DamonicFury

Yes, the Video Pinball dedicated unit is MUCH cruder than the 2600 game. But it plays a very nice game of Breakout (also somewhat different thatn the 2600 version, but still nice.)

Did I miss a decent PC release of this game? Aside from the one released by Broderbund with CGA graphics and PC-speaker sound effects, I'm not aware of any other PC release for this game. And while I'll guiltily confess to enjoying the game via MAME, it's a game that I feel deserves a proper release for everyone to enjoy legally.

I played a lot of 2600 Missile Command as a kid. It was one of the first games I got with my Atari way back on Chirstmas 1981. It remained my favorite game for a long time. Recently, I've become hugely enamored of the original arcade game, having luckily acquired one at an auction. It's enormously addictive and challenging, and I'm constantly driven to try to improve my performance on it. Yesterday, I decided to fire up the old 2600 version and see how it 'felt' in comparison. And you know what? It's STILL an incredible game. Yes, it's missing the left and right bases, the MIRV'ing missiles and the bomb-dropping planes and sattelites. Despite all this, it's still just as challenging, if not more so, than it's arcade parent (if the smart bombs are correctly made to be 'smart', of course.) The programmer, Rub Fulop, did an amazing job at porting this game, especially for the time in which it was released. 1. It was among the first (possibly the first?) 2600 game from Atari itself that featured a non-blocky score display. 2. The colors and sounds are reproduced fairly closely from the original arcade game. 3. The 2600's limitations (only three ABM explosions at a time) create a challenge that largely make up for the missing features of the arcade game. Since you can't "spray" your shots the way you can in the arcade, you must aim each of them with maximum accuracy in the 2600 version to succeed. In short, 2600 Missile Command was a great port of a truly great arcade game. :-)

A conversion to the PC would be VERY nice for the Tecmo collection as well. It would be a big help for those looking for (legal) games for their home arcade cabinets. (And it should be a lot easier to port to the PC from the Xbox.)

The "80 classic games in 1" compliation IS nice... but the Star Wars arcade game is sadly missing. I know the licensing must be a headache, but it was worked out for the Gamecube release of Rogue Squadron III (and it's bonus disk), so it's not impossible. That wonderful game really needs a PC release, as the Gamecube controller is really inadequate for the game's unique control needs. I have a hard time imagining a Flashback-type device being able to emulate games with control schemes as different as Star Wars (flight yoke), Asteroids (5 buttons), and Tempest( 1 knob, 1 button)

It IS a shame that no company outside of Atari decided to work with StarROMS. I bought all the ROMS that I didn't already have on a compilation from StarROMS soon after they opened their website, and I've eagerly been awaiting more games ever since. Sadly, no more have appeared. You're right, Revenge of Arcade should be added for it's Motos support. Thanks!

I guess I'm mostly interested in collections, although it wouldn't hurt to take note of perfect or very-nearly-perfect standalone releases as well.

While I am quite aware that just about all arcade games can be emulated via MAME, I am interested in which ones have been given a proper legal release for Windows PC's. Here's all the ones I know of... are there more collections out there that I've missed? Games freely available: Robby Roto, Gridlee, PolyPlay Atari: 80 games in one: Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Black Widow, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Gravitar, Liberator, Lunar Lander, Major Havoc, Millipede, Missile Command, Pong, Red Baron, Super Breakout, Space Duel, Tempest, Warlords Midway Arcade Treaures: Defender, Stargate, Joust ,Joust 2 ,Blaster, Sinistar, Robotron 2084, Bubbles, SPLAT!, SmashTV, Rampage, SpyHunter, Satan's Hollow, Root Beer Tapper, Vindicators, Marble Madness, RoadBlasters, Gauntlet, Paperboy, Rampart, Super Sprint, 720, Toobin', KLAX Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition (coming soon): S.T.U.N. Runner, Gauntlet II, Xybots, APB, Pit Fighter, Primal Rage, Championship Sprint, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Spy Hunter II, NARC, Cyberball 2072, Timber, Total Carnage, Wizard of Wor, Xenophobe, Arch Rivals, Rampage World Tour, Kozmik Krooz'r, Hard Drivin', Wacko, Badlands, Hydro Thunder, Off Road Thunder: Mud, Sweat 'N Gears, Race Drivin', San Francisco Rush the Rock: Alcatraz Edition, San Francisco Rush 2049, Super Off Road Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Midway Collection 2 (this out-of-print collection contained two games not collected in the above Midway collections) Burgertime, Moon Patrol Namco 50th Anniversary Collection (coming soon): Pac-Man, Ms. Pacman, Galaxian, Galaga, Dig Dug, Pole Position, Pole Position II, Rolling Thunder, Rally X, Bosconian, Xevious, Mappy, Sky Kid, Dragon Spirit, Galaga 88, Pac-mania Microsoft's Revenge of Arcade: contains 4 games that also in Namco's collection (Xevious, Ms. Pacman, Rally-X, Mappy) plus one unique game, Motos. Taito Arcade Legends (coming soon): Battle Shark, Bubble Bobble, Colony 7, Continental Circus, Electric Yo-Yo, Elevator Action, Exzisus, Gladiator, Great Swordsman, Jungle Hunt, New Zealand Story, Ninja Kids, Operation Thunderbolt, Operation Wolf, Phoenix, Plotting, Plump Pop, Rainbow Islands, Rastan, Return of the Invaders, Space Gun, Space Invaders, Space Invaders part II, Super Qix, Thunderfox, Tokio, Tube It, Volfied, Zoo Keeper Capcom Coin-op Classics: (comes with Hanaho's HotRod joystick) 1941, Block Block, Commando, Exed Exes, Ghouls'n Ghosts, Magic Sword, Mercs,Sections Z, Side Arms, Son Son, Street Fighter 2, Strider, U. N. Squadron, Varth Capcom Arcade Hits Vol.1: Street Fighter, Street Fighter 2(included in CCC) Capcom Arcade Hits Vol.2: 1942 and 1943 Capcom Arcade Hits Vol.3: Commando(included in CCC), Gunsmoke Digital Leisure releases: Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Dragon's Lair II StarROMS (available now on www.starroms.com - the below list are games that aren't collected elsehwere): Atari Soccer, Atari Football, Atari Baseball, Avalanche, Cloak and Dagger, Cloud 9, Monte Carlo, Peter Packrat, Quantum, Qwak And finally these are StarROMS games that were briefly available but were pulled when it was discovered that Atari(Infogrames) did not have the license to them. StarROMS claims that they negotiated a deal with Midway to keep these legal for those who purchased them. Again, the list contains just those games not collected elsewhere: I, Robot, Arcade Classics, Beat Head, Off the Wall, Road Riot's Revenge, Skull & Crossbones, Sparkz, ThunderJaws, Blasteroids, Escape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters, Tetris, Road Runner, Hydra, Batman The above list totals at about 163 games, but there's still many more that could be collected including games by: Konami (Frogger, Time Pilot, Gyruss, Scramble) Sega (Zaxxon, Pengo, Carnival, Turbo) Tecmo aka Tehkan (Rygar, Bomb Jack, Swimmer) Gottlieb (Q*bert, Reactor, Mad Planets) Cinematronics (Space War, Tailgunner, Armor Attack) Universal (Mr. Do, Cosmic Avenger, Ladybug) Exidy (Venture, Mousetrap, Crossbow) Nintendo (Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario Bros.)

While I haven't tried the C-64 version, I've tried it on numerous other systems. The Genesis, SNES, and NES versions all are VERY similar... same scrolling maze, speed booster option, maze selection options, etc. The 2600 version is amazing for the time it was released. The XL/XE version isn't bad, but I wouldn't enthusiastically recommend it either. The 7800 version is definetly the best one for a classic system I've played yet... although opcode's Colecovision version will probably beat it. :-)

I'm not at all a sports game fan, so I'm voting for Activision's Boxing... with it's abstract graphics and gameplay, it isn't really much like a sports game at all. :-) And it does provide a few minutes of competive fun. :-)

Ken, you did a great job of trying to get every last one of them in there! It's a shame that some IP holders would put up such a fuss over re-releasing a 20-year old game program! I just recently got the Remix Edition for the PC, and it is absolutely top-notch. Even though I own every single Activision and Imagic cartrdge, the presentation on the Anthology made it a VERY worthwhile purchase. The vintage commercials, prototypes, homebrews, high-score board, patches, 80's soundtrack, game modes, and the outstanding interface make for a just about perfect retro compilation. Many thanks to you and your team!

Sorry... double post.

That's such great news! Lots of great old arcade games coming to the PC soon! This new Tatio collection (29 games) Namco's 50th Anniversary collection (14 games) Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe (28 games - includes all the games from MAT2 and 3) Now if Konami would just release a PC arcade collection... gotta have Frogger and Time Pilot!

Congrats! An 800XL is a good choice for an Atari computer... nice keyboard (unlike the XE's) and 64K of memory (unlike the 400/800/600XL) Plus the cart slot is very conveniently located unlike most other models. Most Atari computer carts should work like a charm. There's only a very few exceptions (Astrochase, Gorf, some Synapse carts) that only work on a 400/800. You may want to think about picking up a SIO2PC cable... doing so will allow you to load just about any piece of Atari computer software from your PC's hard drive. :-) As for good games, there are thousands of them... lots of top-quality arcade conversions plus numerous computer classics from Synapse, EA, Infocom, Activision, Broederbund, Datasoft, Epyx, etc. Just to name a very few examples of the all-time greats: Archon, Choplifter, Lode Runner, Rescue on Fractalus, Jumpman, O Reily's Mine, and Fort Apocalypse. Pretty much anything made for the 5200 can also be played on your 800XL, and without those awful controllers. An Atari computer is classic gaming nirvana. :-)

From the first day I bought Kangaroo way back in the 80's, I hated the blue background. I think it would be a far better looking game with a basic black background (like the arcade version) Can this be done?

It would be really great if some of these older game manufacturers would make their IP available in some form or other. StarRoms has been in business for something like 2 years now, and only Atari (Infogrammes) has made their Roms available for sale on it. Why not Exidy, Cinematronics, Universal, etc? Even a CD-Rom package similar to Namco's, Midway's, or Atari's would be nice. (Yeah, I know it's easy to find ROMS 'out there' but I really would like to see as many arcade games as possible get a proper modern release.)

Yeah, Curt mentioned this in the FB2 and ADV2 thread. It's really not hard to get to... the hints he gave are more than adequate to find it. :-)

I also bought this recently at Target. I figured at the price of a DVD, it would provide at least an evening's entertainment. And it did, but it is really is to be avoided by everyone except the collectors and the curious. The programmers did try hard to duplicate the 2600 gameplay, and I give them credit for the effort involved, but the feel of most of the games is way off. It might have been better to not try so hard to duplicate the sound and graphics of the 2600/7800 games, but instead to program the best version of the games possible using the NES hardware. Doing so might have provided some really delightful versions of these classic games. As an Atari collector, this was worth the purchase at the low price. But for someone who just wants to play the games, I would HIGHLY suggest skipping it and recommend the Flashback 2 instead. btw, the most fun I had with this product was finding the 2nd hidden room in Adventure (thanks to Curt for clueing us in that this existed!) But, wow, does the bat and the bridge ever behave differently in this version!

Star Wars: Death Star Battle: This Parkers Brothers Star Wars game is based on the final Death Star battle in Return of the Jedi. The player controls the Millenium Falcon in two different stages. In the first, the player simply destroys TIE fighters until a hole opens up in the shield that can be flown through. In the second stage, the player tries to shoot through the body of the Death Star to hit it's central core. Once this task is accomplished, there are a tense few moments in which the player must dodge fireballs as the space station explodes. The shield looks quite nice (although it was invisible in the movie) and the starships all look more or less as they should. Overall, this is a fun game that is a must-have for Star Wars fans. Frogger II: Three-Deep!: While this is a sequel to the popular Sega arcade game, the gameplay was designed by Parker Brothers for the 2600 and various other game and computer systems of the time. Like in the original game, the goal is to guide Frogger into his caves, but this time the caves are scattered throughout the river surface, underwater, and sky screens. The game is colorful and fun, and worth seeking out for Frogger fans. It was programmed by Mark Lesser, who also programmed the unreleased Lord of the Rings: Journey to Rivendell. Mr. Do's Castle: Originally programmed by Coleco, the game was licensed for release by Parker Brothers as Coleco had stopped publishing games for the 2600. It would become one Parker Brothers' last releases and it is one of their rarest games. Like in the arcade game, the player controls Mr. Do as he tries to rid his castle of unicorns by dropping floor blocks onto them. By knocking out the three key blocks and then reaching the door at the top of the castle, Mr. Do can turn the unicorns into Bonus Letter unicorns. Elimiating these unicorns to spell out "EXTRA" will earn the player an extra Mr. Do. The game graphics are bad even by 2600 standards. Combined with weak control, Mr. Do's Castle is hard to recommend to anyone other than hardcore collectors.

Frostbite: Another great Activision game by Steve Cartwright, who also wrote Barnstorming, Megamania, Seaquest, and Plaque Attack. In this one, the player controls "Frostbite Bailey" who hops back and forth across across an Arctic river, changing the color of the ice blocks from white to blue. Each time he does so, a block is added to his igloo. While the gameplay borrows somewhat from both Frogger and Q*bert, it still has it's own flavor and is a tremendous amount of fun. Players who scored above 40,000 could send away for the "Arctic Architects" patch. Ghostbusters: While numerous Activision games were ported from the 2600 to computers, this game is actually a port of the Commodore 64 game by David Crane. Like in the 1984 hit movie, the game stars the Ghostbusters who patrol the city trapping rampaging ghosts, taking them back to their headquarters, and finally facing the Stay-Puft marshmallow man. Dan Kitchen's port incorportates nearly all of the computer game's complex gameplay, although the graphics had to be stripped down a great deal. Private Eye: This very unique title by Bob Whitehead is a challenging multi-screen adventure game. To succeed, you must learn the fastest way to negotiate the city to collect all the necessary items and return them to specific locations. You cruise around a city in a Model A auto, which can jump over obstacles. There are five different scenarios available in which the map and items are changed to make the game increasingly complex. The graphics are up to Activision's high standard, and for gamers with the patience to learn the maps, it can be a great deal of fun. Players who could beat the third scenario were able to send away for the "Super Sleuth" patch.

Fire Fighter: After programming Breakout and Asteroids for Atari, Brad Stewart created Fire Fighter for Imagic. The game places you in the role of a fireman attempting to save someone from a burning building. The goal is simply to achive the rescue in the minimum amount of time (7 seconds is the world record.) Games tend to be very short, although variation 9 allows the player to rescue 8 victims in a row from increasingly taller buildings. Like most Imagic games, Fighter has good graphics, but the gameplay is unlikely to engage most players for very long. Trick Shot: Trick Shot was released alongside of Demon Attack and Star Voyager as Imagic's first three games. The game is the only pool simulation available in the 2600's library, but it does it's job quite well. It is limited by the 2600's limitations to having only three balls and a cue ball on screen at once. There are three modes available: Trickshot, Pool, and English Billiards. Trick Shot was programmed by Dennis Koble, who went on to write Atlantis, Solar Storm, and Shooting Gallery.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back This is the first Star Wars video game created on any platform. It is set during the battle on Hoth, which the player taking the role of Luke Skywalker as he fights the Imperial Walkers in his snowspeeder. The Walkers can be destroyed by either hitting them with your blasters 50 times, or by hitting a "bomb hatch" which appears on the Walker's body from time to time. The game is fun, fast-paced, and has a larger number of variations for customizing the difficulty to the player's taste. It was released alongside of Frogger as Parker Brother's first two releases for the 2600. The game was programmed by Rex Bradford, who went on to program Star Wars: Jedi Arena and the unreleased Kabobber for Activision. Star Wars: Jedi Arena This second Star Wars game by Rex Bradford and Parker Brothers is somewhat weaker than their first release, The Empire Strikes Back. Loosely based on the scene in the first movie where Luke Skywalker is practicing his lightsaber using a laser-firing remote, this game imagines an arena in which two lightsaber-wielding opponents face off with the remote floating in between them. Both players are surrouneded by a sheild that must be penetrated piece by piece using shots from the remote. The paddles are used for controlling your lightsaber as well as the angle of shots fired by the remote at your opponent. As both the concept and the graphics are somewhat abstract, and the gameplay isn't all that exciting, Jedi Arena is one of the weaker Parker Brothers 2600 titles. Frogger Frogger was one of the best-selling games of the 2600's library. It was based on the Sega arcade game and was one of the first two titles released by Parker Brothers, along with Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Programmer Ed English (who later whent on to port Mr. Do and Roc N Rope for Coleco) did an excellent job of re-creating the gameplay of the original arcade game on the 2600, although the graphics were necessarily less accurate. Starpath later created a second, more arcade-like 2600 version of this game for use with their Supercharger add-on product, which was legal as they sold their games on cassettes instead of cartridges.

Cosmic Commuter Programmed by John Van Ryzin before H.E.R.O, but released a year afterwards. It's a fun, fast-paced shoot-em-up in which you dodge or shoot obstacles, pick up passengers, and try to avoid running out of fuel. It was released in 1985, a year after the Great Videogame Crash, and is one of the rarer Activision games for that reason. The cartridge features a simple blue and white label that is quite different from that of any other Activision game. Seaquest This is an excellent shoot-em-up from Steve Cartwright, who programmed numerous Activision classics such as Frostbite and Megamania. In it, you control a yellow submarine who must find us numerous waves of sharks and enemy subs, all while trying to rescue friendly divers. It has excellent graphics for a 2600 game, and it's also noteworthy for it's very satisfying sound effects. Like many of the best 2600 games, it starts slowly and ramps up to become quite frantic in it's later waves. H.E.R.O. Considered by many to be one of the finest games for the 2600, H.E.R.O. was released in 1984, the year of the Great Videogame Crash. For that reason, it wasn't able to reach the same large audience as that of Activision's earlier masterpieces. The gameplay involves guiding R. Hero through caverns filled with flying critters, tentacles, moving walls, and other dangers. He's equipped with a jetpack, laser beam, and a limited supply of dyanmite, all of which will be needed to negotiate a path to his ultimate goal, the trapped miners. Control is perfect, the concept is quite unique, and the gameplay is highly addictive. The game was programmed by John Van Ryzin, who also programmed Cosmic Commuter for Activision.

Fathom Another great game from Rub Fulop, programmer of Night Driver, Missile Command, Demon Attack, and Cosmic Ark. Unlike his previous hits, this one is a slower-paced adventure game, in which the player alternates between playing as a dolphin and a seagull. The goal is to swim and fly through multiple screens, searching for starfish that will give you a piece of Neptune's trident. Once the trident is assembled, you can release Neptune's mermaid daughter from her prison at the bottom of the sea. The game is colorful and fun, but can become frustrating in it's later levels. Shootin' Gallery This rare Imagic game is quite similar to the arcade game, Carnival. Both games represent an old fashioned shooting gallery in which conserving bullets and careful selection of targets is key to getting a high score. It was programmed by one of Imagic's veterans, Dennis Koble, who also wrote Atlantis, Trick Shot, and Solar Storm. This game should not be confused with the Atari Corp. prototype Shooting Gallery (which uses the XE Light Gun.)

Here's my personal list: 77: Combat 78: Breakout 79: Superman 80: Adventure 81: Kaboom! 82: River Raid 83: Keystone Kapers 84: H.E.R.O.