as I recall, is that he actually had the "Woz" doing the work, but he was taking the credit... ...and most of the money.) Is any of this correct? Or just video game Urban Legend?

  11. Posted

    Is it too early to start thinking/fantasizing about a Flashback 4? I vote for a unit that connects to your TV, but plays Arcade coin-op games by Atari and Kee Games from the birth of videogames to 1979. It was a time when there was a transition from TTL-based hardware to the first 8-bit microprocessors; the 6800, 6502, and the Z80. The screens were all in black and white and the game play was simplistic. I would like to see titles like Computer Space, Pong, Space Race, Tank, Drag Race, Sprint, Canyon Bomber, Crash 'n' Score, Destroyer, Dominoes, Gran Trak 10, Night Driver, Starship 1, Stunt Cycle, and Fire Truck. Perhaps I'm one of the few with such a sense of nostalgia and sentimentality for this period of videogaming, but I'll never know unless I ask, right? With the Flashback covering 7800 and 2600 titles, the Flashback 2 covering 2600 titles with perfect accuracy, and the FB3 planned to get into the realm of early Atari home computers, it seems to me that the early arcade titles remain as a significant part of Atari history to be preserved.

  13. Posted

    I think it may be generational. I grew up with Atari. My kids grew up with Nintendo. Their complaint with Atari is that the games are too short. My complaint with Nintendo is that the games are too long. My son would rent a Nintendo game from Blockbuster on Friday, disappear for the entire weekend, then announce that he'd finished the game so we could return it on Monday. It reminds me of the World of Warcraft episode of Southpark, where they ponder the question, "How can you kill something that has no life"? One year, I spent a summer playing Half Life, for 30 minutes a day... ...in God mode... ...with a "walk thru" and it still took me three months to get to the end. I'm thrilled to have found Atari Age, and to have so much fun playing all the new homebrews that come out. If I play Nintendo at all, it's with an emulator so I can use the function keys to save program state when I come to tricky parts.

  14. Posted

    I'd like to add a second for Computer Space. Also, I've been trying out Night Driver on MAME lately and I'm fascinated by the dynamics of how the reflectors are bunched together in the distance, and then become spaced farther apart as you get closer to them. I've read that the idea for a "driving at night" game was born out of necessity of accommodating the limited graphics capabilities of the time - it seems like a very clever solution to me.

     

    I would hope that with its reputation as a "sprite-shifter", the 7800 graphics hardware would be able to move each of the reflectors in a way faithful to the arcade version. The gear shift aspect of the game could be accommodated with moving the joystick forward or back to "bump" up to a higher or lower gear like on a motorcycle.

  15. Posted

    For me, the "spirit" of the original Atari system, isn't in cartoon-type games, but in more abstract games like "surround". Video actions that didn't mimic things in the real world, but created entirely new things. I think if there's anything new I'd like to see in a 2600 game, it would be something like that. I noticed that one of the first homebrews was "Okie Dokie". It's an interesting kind of puzzle game rather than an action game. A couple of the action homebrews I like are "Elevators Amiss" and "Fall Down". Those games are a little more sophisticated and "cartoon-like" than the early 2K ROMs, but still original and fun.

  16. Posted

    The way I see it (...or choose to see it), the only chance you have to challenge your very first Atari VCS as the BEST GIFT EVER, is to compare it to a $40,000 luxury sedan. But seriously, who's getting a $40,000 luxury sedan as a gift? So to take it a step further, there is NOTHING that can possibly hope to compete with the experience of getting an Atari VCS for Christmas. Your only hope for consolation, is to attempt to evoke a similar emotion, by leasing a $40,000 luxury sedan for $349 a month (...after coming up with the $3,529 due at signing) as a "gift" to yourself.

     

    This commercial is of particular interest to me, because our family-gift for the Christmas of 1977 was a Heavy Sixer, shared between myself and my three brothers. Our parents ordered it through a catalog, and when it arrived, it was wrapped up and put under the tree. One of my brothers and I found ourselves home alone a few days before Christmas, and thought it would probably be a good idea to "test it", prior to the big moment of opening it on Christmas day... ...after all, we wouldn't want to spoil Christmas by finding out that moment that we had a faulty unit (...save that experience for a few years later, when families were opening up their Coleco Adam computers...).

     

    We carefully undid the tape on the wrapping paper, opened up the box, took out all of the components, set it up, and enjoyed a few rounds of Combat. Then we put everything back just as we'd found it, wrapped it back up, and no one was the wiser. I'm sorry, I don't think even driving a Lexus could compete with those memories...

  17. Posted

    I'm still not sure. The picture is supposed to be of his "set-up", not necessarily a picture of him engaged in a game session. It would make sense for them to "mock-up" the screens rather than just show them all black. It could just as easily be a hoax though. I think the more determining factor would be the accompanying story than the picture itself.

  20. Posted

    Now if they came up with a similar game that actually made use of a real guitar, or at least a controller that more effectively mimicked a real guitar, I would be all over it.

    Do you mean a controller with a matrix of six-buttons-per-fret by five frets going up the neck, and six strings to strum instead of a "strum bar"? There is such a thing - it's called the "I Can Play Guitar" Learning System. It's not entirely clear to me if the thing is distributed by Fisher-Price or Mattel.

     

    In any case, I guess because it's stand-alone/plug 'n' play, it doesn't have the big marketing push behind it the way the console-based guitar games do. As a guitar player myself, I totally agree with the sentiments that in the Rock Band games, at least the singer and drummer are approximating their instruments. I've read that for Rock Band two, there will be a drum controller that will be upgradable to a stand-alone digital drum kit, so if you find you have a knack for it, you can continue down the path towards becoming a real drummer.

     

    For those who want a Guitar Hero style video game but don't have a console system, there's also the Rock Fever plug-n-play system, licensed by Sony. There are also hand-helds now for being a Guitar Hero on the go...

  21. Posted

    I dunno...

     

    They go to the trouble of rendering a beat-up old 2600, but then when it plays, the graphics are from coin-op pong. Perhaps they could have gone with Combat, the original 2600 Pac Man, or even E.T. (...which would have made a nice subtext of technology ending up as garbage in a land-fill). Also, since this is supposed to be happening in some distant future, wouldn't it make more sense to be showing a current console (PS3, XBox 360) as "garbage of the future"? WALL-E's television is a video iPod with a fresnel lens in front of it - which was a quite stunning effect of CGI (...although I'm not sure how WALL-E was able to hook up a VCR and an Atari 2600 to it...).

  22. Posted

    I spent the first six years of my professional programming career using C++. That said, I believe that in today's world, if you want to get into programming, it makes more sense to go with Java or C#. There are excellent IDEs available for free for both platforms - Eclipse for Java, and Visual Studio Express Edition for C#. The advantage of these more modern languages is that there is a much more active community of developers and learning materials available, including downloadable step-by-step tutorial videos.

     

    Here is an example of detailed instructions for creating a Missile Command clone in .NET.

     

    Here is an example of programming Asteroids in Java.

     

    Both Java and C# are based on the C++ syntax (...which is itself an object-oriented enhancement of the "C" language). If you're interested in a completely different approach to learning programming concepts in a friendly, interactive "select-from-menus" approach, you might check out the Alice project.

  23. Posted

    I had a neighbor who had one in 1981. I recall a version of Galaxians that looked pretty impressive. The gunfight game does look good compared to Atari's first effort (...in 2K of ROM), but I think the Xype release of Gunfight in 2001 is still better... ...and it plays "Ring of Fire"...

  24. Posted

    Surround/Chase was based on either Dominoes or another game whose name I forget.

    Remembering an arcade game I'd seen that was a black & white version of "Surround" was driving me nuts. I think I've decided that the game was Midway's "Checkmate", which is listed in the Killer List Of Videogames (KLOV) as having been released in 1977.

     

    I think the point about Space Invaders being a "first", is that it was the first arcade game by one manufacturer to be licensed as a home version by another... with the licensing including both the look & feel/game play and the trademarked name.

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