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BSA Starfire

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Posts posted by BSA Starfire

  4. Posted

    Here in the UK the NES was a failiure, everyone hung onto there 8-bits like spectrum or C64(both of which soldiered on until the early nineties) etc or had ST or Amiga. The Sega master did pretty well however, due to clever marketing here by Matertronic(a popular British budget software house).

    Both the Sega & NES paled in comparison to the ST/Amiga stuff graphically however, the Nintendo looking the weakest of the bunch & £40+ per game pretty much did it for me when ST games were £15 & 8-bit £7.99 for often the same titles.

    I think the NES was the right product at the right time in the USA but that was not the case here in the UK, there was no "NES generation" here most Brit's when onto 16-bit micros instead.

    I've never owned a working NES(had two busted ones that went in the bin years ago), my only exposure to 8-bit Nintendo technology is the recent purchase of a Famiclone(that looks like an N64 for £2) with one of those 99-1 carts, after playing games like Arkanoid, Galaga & 1942 on it I'm glad I didn't bother getting one back in the day.....

  5. Posted

    Philips g7000/O2 Munchkin's Crazychase.

    Atari 2600 Phaser patrol or Ladybug

    Atari 8-bit Beef Drop or Star Raiders

    Dragon 32 Frogger

    Spectrum Space Raiders or Planetoids

    Gameboy Dr Mario

    Gameboy color Pokemon Pinball

    GBA Pokemon pinball ruby/sapphire

    Acorn electron ELITE

    Oric 1 OricMunch

    Vectrex Minestorm

    Xbox Burnout 3

    360 Fallout 3

    Ps1 Ridge Racer Type 4

    Megadrive Dragon's Revenge

    Mega CD Keio Flying Squadron

  6. Posted

    So I've started this on other forums with other systems that didnt a get a chance and got some pretty intersting responses on how some people would've handled them. So any here it goes:

     

     

    What would YOU have done differently when it came to Marketing/promoting/developing for the Atari Jaguar when it was first released?

    In all honesty, run like hell and tried for a job at Sony.

  13. Posted

    The topic is flawed...since program sizes and target platforms differ (I have to wonder why Atari's own 8-bit version was not included, since it was programmed at the same time as the 2600 port). Indeed, the most-faithful clone of the game at that time was not included either - Apple]['s Taxman (which was later taken by Atari and hacked into their Atarisoft version for that system). Not to mention, Tod Frye's original concept game which was never produced. As such, comparing a 2600 4k game to something on another platform (even if the size remains constant) is irrelevant...because nearly every other platform has more resources at their disposal to create a better game. As Taxman proves, creating a clone of the title could land you in court at the time. This happened to the Bally and O2 clones.

     

    As a result, there's nothing that you can really compare it to. The aspects have to remain the same...Atari 2600, 4k, 6 weeks' production time. Nobody knows how much the latter was affected during the 4k/8k argument...but I believe that it did have an impact (some things that the 2600 program does are better suited to a larger rom size). It's not unreasonable to assume that Frye was still bucking for 8k into his afforded programming schedule, and partially influenced how certian things were coded.

     

    Ultimately, the world will never know what could have been produced. 2600 Pac-Man was sabotaged by it's own company's executives.

    Hi Nukey,

     

    I left out the Atari 8-bit & Apple 2 & C64 as I was trying to keep in what was affordable in the UK in 1983. All these machines were monstorously expensive and only had very limited distrubution channels here. The 800 cost four times as much as the Spectrum and the Apple even more. I wasn't trying to be technical about the platforms either, just showing what a 12 year old kid had a choice of if he/she wanted to play a Pac game at home in 1983. Whitin that framework I think the 2600 pacman stands up very well ignoring all the technical stuff.

    Best regards,

    Chris

  14. Posted

    OK we all say the 2600 version of Pac-Man was a travesty, not worthy to be plugged into the holy cart slot of our beloved 2600.

    Well what were the alternatives in say 1983? I live in the UK so this is a little British-centric, i have chosen 3 British micro's from the time, all common and under £200 back then, a similar cost to a new Atari VCS with a £30 pac-man cart.

    The machines are:Dragon 32 ,released in 1982 @ £199, Sinclair Spectrum 48K, released in 1982 @ £199. Oric 1 48K released in 1983 @ £179. You also need to figure in a cost of between £30 and £40 for the cassette recorder so you can load the game. Games were roughly £6/£7 each on tape.

     

    OK the games!

    post-14051-1241284371_thumb.jpg

     

    First up is Gobbleman (no sniggering at the back!) on the Sinclair spectrum by Artic Computing released in 1982. It runs in 16K and is a machine code program(hence LOAD""CODE). Controls are keys only using Q,A,O,P, not bad selections and the responce is pretty tight. Maze is nice a chunky and also blue with smooth corners, however no escape tunnels here. The ghosts are quite well drawn but have no intelligence whatsoever, wandering randomly around the maze. Gameplay is very fast, too fast to be honest & the main gripe right now is that the power pills don't always work! The ghosts flash when you have eaten a pill and depending on the blink cycle you pass right trough them, hopeless! The lost life animation is also very poor, your pac cycles through the standard speccy character set, lazy. On the plus side the sound is OK for the age but sounds nothing like the arcade. The game has a nice high score table.

    post-14051-1241286121_thumb.jpg

     

     

    Oric Munch for the ORIC 1 48K Tansoft 1983.

    Again keyboard only control using A,Z, ",? Good selection and very resposive. The maze is purple and again has no escape tunnels. Graphics are well drawn and reasonably smooth. Maze is purple but has nine variations, the oddity is the power pills are not always situated in each corner. Again the ghosts seem to have no intelligence, just random movement.

    The real problem with this one is you only have 1 life(shades of Videopac/Odyssey 2). The sound is good, nice and meaty!

    post-14051-1241286511_thumb.jpg

     

    Scarfman Dragon 32 Microdeal 1982.

     

    Machine code game(CLOADM).

    Controls Joysticks or cursor keys.

    Well the graphics are awful! Just look at the screen shot, the Dragon was capably of much more than this, sadly I couldn't track down another Pac game so this is it! The maze layout is oK and at least we have the escape tunnels this time. No AI on the ghost again and the speed is too high even on the slowest setting, also the controls are sticky as hell. Sound is just a few beeps and blips, sad as the Dragon is capably of really decent sound. You guys should see the great Donkey Kong clone The King!

    post-14051-1241286946_thumb.jpg

     

    The Spectrum also had a good few other Pac-Man variants release over the years, here are some I have gathered together:

    Gulpman 1982 Campbell systems.(lasers instead of power pills!)

    Spectres 1982 Bug Byte.(lay the dots instead of eat'em)

    Pakacuda 1982 Rabbit Software.(it's Pesco!)

    Muncher! 1982 Silversoft.

    Gobble a Ghost 1982 CDS Micros.

    Haunted Hedges 1983 Micromega.

    Ghost Hunt 1984 Kryptronic.

    Gnasher 1984 Mastertronic(best Pacman on the speccy @ only cost £1.99 in the day!)

    post-14051-1241287458_thumb.jpg

     

     

    Hopefully this might make you take another look at 2600 pacman, it's not perfect but niether was the competition!

    I have ignored the Atari 400 & Commodore 64 as they were very, very expensive over here and the 5200 was never released.

    Gotta be said though folks the old 2600 is the clear winner here in my book!

     

    Best,

    Chris

  17. Posted

    Hi all,

    I'm really looking to buy either 'Star Glider' or 'Balance of Power' for the Atari ST.

    I would prefer in box with paperwork but loose will do in any form as long as not

    too expensive. Please PM me if you have any of these games and want to sell through

    Paypal. I live in Australia and will pay all shipping costs (of course).

    Cheers,

    Daniel Foot.

    Have a for sale thread here, has Starglider amongst the lot.

     

    http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...=141733&hl=

     

    Best,

    Chris

  22. Posted

    Perhaps if you add the XEGS, 7800 & 2600 together it may have been No.2 in the USA. Here in UK Sega totally trounced the NES and Atari was nowhere to be seen, I didn't know of the existance of the 7800 or XEGS until i found atari age a few years back!

  23. Posted

    After having a closer look at the label of Spitfire Attack I recognized that the plane isn´t a english Supermarine Spitfire but it´s

    opponent the german Me-109!

     

    I think this oddness is worth a topic! :)

     

     

    Me-109 post-10670-1238753720_thumb.jpg Supermarine Spitfire post-10670-1238753745_thumb.jpg

     

     

     

    spitfireattack.jpg

     

    Actually, it's not an ME-109 or a Spitfire, but a weird combo of both. The ME-109 and Spitfire do have similar appearances and design philosophies, including a very similar looking canopy and landing gear system. The plane on the label, however, has the exhaust pipes and intake of an ME-109 combined with the canopy and nose propeller housing of a Spitfire, as well as several parts that neither had. While the paint scheme may look German, the British actually painted early versions of the Spitfire in that paint scheme in an attempt to trick the German anti-aircraft gunners. Ultimately, they gave it up when friendly fire shot some Spitfires down.

    Post war both the Czechs & Spanish built there own 109 fighter with different powerplants, the spanish used a RR Merlin as powered the Spiffire.

    Here's the wiki link.

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispano_Aviaci%C3%B3n_HA-1112

     

    IFAIK the Czech aircraft used Hispano-suiza power.

     

    Chris

  25. Posted

    Lots of ST games etc, all disk only but tested unless otherwise stated, i can work out cheap postage to the states and accept paypal.

     

    Atari power pack, 10 disks with full games(atari UK bundle deal with system I think), titles are:

    Afterburner

    R-Type

    Gauntlet 2

    Super Hang-on

    Space harrier

    Starglider

    Overlander

    Super huey

    Double Dragon

    Black Lamp

    outrun

    Star Ray

    star Goose

    bombuzal

    Bomb Jack

    Xenon

    whole lot $10 USD plus shipping.

     

    Armour- Geddon by Psygnosis 3 disks with manual.

    $2 plus shipping.

     

    Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back & Chaos Utility Disk.

    3 disks

    $8 plus shipping.

     

    Millennium 2.2 Electric Dreams.

    2 disks

    $2 plus shipping.

     

    Xybots Tengen.

    2 disks.

    $2 plus shipping.

     

    Evesham Micros Public domain set.

    boink!

    Flying Bird

    Waterfall

    Desk Accessories

    Neochrome

    Neo fun

    Megaroids

    Music Demonstration

    Graphic Demonstrations

    First Word.

    Five disk set.

    $5 plus shipping.

     

     

    MTS Software PD disks.

    3 Disks.

    $2 plus shipping.

     

    32 Magazine cover disks inc full games like Foundations waste,Paradroid '90, Trantor,Super Huey,Wicked, Hacker 2.

     

    $15 plus shipping.

     

    also up for trade for 8-bit cart games, you probably have something I need, my collection is pretty pathetic( I had to buy Centipede off ebay for christ sake!) so just PM.

     

    If this lot gets some bite I'll list up the boxed games, just don't want to stick anyone for unnessesary post!

     

    Best,

    Chris

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