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DamonicFury

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Posts posted by DamonicFury

  1. Posted

    4 hours ago, Mangia-Boy said:

    Comprehensible argumentation.

    Although I would have enjoyed Oil's Well more.

    But Zaxxon is much better than Mountain King.

    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.

  4. Posted

    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

     

     

  7. Posted

    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!

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 1

  9. Posted

    45 minutes ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

    However, I do own most of the 3rd party controller options and yet, I sill prefer to play most of the game with original 5200 controllers. If you have the controllers refurbished as was stated above (I use the foil dot method myself), and have them properly calibrated with your 5200 console, then they actually work quite well at that point.

    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.    

    • Like 1

  10. Posted

    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. 
     

     

    • Like 3

  14. Posted

    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

  19. Posted

    On 9/18/2019 at 11:49 PM, BassGuitari said:

    So, wait...your wife's been sitting on a TRS-80 Color all this time and never told you? :P

    Lol, I certainly already have a ridiculous amount of classic-era gaming and computer stuff.  It probably didn't even occur to her that I would want any more if it!  🙂

     

    I wouldn't mind picking up a few more games... thanks for the list!  Intriguing idea to pick up a cassette cable and use downloaded WAVs to play non-cart games.

     

    I think I'm good on RAM... this one already has a nice 64K.  Clearly, I got lucky there as well.

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    So around 1984, my friend had a Color Computer with a few games.  I think he might have had Canyon Climber, which I also played on my Atari 8-bit at home, but he also had an excellent game called Doubleback.  That one was super addictive and fun and there wasn't anything quite like it on other machines.  It even was a good fit for the wonky joysticks the machine used.  🙂

     

    Fast forward thirty-five years, and I'm helping my wife clean out a closet filled with things she bought at yard sales and thrift shops and was planning to resell someday.  I notice a Color Computer 2 in its box that she picked up for 20$ and ask her if I can have it.  She says ok, and I proceed to test it out... works fine!  I then hit up Ebay for a Deluxe joystick and some games.  What a fun system this is!  It seems to have a rather limited color pallete, but aside from that, the system seems very powerful and capable for its age.  It's a shame most of the games for it seem to be re-named arcade ports, but there are a few standouts I've already found... but the real killer app for this still is Doubleback IMHO... just as addictively fun as I remembered it!

     

    Also enjoying Downland and Reactoid, and I'm amused by the Defender/Star Raiders hybrid of Star Blaze.  Popcorn! is also an excellent port of Atari's Avalanche, which didn't seem to get ports of any kind to other machines (other than the rather different Kaboom, of course)  Less exciting are the ports of Space Invaders, Bump and Jump (with no jumping!) and Asteroids (although that one does have a vector look that most contemporary ports did not have.)

     

    Anyway, this is a really fun system that seems to have been almost entirely forgotten.  I'm glad I lucked into rediscovering it!

    • Like 2

  22. Posted

    Welcome to round eighteen of this 5200 HSC season!  Jungle Hunt tied the poll with Popeye, but won the coin flip afterwards.  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 darthkur with 43,270 points.  Bust it if you can for a bonus point.

     

    The ROM and manual can be found here:

    https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=629

     

    Round ends Sunday, September 29th , 2019 @9pm EST

     

    Standings:

    Nuclear Pacman - 36,020

    eegt97 - 34,140

    JacobZu7zu7 - 7,700

    bemis - 6,750

    Mangia-Boy - 2,900

    jblenkle - 2,300

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