Torr

I remember as a kid HERO always blew me away, the animation, the levels were always different, the first game that made me forget about my score (except when looking forward to a free man) and more into seeing what the next stage would be and where I would have to traverse next. I had Solaris too, but never understood it, I didn't have a manual unfortunately and nobody else could help me out either.

Unless you're a real collector, don't be afraid to break the seal on that baby! While the first 2 Swordquests were just random luck in finding clues there IS a method to the madness in Waterworld; It took me a while to piece it all together but in the end, I was able to solve it (and identify what most items did to help you on your way) and it was VERY gratifying. Especially so after being frustrated to no end with the others! Still no Adventure tho...

That does make a LOT of sense... and that proto DOES detract from the movie story quite a bit too!

Not really related, but I just didn't want to start a new thread. About the Texas Chainsaw box art... whats up with detective guy with a gun? I don't recall a gun in ANY of the movies let alone the character... (aside from the remake where the girl blows her head off... the original was ten times better with them picking up the crazy hitchhiker who ends up becoming one of their tormentors; a much better foreshadow to the events to come if you ask me, but thats a whole 'nother topic!)

Man oh man... I like emulation for reasons like Jr Pac Man; even if someone GAVE it to me I wouldn't want it except to, say, complete a collection or something... you'd have to be a masochist to 'enjoy' that game... Pac-Man I have to just stop playing because the free life for each cleared stage means that nowadays I rack up more lives than I spend each level. Ms Pac-Man, gets challenging eventually and it's fun to beat old scores. But Jr Pac-Man... pit me against 3 or 4 ghosts and I'll be lucky to clear the first maze, and unfortunately when I drop to to 2 or (ugh) even 1 ghost it's way too easy, and not quite like "Pac-Man" when you don't have ghosts hounding you, just popping up occasionally and almost NEVER cornering you. It's like a razors edge trying even out the difficulty!

Would it be possible to get some closer up/clearer shots of those sheets? I remember being baffled by this game as a kid (and as someone else said, trading tips in class rather than doing work) but I think with these to guide me I could have a chance at beating it and knowing exactly what is what, because unfortunately I used to get this game off a friend of mine... one of those friends that discards included sheets/manuals/box/ whatever comes with the game that wasn't the game cart itself! And even now all I have is a loose cart

I always find this topic of Atari's so called crappy Pac-Man so interesting. Myself, I grew up in a very small town (a hamlet if we want to talk population specifics) in Newfoundland Canada, where there was no malls, sidewalks, cable TV or most importantly to this conversation, Arcades! So when I got Pac-Man for my Atari, I saw nothing wrong with it! I was Pac-Man, being chased by ghosts thru a maze and getting points. And I enjoyed it. Ironically years later when Pac-Man was on the NES (a much more faithful arcade port) I looked at it and thought... what is this? it's looks like Pac-Man, but it's not! To this day I've never seen a Pac-Man Coin-Op... only Ms. Pac-Man and a funny looking Pinball/Videogame hybrid with a Baby Pac-Man on it (Pac-Man Jr. I guess?) So back to the main point, sure Pac-Man's maze was wide rather than tall, yellow rather than blue, ghosts were all a single color and fruit was replaced by vitamins. But in the end I ran around a maze eating dots, and power pills/ghosts and vitamins for bonus points and enjoyed myself doing it and isn't that the point of playing Pac-Man, to be entertained?

^Bump So... that makes at least two of us with resolution consistency problems. Anybody know any way to remedy it? Cause it's a real nuisance that detracts from such an otherwise awesome emulator.

So am I the ONLY person thats having problems with keeping a constant resolution in Stella??

I don't think I've seen that happen yet. If you post your settings, we can see if we can duplicate the behavior. Michael I don't change the settings at all, I leave them at defaults. However I will also note that as I select different "zoom levels" there is no difference in the resolution and most other options seem to have no effect. I also use Software rendering because when I use OpenGL the mouse stops working, but I'd say that's my own system because most things don't run well in OpenGL.

Does anbody else have this problem with the new 2.3.5 release? When I start the program the GUI is the resolution I like, IE it fills the screen, and then when I load the first ROM it too is the resolution I like, IE it fills the screen. But as soon as I go to load a different ROM, the GUI resoultion changes and is now showing me a much smaller version of itself and each subsequent ROM I load is even tinier... So basically to keep a nice big screen filling resolution I have to keep exiting and restarting the program as I change ROMs.

Asteroids (too easy) Donkey Kong (if you can clear the 2 screens once you can do it a million times cause it NEVER get's any harder as you repeat screens) Asteroids (too easy) Berzerk (if the androids could shoot an angles THEN it would be hard) Skiing (avoiding the poles in slolam anyway, you can try indefinitely to beat your best time tho...) Asteroids (did I mention this one already?)

I'll say Swordquest EarthWorld as being too hard for two reasons. 1. sitting down and trying all possible combinations of items in rooms. 2. No matter WHAT you carry there's NO skipping the Aquarius Rafts/Rapids. So if you were TRULEY playing the game and experimenting with items in rooms, everytime you wanted to leave something or get something from the aquarius room was a MAJOR pain in the ass. As for other games that were TOO hard... well... Raiders of the Lost Ark was too hard, mainly cause I didn't have an instruction manual, and it wasn't untill recent years in finding a copy of the manual online I realized that those were two Sheiks in the second screen. As a kid the second screen looked to me like a place with 2 houses (the sheiks), 3 bushes (the baskets), a blocking thing like at tollbooths/train crossings (the flute), and a box (the parachute) so I didn't know you could by the flute or the parachute. Flute, not exacltly neseccary, Parachute, Yes indeedy. Now for the game that I belive is too hard even if you KNOW everything about it.... *drumroll* AMIDAR I have never cleared ONE board. I've come close, but never cleared ONE stinkin board. And is it just me or does Amidar sound more like a good title for a Space Shooter like Star Master or Gyruss? Speaking of Gyruss, is there any connection between the Atari 2600 Gyruss and the Sega Genesis Gaiares? cause an ad for Gaiares had a pronunciation key stating it sounds like Guy-Are-Us. And they were both Space/Futuristic Shooters.

If you want to play a SwordQuest game that can actually be PLAYED, go with WaterWorld, even with out the manual, if you write down the clues your given as you experiment with different objects in different rooms you CAN figure it without ANY kind of walkthru, or the comic book or instruction manual. Just remember/keep track of what clues were given in what room and how you got the clue.

EDIT Forget this post I misread the main Message

By the way, I don't share a lot of your views of how crappy most games were ported, eg Pac Man, Defender, Donkey Kong (jr), etc... I grew up in a small town with NO arcade so I never played ANY of these games in an arcade, in fact I STILL have never played any actual stand up arcade version of ANY game that was ported to the 2600 (except Mario Bros & Mr Do. (which I OWN muhahahaha) In Fact, I remember my friend having Pac Man on her NES when the NES first came out and I still had my 2600 thinking, wow, Nintendo sure screwed up Pacman! boy did "I" have that back asswards!

Biggest letdown as a kid with my 2600 Freeway I was expecting head to head style Frogger. Maybe even able to push the other character if you get close to them. But no, just forward, backward, forward, foward, backward, waiting for a car to pass... Biggest Letdown in recent years Learning there was no rhyme or reason to the SQ EW and FW. Just random item placing... at least in WW you could use the clues to FIGURE OUT THE PUZZLE of what goes where... not just randomly place objects untill finally you do it right (how many possible combinations are there for the items to be placed... had I remembered stats from highschool I could work it out...)

Personally I like PCAE (PC Atari Emulator) However if anyone could tell me a better one and why I glady appreciate it, there's always room for improvement. I find to get the best emulation you REALLY have to tweak with options, especially the ones pertaining to resolution and sound emulation. Personally I just found that PCAE was the easiest to configure, But if anyone can tell me how to configure another one better, please do so. If only all emulators were like MEKA... that is a truely incredible emulator.

No, I'd say I am on crack, I'm also one of the seven people who liked Swordquest!

I think I'd have to say that Space Inavders itself was my favorite one. In fact I like the 2600 version of Space Invaders more than the arcade version, more than ANY version.

Actually, you mention Canadian Tire selling 2600 stuff, they always have and still do sell videogame stuff. I bought a great deal of my Sega Genesis games there, AND even now I remember seeing PSX and PS2 games there... consoles as well

Actually, now that I think about it Plaque Attack gets awful damn fast... I can get to the pint where I swear it is impossible to gte any farther because your toothpaste just doesn't move fast enough... unless there's ALWAYS a set pattern and you can aticiate where it's coming from next to get there before it does... but still... there is NO room for error!

I'd have to say Chopper Command or Defender II Chopper Comand has suhc small fast enemies... I can never get anywhere in it Defender II has so much goin on, enimies everywhere, plus those extras like hyperspace, inviso and stuff, I can't keep my head straight playin it.

I don't know how simple it is programming-wise, but as for Gameplay, I beileve Freeway has to be the simplest game... I hated it when I was young, I couldn't belive it was by Activision, cause Activision always made such great games... but freeway was bad... it was just the first half of the Frogger screen and you COULDN"T go left or right!!!

I haven't played EVERY 2600 game, but of the ones I did play, it'd be a tie between Amidar and Challenge... And by the way, I have a Zellars copy of Challenge and the box art is REAL crazy. The plot of Challenge is your a duck trying to get thru a maze The box and cart label for it show two guy who look like Ghostbusters (they even have the patch on their shoulder) zapping a big monster with there "guns". I must say Donkey Kong Jr almost made it into that tie, but it's graphcs are only bad when you compare it to the original... really they aren't THAT bad...