DamonicFury

Welcome and congratulations to newcomer rubeon for shooting the most spaceships, razing the most radar dishes, and zapping the most Zaxxon robots! Space Dungeon is coming up next for our final round of 2019. Final standings: rubeon - 43,400  +11 Kobra Kai - 32,800 +10 Cafeman - 29,900 +9 eegt97 - 23,800 +8 Mangia-Boy - 22,550 +7 bemis - 13,850  +6 roadrunner - 11,050 +5 jblenkle - 10,550  +4

Space Dungeon it is.

Another tie? Fine. Heads Space Dungeon, tails Popeye.

Poll closes Sunday, October 27th, 2019 @9pm EST

If you're looking for an upper limit, that is, the number of the most copies of a single game made, that's likely Pac-Man at 12 million made. Of those, "only" about 7 million sold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_(Atari_2600) Here's a chart showing some of the other best sellers... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Atari_2600_video_games

I haven't played the 5200 32k cart, but I have played the Atari computer disk version that it is based on. It looks and plays pretty much the same as the standard 5200 cart, but it does add some missing features from the arcade: the vertical firing missiles, full range of motion during the space battles, and an improved Zaxxon robot boss fight. It's definitely an improvement, and it makes the game harder, and thus more like the arcade. But if it's just the general look and feel of this version that you object to, it probably won't change your mind much.

Oils Well IS excellent, which is why I added it to the poll the first place. But with a tie between it and Zaxxon (and only a handful of Beef Drop players last time), I decided to go with the more well-known game that more users would have on cart. Sorry to hear you aren't a fan of Mountain King! I'll admit the 5200 controls don't do it any favors, but it's a game I've always rather enjoyed personally. Few experiences in video games get my excitement level up the way the race up the mountain with the crown does in that game.

Love the multi-system reviews! No need to review the 5200 version, as it has much the same controller problem as the -Vision consoles, plus the lack of self-centering. But the Atari 400/800/XL/XE version may be worth a look... that was my go-to version back in the day. Not quite as nice looking at the Colecovision version, but very playable.

8,376

Tie between Oils Well and Zaxxon. Picking Zaxxon as participation was a bit light with last round’s homebrew, so let’s not follow that up with a game that even fewer people have on cart (Oils Well.)

Welcome to round twenty of this 5200 HSC season! Zaxxon was tied in the vote with Oils Well, but I picked Zaxxon in hopes of boosting participation a bit more. Play using the default settings. Emulation is fine, as are custom controls. Pics preferred, but not required except for HSC wins and records. The current record was set by Gabriel with 103,100 points. Bust it if you can for a bonus point. The ROM can be found here: https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=672 Round ends Sunday, October 27th , 2019 @9pm EST Standings: rubeon - 43,400 Kobra Kai - 32,800 Cafeman - 29,900 eegt97 - 23,800 Mangia-Boy - 22,550 bemis - 13,850 roadrunner - 11,050 jblenkle - 10,550

Congratulations to Kobra Kai for making the most burgers while squishing the most pickles, eggs, and hot dogs. (What a weird game this is!) Zaxxon is coming up next. Final standings: Kobra Kai - 188,450 +11 eegt97 - 57,950 +10 Mangia-Boy - 38,850  +9 jblenkle - 9,100 +8

Reminder to vote before 9pm.

I was at an event at a local arcade a couple years ago where he was signing games and giving a presentation. He did mention this sequel... I think he wanted to call it "Yars Olympics" Basically, the idea was that the Yars played a sport to train themselves for battle with the Qotile. It sounded like he's had the idea solidly in his head since the Atari days, but hasn't ever got around to doing much work on actually coding it. He sounded open to the idea of recruiting a homebrew programmer to do the work, but clearly he hasn't gotten around to making that happen yet. Hope it happens someday!

Poll closes Sunday, October 13th, 2019 @9pm EST

I absolutely should have mentioned that some folks like the standard 5200 controllers just fine once they're fixed. The non-centering joysticks and side-mounted fire buttons are dealbreakers for some of us, but for others, they don't present a problem. I really feel that Atari would have been far better off making a real 'arcade' style controller since nearly all of their 5200 games were arcade conversions and they were marketing the systems as being 'just like the arcade.' But they chose instead to make a controller that was similar to the Intellivision's in an attempt to match that system feature-for-feature.

The 2600 adapter was made back in the day. It works well, but a modification needs to be made to the motherboard for the original 4-port machines before it will work. Atari did this mod for users back in the day. Certainly the biggest problem with owning a 5200 today is the joysticks. Odds are that if you pick up a system on EBay or a yard sale, the buttons on those joysticks simply won’t work. It seems the little conductive dots that make contact with the circuit board just stop working with time. Cleaning them provides a very temporary fix, while gluing dots made of aluminum foil provides a longer lasting solution. Best Electronics makes gold plated circuits and dots that will permanently fix the problem, but naturally that’s a pricy solution. Even completely fixed, those joysticks aren’t great... the joysticks don’t self-center and the side mounted fire buttons cause cramping for many users. There are also third party joysticks that were made back in the day that work much better, but those are also somewhat rare and expensive now. Finally, there are both vintage and modern adapters that let you use 2600 or Sega controllers instead of the original ones, but again, these are somewhat expensive, plus they won't work with the handful of games that require analog input. As crummy as the joysticks are, they may not have been the system’s biggest problem back in the day. More likely, the initial lackluster library of games is what really sunk it. While Coleco provided a great library of newer arcade conversions that had never come home before, Atari had a smaller selection that mostly had already come out on the 2600. Even worse, the Colecovision came with the super popular Donkey Kong packed in, while the 5200 came with the far older and less popular Super Breakout game. The 5200’s library would eventually expand to become quite respectable, but by then it was far too late. It’s admittedly a tough sell to convince someone today to try the 5200! A strong argument can be made that almost all of the same games can be played on one of the excellent Atari 8-bit computers, which share the same internal architecture, but use standard 2600 joysticks instead. At best, I can say that the 5200 is a joy to use once different joysticks are obtained. (Also, its TrackBall controller is wonderful for the handful of games that use it.) It looks great, and the large cartridges are very satisfying to plug and unplug. The game library is quite good, with very few duds. And most of that library can be collected relatively cheaply, with only one game that’s seriously rare (Bounty Bob Strikes Back.) I personally love it, but it’s probably mostly a system for collectors and hardcore Atari enthusiasts now.

I'd never call it a great game, but I can enjoy an occasional round of Space Attack. If actually you're trying to win, it can get interesting for a while (but with practice, yeah, it eventually gets too easy.) I'd actually rather play it than Atari's 2600 Star Raiders, but yeah, pretty much any of the other 2600 starfighter games are superior. I'm not sure the primary reason for M Network was to lure Atari owners over to Intellivision (although, I'm sure they wouldn't have minded that outcome!) More likely, it was just to make money by porting their games over to the more popular platform. It's not like all M Network games were inferior to the Intellivision versions after all, but you know that, having given glowing reviews to Lock n Chase, Astroblast, and Dark Cavern.

That's just a Z80, I believe... shouldn't be hard to find one on Ebay or wherever else you prefer to buy microchips.

31,450

Yes, that will be fine.

Welcome to round nineteen of this 5200 HSC season! Beef Drop, a great port of Burgertime by the late great Ken Siders, won the poll by a single vote. Play using the default settings. Emulation is fine, as are custom controls. Pics preferred, but not required except for HSC wins and records. The current record was set by oyamafamily with 294,100 points. Bust it if you can for a bonus point. The ROM can be found here: (it’s listed as a demo version, but I believe it should be nearly identical to the cart version) https://atariage.com/forums/topic/47232-burger-time-for-the-5200/?do=findComment&comment=676077 Round ends Sunday, October 13th , 2019 @9pm EST Standings: Kobra Kai - 188,450 eegt97 - 57,950 Mangia-Boy - 38,850 jblenkle - 9,100

Beef Drop is our winner.

Congratulations to Nuclear Pacman for swinging on the most vines, stabbing the most crocs, and jumping over the most boulders. Beef Drop is up next. Final standings: Nuclear Pacman - 36,020 +11 eegt97 - 34,140 +10 JacobZu7zu7 - 7,700 +9 bemis - 6,750 +8 Mangia-Boy - 2,900 +7 jblenkle - 2,300 +6