MikeMika

This hack looks great! Regarding Berzerk VE, please use any of it that you'd like. I should still have the source someplace if that is needed. I can't wait to see how this turns out! Good luck!

Another name-change game is Devil May Cry, it was supposed to be part of the Resident Evil series.

I've been following this thread with extreme excitement. I'm a huge PoP fan and I always felt the 2600 could do it justice. One of the main reasons I'm such a huge fan is because the animation was so incredible. Moreso than any still frame of the animation, it was the movement itself that was so distinct and really was characteristic of the game. Also, the fact that the Prince is actually Jordan mechner's brother, rotoscoped, would be lost entirely if we re-do the animation. No big deal, really, but retaining more of the character of the original sprite preserves the soul of the game a bit more. So, in the end, I would have to say that the more "realistic" look has my vote. The other style looks great, but seems low-res compared to the more realistic one. But where I work, stylized often wins because, in the end, it seems to be more expressive (GBA, Plug and Play). I don't know if that applies here. Mike

The 5200 and 8bit Atari HC versions had the extra level. When you complete the game, a blue door rises from the left side of the screen and Harry runs into it. The catch now is the score you accumulated starts to countdown and when it reaches zero, the game end (IIRC). You have to jump over crazy over-sized ants, find a magic flute, some rope, and give it to some old guy. I just played through both stages recently, and it is ROUGH. The C64 version does not have the extra level. I heard the story at one point where the developers opted for more detailed graphics for the C64, and the Atari 8bit used the space for another level. What a great game.

Awesome, Ken. Just knowing they got saved from extinction makes me happy. Bummer they didn't turn out very well, though. Just goes to show that games more often than not get cancelled for a good reason. Mike

Tod said he had the split screen working and the scrolling playfield. Beyond that, I'm not sure how much further he got. Sounds like the kernal was significant. Mike

Oh, and one last detail about the birth of Swordquest if anyone is interested: Warner owned Atari, DC, AND the Franklin Mint. It was those three things that sparked the series. A sort of relationship of convenience, for sure. Mike

RE: "Mike, do you have any more info and pictures of Super River Raid? " Not really. I swore I had a flyer from CES with, IIRC, the same image you had described. I tried to get a glimpse of it in the day, but I couldn't get into the "closed door" demo room. So it's kind of become a holy grail for me. As for Adventure II - yeah, it became Swordquest. Swordquest was Tod Frye's brainchild. Once Atari and Warner buddied up, they had access to DC Comics. Tod thought it would be a great idea to combine a game with a comic, etc. By the end, it was its own thing. However, I used to see the Adventure II line item in VideoLivery, and dream of a proper sequel. That's the one I would kill for right now. Mike

ugh, forgot some: Mr. Bill's Neighborhood 2600 Incredible Hulk 2600 Mr. T 2600 Smoky the Bear 2600 ...and last but not least, the one I wanted the most when I was younger: Kickman by CBS for 2600. Mike

I've been fortunate to work with some great ex-2600 programmers, and when I hear them speak about games they worked on that didn't ship, I always have to update my list of desired protos. Also, I would love to get my hands on protos I've played at CES and E3: 1) Ballblazer 2600 (Tod Frye) - Pretty far along. 2) Airworld 2600 (Tod Frye) - Apparently had a small bit of stuff done. 3) Ninja Golf 2600 (David Sullivan) 4) James Bond 007 Octopussy (Train Car Version) 5) Starfox 2 SNES - (I tried to acquire the finished production packaging that they had on display for ages in trhe Mario Store in Redmond) 6) Commanche SFX SNES 7) FX Fighter SFX SNES Super Kaboom! SNES 9) Super River Raid SNES 10) Kill Wheel PSX (Roll down hills in a tire while shooting people) 11) War PSX (Midway) 12) San Francisco Rush PSX (BTW- I have the unreleased CGB Version in 3D!) 13) Adventure II 2600 (If only it is what I imagined it was when I was a kid) 14) Foxbat 2600 15) Zookeeper 2600 16) Conan Xbox 17) Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2600 (Alternate version) 18) Flesh Gordon 2600 19) Yars Revenge II (Not sure how far, but I had the gameplay described to me) Mike

RE: Super River Raid and Kaboom I remember being at CES and Activision announced 16bit remakes of their classic lineup, which included Pitfall (Became Pitfall the Mayan Adventure), Kaboom!, and River Raid. Being a huge fan of these games, I couldn't resist getting more details from them, and I was told that they were being shown by appointment. ??? I wasn't press at that time, so I begged and pleaded and got nothing. The games remained on my mind since then, and I would get scraps of details. I saw mentions in gaming mags, met people along the way who worked on them. I found out one year that they had indeed reached a playable stage. I think some of the original Activision programmers had a hand in them. However, every lead reached a dead end. Someone has to have these roms. Back then, I asked the question that would be on any respectable Kaboom fan's mind: Would Kaboom use some kind of paddle controller (The only way to play it), and I got a confused look. If Kaboom would support the SNES Mouse, I was prepared to make a paddle Mike

Well, lemme try this from memory. Some of these may have made it out: FX Fighter FX Chip(Shown at CES Playable) Commanche Overkill FX Chip (Shown at CES Playable) Steven Seagull's something or other T-Rex (Baby Trex game?) Super Kaboom! Super River Raid Panic Bomber US (Translated) Pre-Starfox Starglider FX Genocide Mike

Sorry, I'm late to the party. Absolutely yes, Jeff. While the Jaguar arguably has a majority of bombs, I'd love to see Tempest 2000, Iron Soldier, etc., get into one of these collections. Ah yes, Mutant Penguins, too. [not very likley to happen] My dream situation would be to license something like Aliens Vs. Predator, BattleSphere (Support them via LAN, etc), add a few modes, like being able to accelerate AvP, etc. Also, track down some of the Jag protos and do interviews.[/not very likley to happen] The other thing I have always wanted to do when a platform was fast enough would be to add linkable Lynx games and split the screen 4-ways, or support them via LAN. Ahhh... Slime World. Of course, I can dream big. Since I first started working with Jeff, he's had some great ideas that I wish we could discuss publicly. They are really cool, but they are not always understood by publishers or come off as exciting to them as they are to us. Now that retro is "in", the opportunity to pursue those ideas is a lot more likely. I think people will be really excited by what we have in the works. Happy Thanksgiving!

(Tod F's words are below - We work side-by-side and you should just get it from the horse's mouth) hey. this is tod frye. i wrote the thing. it was hard. but fun the other day someone asked me if the ghosts had different colors (yeah yeah - they flicker - i know - GET OVER IT) and i really could not recall. i was pretty sure they did, but i had forgotten. so thanks to those who figured it out. tho now that i think about it, maybe different colors for each ghost was a waste of ROM. must have taken at least (ummm pause while i count on my fingers) 12 bytes.

I had a ton of those game pieces at my parents house. It was my favorite promotion at McDonalds. I wanted the Centipede arcade game soooooo bad. Unfortunately I didn't win anything significant. It's really cool to see the game pieces again. I am sure I still have them somewhere. I kept them in one of those sticker binders with my puffy Hulk stickers an Empire Strikes Back alphabet stickers. Yes, I was a loser. Mike

I would love to take credit for coding this, but that belongs to the group of guys in Vancouver under Jeff Vavasour's watchful eye. It was our emulation experts who pulled it off. It's as close as we could get with the hardware we had. Unfortunately, it wasn't a custom hardware, so we had to make some very minor concessions. Jeff is very particular about how the games turn out, and I think the games turned out great. He had a lot of useful help from people very recognizable on this board. So hopefully everyone is happy! Best, Mike

Congratulations, I can't wait to hear how she reacts. I don't know if anyone read the 100th Tips and Tricks extravaganza, but there was a code in there for the Game Boy Color game Klax. It takes you to a special proposal screen that I hid inside. I put it in there like 4 years ago, and Midway didn't catch it. When Tips and Tricks called and asked if we had any super secret codes, I dug it out. She always checked the mag for Animal Crossing stuff. I set it out with the Game Boy and a note to have her try the code. Of course, she wanted to know why I had it in there for so long, and the answer was easy. I wanted her to see it back then, but she HATED the game. I even wrote down a list of codes for her to try (The proposal included), but she liked Dr. Mario much better. Oh well. Her fault, not mine! Mike

Hehe - It's no 2600 programming! To answer your questions, the screen is REALLY nice, it has a high dynamic range, and you can probably get a better idea of it by looking at the Clie by Sony. BTW- The Mike Mika they refer to as being one of the presenters is the same Mike Mika on these boards who did Berzerk VE. That's me! I hope you guys like the game. All your comments are completely valid, and I think you'll be impressed in the end. Best, Mike

UPDATE: Rob Yaeger is at Proof9 Management, and his e-mail is on their web-site: [email protected] Give him a shout! Mike

UtiopiaTech disappeared when Steve Bergenholtz and Rob Jaeger parted ways. Rob wrote the original game. Rob, as it is told, was disillusioned with the games industry and went into an entirely different field, while Steve went on to form Sandbox Studios. Sandbox just recently merged with DICE (Battlefield 1942, RalliSport Challenge XBOX), and can probably be reached through them. Steve's old business card I have is nothing but dead info now, so sorry I couldn't dig up more. Great guys, fun to hang out with, and Rob was particularly a passionate programmer. I met them both when I was at NextGen and they were working on Monty 3D. The definitive version of the game, according to Rob, was the Title Screen version, where it slowly writes the title on the screen, which I believe is the version they included with emulation. Mike

Just to clarify a little... All the arcade games are indeed emulated, but the ROMs are not seperate files, they are imbedded if I recall. Mike

In Michigan, where I grew up, everyone just referred to it as "the Atari." VCS was second, and only around 82-83, did we start to refer to it as the 2600. It took the 5200's release to get me to start calling it a 2600. Mike

1. Spider Fighter. Its reward schedule is like a page out of the Skinner experiments with rats. It keeps you coming back for more. 2. Turmoil. Mark Turmell *defines* shooters, and while this game pre-dates his opus, Smash TV Arcade, it was a sign of what was to come. 3. MegaMania. Everyone had a name for the objects you were shooting, and since most people avoid manuals, it is always interesting to hear what people call them. For me, it was BowTies, Popcorn, Hamburgers, Irons and so forth. 4. Demon Attack. Ah the goodness. Informal survey over the years reveals a strange pattern, when people played this game when they were under the age of ten (When it was released), they preferred non-guided missiles. Those OVER the age of then preferred guided missiles. Weird. Rob Fulop deserves HUGE kudos for this one. My childhood was enhanced by this well balanced gem of a design. 5. Space Jockey. Why? For some reason, the weird cartesian graph-like packaging of US Games, the five dollar price tag, and the relentless shooting - SOMETHING made myself and my friends rush home from elementary school for our 45 minute lunch to forego sustenance of the food kind for pure low-res (Even by Atari standards) goodness. Stop reading here, but if you want my "runners up", well here ya go: Space Invaders - Pure shooter. Phoenix - I NEEDED a port of the arcade game I loved. Atlantis - Where did that little UFO go? See you in... ... Cosmic Ark - Take that, Space Zap. I loved the arcade game, and my friend had the Astrocade port, but this was relatively blissful. Chopper Command - Say it Keanu, "Whoa!" It's Zen-like. Star Master - 3D of the first kind. I group this with Robot Tank. ADDENDUM: DEFENDER!! I might want to push this to the #1 spot. Its follow-up, Stargate/Defender II, deserves a lot of credit too. Mike

Yars Revenge for GBC has, in later levels, shield rebuilders. I put them in after a couple of talks with Howard and listening to him say what he would do differently. To go further, Howard had an idea for a sequel to Yars. It was a really cool idea. It was like a multi-game Olympics sort of thing, using momentum and the ability to lob things after you pick them up, transfering that momentum into a makeshift projectile. There were a few other parts he shared, but I don't recall the details. Mike

It doesn't hurt to write to Atari and ask for it... Stranger things have happened. Mike