joeybastard
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Posts posted by joeybastard
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Just a quick question...I like writing reviews for the Atari Age store but there are a few Homebrew games I don't really like. I will of course give them a fair chance but I was wondering what people think about writing a bad review for a game. If I write a bad review and there are no other reviews on it I could ruin peoples opinion on the game. I don't want to offend any of the programmers since I know a great deal of time goes in to making these games so should I just keep my opinions to myself or let my bad reviews be read by the public? Just wondering what you guys think....Thanks
If you're fair and give a reason for why you feel like you do, I can't see why anybody would get angry. Well, somebody will probably get angry anyway but that's really their problem not yours.
For example, don't just say, "The graphics suck." If you said, "The graphics needed better defined shapes and some more color would have helped," you're being helpful rather than just bashing.The fact is, some games just aren't as good as others, there's nothing wrong with telling why you feel that way. Also, if enough people say this game needs work, it might encourage the author to try again and try harder next time. That's not a bad thing.
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Nothing to do with being scholarly. It's called "nettiquette". A common deterant to flame wars everywhere.It might discourage giving a personal opinion and ending with an attack, such as "... is crap and you're an idiot for thinking that way." but it doesn't discourage personal opinions. What could possibly be the point in discussing anything on the board without some kind of personal opinion? Wouldn't we all just read news sites if we weren't curious how other people felt about the subject?
Nobody is flaming each other in here, we're all aware the opinions belong to the poster and aren't some "greater truth". You can post however you want but be prepared for really boring threads if no personal and subjective opinions are expressed.
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Geez - the personal subjective opinions being expressed as fact are really ripe in this thread."... is crap"
"... is cheezy"
"... nothing good after ..."
Yes, that is what human beings do in casual communication, they express personal opinions. No one is claiming this is a scholarly tome on an important subject or any kind of 'fact.' In real life, do you only discuss things on a completely non-subjective, "just the facts" level?
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Somebody review Melbourne Tatty since I'm on the fence about ordering that one!
I always write reviews but I want to get some more play time in on my holiday order carts before I do it.
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Finally, thanks for the baby snake, Al. FWIW I jumped when I put my hand in to pull it out. Interestingly I pulled it on my wife and she also jumped. Nice touch.I was waiting for someone to post about the snake...I was like "wtf is this?"
...then I pulled it out, and it made me jump
I didn't order B*nQ, what is this snake thing you guys are talking about?
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SS is great. From the moment I turned it on to the lovely picture of Stella and the "Have You played Atari Today" jingle, I was in love. Supercat did a great job on the menu system, both in functionality and graphics/sound.
Elf Dash is my favorite game at the moment but Stay Frosty might take the lead eventually. Both are pretty kick ass.
Grandma's Revenge is fun too. I was always a sucker for Death Race so this fits in there nicely.
Tossing Cookies is OK, I haven't played it as much as the others so I don;t have much to say at the moment.
Cold War is fun but since it's 2 player only, I haven't had much chance to play it yet. My wife played a couple of rounds with me but she wasn't into it.
All in all, a great package. Good games and lots of 'em, good music, good manuals/labels. It's my fav holiday cart yet which says a lot because I really like Toyshop Trouble from last year.
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I think we're all aware of that but it's still fun to bitch about the choice....Unless it were some crappy punk band someone here likes.
Well, most punk bands don't have super elaborate guitar parts so they wouldn't be a good choice for GH regardless of how much better than Aerosmith I think they might be. I think the suggestions of Sabbath or Led Zep make much more sense for the GH series. Not to mention, that in GH, the more raw stuff sounds very watered down in the covers. Check out The Stooges "Search and Destroy" in GH2. While the original sounds like pure insane aggression, the GH version sounds like.... well like Aerosmith
The cover band plays the notes right but they just can't get the "snarl" on the harder/rawer stuff.
Exactly! I'm a fairly shitty guitar player so while it works for RB, making a GH out it wouldn't be a good choice.Heh... "Guitar Hero: Rat Bastard"They could pick Iron Maiden, Anthrax, or Pantera for a GH: Heavy Metal game.Genre discs would be cool. GH: Metal, GH: Rockabilly, GH: 50's, GH:60's, etc.
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You do know that the difficulty switches on the 7800 are reversed right?left = B or "easy"
right = A or "hard"
Best way to see this is with space invaders
A = giant cannon, B = regular size
I tried both positions with Space Battle, no go. It's funny you mention SI because that's what I tried it with originally when I suspected the switches were acting up.
Thanks for the help folks but I'm just going to look for another 7800 when I get some more free time. In the meantime, the VCS works great, just has some more RF interference.
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To add to my 7800 weirdness, when I play Space Battle on it, no fuel pods drop. Ever. Otherwise the game plays fine except I keep running out of fuel.Check your difficulty switches. If the left one is set to 'A', fuel pods will never drop. The right switch controls the speed of the enemy bombs.
Thanks, I did when it first happened. They are both set to 'B' but it's still no fuel. I really think my 7800 is just messed up. I've cleaned and replaced the power switch but it still doesn't work right, the Pause sticks even with the case off and a cleaning, etc. Now, I'm guess the difficulty switces aren't functioning right either. I should probably just bite the bullet and look for another one.
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I was thinking perhaps a variation on Preppie! (a get-across-the-road game) though I don't know how many people would be happy to have lower-resolution graphics in exchange for better in-game music.I think it depends on the gameplay. I'm always willing to give up better graphics for better gameplay. If you could have killer music with good gameplay, I wouldn't care about lower-res graphics. I might be in the minority on that though. I think many people get more WOW! factor with visuals. For example, I rarely see anybody mention the excellent music Paul Slocum did for Marble Craze and Thrust+ Platinum, but in both cases, the music is my favorite part of those games. Although that could be because I stink at both of those games too
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The music and graphics when you turn it on/menu are really amazing to see on a VCS.Which tunes and graphics did you like best?
My fav is the excellent representation of Stella with the "Have you played Atari Today" jingle when you first turn it on.
In the menu itself, I think the version of "Deck the Halls", sounds the best. All of the music sounds good on it though with the mulitple voicings going on. I just think "Deck the Halls" sounds the most in "tune". On some of them, there's some notes that sound a little "out" in that 2600 way. My favorite of the graphics is the Stay Frosty one but I like the text trick you did on each title when you move to the next screen.
And are you looking forward to my EBTBTP2 music driver if I get it working (this cart uses my BTP2 music driver)?If this new driver means even better music then yes, I'm looking forward to it. I can't program so the technical aspects of it will be lost on me but I'm always up for better sounding games.
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The question I have (mostly for Albert) is whether the board in this particular cart is the 0840 or standard F8? There should be no reason why F8 wouldn't work, but I can see why 0840 might not, knowing what we know now about those kludgy consoles.Most of the Gingerbread Man carts were made with the 0840 boards. Joey--if you can slip up the dust cover mechanism in the cart and look at the edge of the board, does it have gold or silver contacts? If the contacts are gold, this is one of the 0840 boards. If so, I can exchange it for an F8 board and we can see if that works in your 7800.
..Al
It does have gold contacts but really, it's not a big deal and I'm sure you have more pressing things to worry about. I can play it on the VCS just fine
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Nah, don't bother switching them. I was just curious if it was only my 7800 since it's the only Atari made console I have that has ever acted weird. All the others have always performed flawlessly but this one has weird power switch problems, sometimes the RF gets really bad momentarily, and some carts just take three tries to seat properly. I guess it's possessed. Thanks for the offer though and as usual, great job on this stuff, Al.That sounds just like my 7800! This is my second, and while the picture quality is much better, I still occasionally have the image getting brighter or duller for a few seconds. My old one did it on whatever TV I tried it on. (The new one has only ever been connected to my 1984-vintage Toshiba.)
To add to my 7800 weirdness, when I play Space Battle on it, no fuel pods drop. Ever. Otherwise the game plays fine except I keep running out of fuel. When I play it on my VCS, I get fuel pods. Weird! Oh well, I guess that solves my dilemma about which console to get the video mod for. I was going to do it to the 7800 figuring on having 7800 & 2600 RF free gaming but if the 7800 is going to be this flakey, I think I'll do it to the 2600 since I play that much more.
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I always write reviews of homebrews in the store but here's some quick impressions since I've been playing my new carts all day.
Stella's Stocking: All of the games are fun with Elf Dash being my favorite so far followed closely by Stay Frosty. The music and graphics when you turn it on/menu are really amazing to see on a VCS.
Medieval Mayhem: It's perfect. Lots of options, great gameplay, great graphics, great music and it uses paddles. I can't wait until I have people over again because VCS Warlords was always a popular one and this will blow them away.
Lady Bug: Lots of fun, excellent version of the arcade game, I still like the CV one better but I don't think this could have been done any better on the VCS.
Space Battle: Uninteresting name for the game, but it's a fun shooter with a few elements that make it very unique for VCS shooters. I'd call it half Megamania/half Demon Attack but that's not doing it justice at all.
Conquest of Mars: Perfect. My only gripe is that it's quite a bit harder than the A8 original.
Gingerbread Man: I was really looking forward to this game since I like platformers. The game is good, but it's just a bit too hard I think. It's a bBasic game so graphics are bland buit it makes up for that with clever gameplay. The subtitle, "One Tough Cookie" is probably the truest advertising statement in the history of mankind.
I think I'll be ordering some more games in a another couple of weeks since my birthday is coming up.
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Some of you don't seem to realize that this isn't about quality music, it's a video game for the masses. They're going to pick songs that are, for lack of a better way to phrase it, easily accessible. They want this to be a commercial success so they can make money; everything else is secondary.I think we're all aware of that but it's still fun to bitch about the choice.
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Well, my Asteroids Deluxe cart doesn't work.
Ahhh, how I love the 7800. See my comment below..
OK, I've been playing since 7AM this morning, all the games I got a really good and Stella's Stocking is a blast.One question though: Does Gingerbread Man not work in the 7800? All of my other games work fine in the 7800 but I had to switch the VCS for Gingerbread man. Is it just my 7800 that has this problem or all of them?
It should work in the 7800, but there are many 7800s that cause problems with some homebrew games. Generally these appear to be the systems that have the "kludge" circuit in them that Atari added for compatibility with Dark Chambers. I can swap the cart out for you, but it's likely that a replacement would behave the same on your 7800. This also affects 7800 games. I did test all the 7800 carts on my most stubborn 7800, but it doesn't surprise me that even then there are issues. Thanks, Atari!
..Al
Nah, don't bother switching them. I was just curious if it was only my 7800 since it's the only Atari made console I have that has ever acted weird. All the others have always performed flawlessly but this one has weird power switch problems, sometimes the RF gets really bad momentarily, and some carts just take three tries to seat properly. I guess it's possessed. Thanks for the offer though and as usual, great job on this stuff, Al.
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OK, I've been playing since 7AM this morning, all the games I got are really good and Stella's Stocking is a blast.
One question though: Does Gingerbread Man not work in the 7800? All of my other games work fine in the 7800 but I had to switch the VCS for Gingerbread man. Is it just my 7800 that has this problem or all of them?
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Pac-Man does suck, no bones about it. ET isn't that bad and gets unjustly canned but you can't force people's opinions of what blows.
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On the back of the Sega Master System box it says "Sega has been creating the world's most popular arcade games for over 20 years." The Sega Master System came out in what? 1985 or so? I don't recall hearing about there being arcade games in 1965.
SErvice GAmes made mechanical coin-op games as far back as the 1940's.
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My wife just called, AA box has arrived along with a new Casino Player Mag. Looks like I'm set for the weekend
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CV is my fav non Atari system followed very closely by the NES.
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It's snowing a lot here in NY so I had to get up at 5:30AM to clear the snow before I got ready for work. If my games had gotten here yesterday, I would have just called in sick this morning and let it snow while I played Atari.
Oh well, here's hoping they show up today and I'll play all weekend.
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Expect new milestone thread soon
..yea, somehow ordered two copies of Astar.
Jeez, did you have to sell a kidney to buy all that stuff?
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in Atari 2600
Posted · Edited by joeybastard
The problem with curving the review scores is that in some cases it could be true that the games deserve the higher marks from the reviewer. For example, almost all of my reviews are 4 or 5 stars but that's because I buy fewer HBs than many people so I'm more picky about what I buy. If I only buy the really good games and that's all I review, then the 4 or 5 stars is honest.
Although having said that, I will admit there are 2 HB reviews I did that I now think were too "nice" in an attempt to be encouraging at the time.