christo930

Beat em and eat em!!! Strong female lead.

Does anyone know if there is a home port of the arcade Two Tigers, which I think was put out by Bally. I used to play the arcade game as a teenager and I really liked it and was fairly good at it. But I've never heard of any home port of the game on any console or computer. Does one exist? Even if it is a clone and not an official port? AFAIK, there has never been any home release of this game including modern(ish) arcade game collections. I believe it uses an 8-track for some of the sounds. AFAIK, MAME doesn't incorporate the 8-track sound track. It's a pretty good looking game for 1984 as well. It is the distinct look of Bally games of the time. I don't know why it never got officially ported. But maybe it got a clone or shareware version on one of the home computers.. A quick search of google and youtube doesn't show anything.

While it certainly wouldn't be as big a bother in a real hardware situation, I can tell you how much I hate these things playing on a portable device with a virtual keyboard. Of course, the virtual keyboard covers up the part of the screen I need to see... OTOH, it certainly won't pass a couch compliance test to have to constantly get up to hit keys on the keyboard using real hardware. I was trying to explain that I was literally asking you and not posting some kind of rhetorical question. Though I can easily see why it might have been seen as something other than a literal question. I'm just not as familiar with the 8bit line. I have an 800 and an XEGS, but the collections aren't that big. These days I'm usually using emulation. I got my XEGS around the turn of the century. Then sometime later, maybe 02, I picked up the 800XL. Though I find them interesting, they don't get the kind of attention from me that the Atari consoles get. In general, I find probably the majority of the 8 bit computer diskette and cassette games to be terrible (particularly familiar with the 64 and Amigas). Granted, given the sheer numbers involved, it's still at a minimum, hundreds of games worth looking at and spending at least some time with. There was just a whole lot of crap on the various computers of the age. There was basically close to zero barrier to entry with these games and the huge payoff potential made them a juicy target for everyone's shovelware and crapware. While there is no shortage of crap on cartridges, I don't think the ratio is as bad. You started to really see this on PCs in the mid 90s and beyond, but I don't pay any attention to modern gaming, say, after y2k.

Thanks, I'll check them out. I saw a video some time ago that said he was working on getting them (I think it was both, but I know for sure Defender) released as official Atari releases. Had he been able to do that, he probably wouldn't have changed them up.

I mean games available as a cartridge ROM which you could load onto an SD cartridge which both the 5200 and 8bit line have. Sorry if I didn't explain that well. I would not be including games that can be run from a virtual disk image emulated in some way in modern hardware. Disk images are not as convenient as cartridge images. You still have to screw around with the keyboard. They often have trainers you have to step through. Often have a demo-scene type thing that runs before the game. I asked if you were sure because I wasn't sure how many carts were available for the 8bit series. But if it is 475 and most of them are games, I would assume the 5200 probably cannot keep up, though I am not sure the total numbers of 8bit games ported to 5200 cartridge format.

Funny because the graphics is what I don't like about Dropzone. That big man makes it easier for the aliens to hit you I like Stargate a lot more than Defender. I played it a lot more in the arcade back in the day. Plus it had the 2600 port, which was excellent. Protector for the Vectrex is my favorite way to play "Defender." It's also my favorite way to play Space Invaders. You have to see this port of SI to believe it.

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You sure about that? I know there have been a lot of conversions from the 8bit line to the 5200. So if you have an SD cartridge, there are a lot of games to play. Of course, there are SD cartridges for the 8bit line too. I suppose this is a fair point for some games. Some games would not be very fun if forced to use a controller to play. OTOH, the 8bit line is stuck using the 1 button 2600 stick. Up to jump is just terrible. OTOH, the 5200 stick is not without its own major shortcomings. Plus you can use the paddle controller for some of the 8bit line games.

I watched some videos about it and it looks great. Congratulations on getting it done and released. I'm downloading it and will try it on a real 2600 soon. Thanks.

Both are pretty good games, overlooked and underrated. Pepper II is a lot of fun on the Colecovision. It would be great on the 2600.

I know Centipede is different. Plus you have the analog controls. If you like the analog controls, then the 5200 is the machine to have. Plus, if you like cartridge and not disks, the 5200 would be the way to go. Since the 5200 doesn't have a keyboard, you won't get forced to use it. You get all the extra buttons as well.

Congratulations on completing and releasing. Looks great. Looking forward to playing it.

To say the XEGS made the 5200 obsolete is like saying the 90s VW Beetle made the early 70s Beetles obsolete. The original Beetle had not been sold in the US for many years at that point. The 5200 was abandoned and orphaned long before the XEGS came out. It was already obsolete. Hell, the 7800 made it obsolete. Really, I don't think it did anything to make the 5200 obsolete. It was a different and incompatible system. If you wanted to play your 5200 games, you needed a 5200. It was true then and it is still true today other than emulation.

He also replied to my comment and said it most likely will. Which is awesome.

I realized that it did sound somewhat negative and that is why I put that in there. I don't want to sound negative because in general I'm not. Presumably as the first release, it is early days yet. I figured the music was likely just a place holder. It really is amazing how PB screwed up every single version of Frogger they created. You would think they would ace the music on the C64 or even the Intellivision, which has a decent sound chip. So please, don't take my statements as some kind of dis. It's not meant that way..

I disagree completely. What we need though is a better version, not a lesser version limited to 4k (assuming a better version cannot be done with 4k). Supercharger Frogger is such an exceptionally good game for the 2600. Frogger has long been one of my favorite games, even though I've never been especially good at it. I wish I had it back in the 80s with my supercharger (I bought it on closeout in like 1985). I didn't get it until the Stella Gets a New Brain CD which I think may have come with the Cuttle Cart. It's been so long I don't remember for the life of me.

Will it do the music correctly? Every single version of Frogger released BITD, except the Supercharger version screwed on the music, even on very capable systems. Frogger without the music isn't frogger. While it certainly looks better than the PB version, after seeing it on ZPH, I think it still needs quite a bit of work (it is an early preview, after all). I don't know if it possible to surpass the supercharger version, especially in 4k with no extra RAM. But I hope it is. I don't hear this music on ZPH. Just one quick tune that plays over and over with no triggers. The arcade version has a different tune after each frog goes home. The music is one of the best parts of frogger, especially for such an early game. I don't want to come across as negative or unappreciative of all the hard work that goes into it. I just have very high hopes for the game. It will be hard to beat the supercharger version on the 2600.

Lock N Chase wasn't a pac man clone. It was a home port of an arcade game that was a pac man clone. I think it is a pretty good game, though pretty difficult. I have fond memories of playing this game with my best friend when we were in high school. But this game (the arcade version) is the most reasonable to call a Pac Man clone. Mouse Trap is a pretty good game, especially on the Colecovision. Again, it's a port of an arcade cabinet game. It's pretty good even for the 2600. It was just released a few months ago for the 7800. It also looks excellent on the 7800. This game has elements of Pac Man, but is definitely not a Pac Man clone. I think a lot of games with any aspect or has any vague similarities with pac man get labeled as pac man clones for no good reason. Obviously a lot of games "borrow" elements from other games. Lady Bug and Mouse Trap both get that accusation thrown at them a lot. But both add enough to be their own games. Lock N Chase is more or less a straight up ripoff, though a pretty good one. Jaw Breakers I don't think reaches this point. Oddly enough, Mr Do! is often accused of being a Dig Dug wannabe or clone, but it is really a much better game than Dig Dug. Dig Dug is also a much simpler game. The only real similarity is they take place underground and so you can dig your own maze. I cannot see how the courts ever sided with Atari in the O2 K.C. Munchkin lawsuit. It's not even close. If I were the judge, I would have fined Atari for bringing such a frivolous lawsuit in the first place. Using this precedent, Activision should have been forced to stop selling Chopper Command on account of its similarities to Defender. There are many other examples. Generally speaking, anything made from injection molded plastic is not going to be very rare (though it can be on a relative basis). Plastic is a great material, but it has, particularly back then, a very high cost for the first one. You can make a million plastic combs like they had back in the 80s and sell them for 49 cents a piece, but only when you can spread the up front cost over many thousands of copies. I'm not as sure as the ROMs. But I recon these were pretty expensive for the first one as well. For Atari, this wouldn't matter. They were making the cartridges by the train car full. So they could have 1 off games that won't sell in large numbers as all the cartridges are the same. But 3rd parties who had to make their own carts, they would have had been made in fairly large numbers.

I wouldn't worry too much about the supposed copyright holders, except maybe Nintendo. The worst part about the ones that do bellyache is they didn't have them anymore. Back in the late 90s when emulation started taking off, these were just old games nobody cared about. A lot of lawyers got work even figuring out who owned what.. But they didn't have the ROMs or the source code anymore. They downloaded them like everyone else.

Defender was not a bad game. What it was is a poor port of the arcade Defender. Stargate/D2 showed what could be done, at least with an extra kb of RAM. Plus, I think Defender was only 4k while Stargate was 8k plus the extra 128 bytes of RAM. It probably could have been much, much better as an 8k game even without the extra RAM. It's actually surprising that they released it as a 4k game. Asteroids also came out in 1981 and was released as an 8k game. Pac Man is awful, I agree about how awful it is. But it's really not in the bottom 5. You can still play it. It will just never be Pac Man though. That is where it really falls down. There is no excuse for some of the badness of pac man. There is no excuse for the terrible colors chosen. No excuse for the up / down tunnel. No excuse for not having mr man face all 4 directions. No excuse for the terrible sound either. They didn't even get the scoring right. I think where all the compromises came in is the marketing dept insisting it be a 2 player game. That eats up RAM because you have to store the dots (plus score, plus level, plus pac men in reserve etc) for both players at all times. With only 1024 bits of RAM, it eats it up. Notably, Ms Pac Man was a 1 player game. With a couple of notable exceptions, the worst of the 2600 games were low end 3rd party games being sold at a discount price. I think there were some pretty crappy 2k games early on too.

I had an Olds Calais with the Quad 4. It was a great engine. It felt like driving a turbo because all the power was at higher RPM. It would accelerate at an OK rate and then all of the suden it would start building real power. I never had any head gasket failure with it either. But I think the Iron Duke was the only 4 cylinder available when the Fiero launched. I also owned a Citation X11 (I really loved that car) with a 2.8 and the 4 speed. It was one of the most comfortable cars I ever owned. Even as a young guy in the very late 80s early 90s when I owned it, I loved the hatchback. I wish they still made hatchbacks. Best cars ever. Speaking of Mitsubishi, the Conquest is another one I would have liked to have owned. One of them had like 250hp out of a 4 cylinder. Plus they were great looking. I almost bought a used one, but my friend talked me out of it. He said they were famous for blowing the timing belt (curse the timing belt!!) and had an interference engine (evil combination of timing belt and interference engine) Jay Lenno I would probably listen to, but not because he is a late night talk host, but because he is an automotive hobbyist. Plus he has a whole team of master mechanics who are available to him to ask questions, plus he works with them, presumably every day.

I liked the last one they made, the 88 Fiero. I always like the way the Fiero looked. When equipped with the V6, wasn't a bad car. Sadly, I cannot fit into a Fiero. I am simply too tall for it. I squeezed myself into one in the early 90s and barely fit and with my hair on the ceiling. Very uncomfortable car. Being so low to the ground didn't help either. I also liked the later Plymouth Laser. I had one of the early ones. I never got this kind of thing. I hold most celebrities in the lowest possible regard. If Hall and Oats want to talk about music, I'll shut up and listen. But on any other subject, including cars, their opinions are just noise in my ear. I've never purchased anything in my life because of a celebrity endorsement, but I have gone out of my way to not buy something endorsed by a particularly obnoxious celebrity or even because I find a company's commercials extremely annoying. It has always been, for as long as I can remember, a big mystery to me why anyone anywhere cares about what some man who plays kids games for money, a person who makes believe for money or a musician thinks on any topic outside of their extremely narrow expertise. Since almost all of them are supremely obnoxious and narcissistic people, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me ears or eyes when they say something. I just cannot imagine why anyone would take anything any of these people say or do seriously.

I don't disagree with you here. There is certainly nuance I didn't deal with and in the case of portables, other considerations matter too. I didn't know the x-box was backwards compatible. The newest consoles I own are an original X-Box and a PS2. Maybe us backwards compatible guys are right after all. But early on, there really weren't any games outdoing the SMS. The SMS simply could not compete with even the unexpanded NES, particularly with all the contracts Nintendo forced 3rd party developers into signing. Before all those mappers started coming out, the plan was to force everyone to buy a disk drive for the games to get around the limitations of the NES's design. Fair enough. That worked for you. But for many people, there were still games they enjoyed playing. When I got my Commodore 64 for Christmas 85, I still had both a 2600 and an Odyssey 2, though the o2 got very, very little attention from me. I got it very late in its life and finding games for it was basically impossible. The 2600, OTOH, got plenty of attention from me even after the 64 acquisition. I even bought a supercharger for it from one of those low end discount stores along with a couple of games for it. I want to say it was either Odd Lott or Odd Jobs. I also bought a bunch of other games at that same store. So not only was I continuing to use my 2600's existing games, but I bought new ones to play. I remember buying a lot of M-Network titles in that same store. They were all inexpensive, which is a big plus for a 15 year old kid. While the graphics and sound were obviously not as good as the 64, many of the games I had and the new ones I acquired were still a lot of fun.

They don't want the small channels if they can help it. I cannot tell you how many times I've searched for videos on youtube that are impossible to find. Like I'll search new homebrew atari 2600 and there will be nothing. Then I come here, and someone has an embedded new youtube video showing a new homebrew. Their search function used to be great. It sucks now. It only wants you to watch videos it recommends to you. I often have to use yandex to find something I'm looking for with Google. Because even google sucks now. Really, it's the same as developing games for the 5200. You ain't gonna get rich doing it. You have to do it because of your love for the system and to add to the community. I've been thinking about an audio only (Podcast, I guess) youtube channel or one with just my voice and game footage. There is just so much bad retro content on youtube. Thousands of videos with 2 minutes of really crappy video quality launching an emulator and then not knowing how to play the game. I am way too camera shy to do videos with my face in them (plus I value my privacy). If I do decide to do it, I will be under no illusions that youtube will want to promote it or that I will make any money from it.