ledzep

Ugh, no thanks, keep the controls the same as the originals, that's part of the experience. A thrust pedal would make the game easier to play, I would hope that the game gets harder since usually there will be multiple players clearing out the asteroids. Buttons, as the Atari gods intended! A thruster is analog, anyway, variable thrust, the buttons are digital, on/off, so it would change the gameplay too much from the original.

Another idea, I assume that in higher levels or whatever that more than one saucer could appear at the same time, yes? Maybe 2-4 max (more at once depending on how many players are competing), different types with different abilities, who knows. But my thinking is that in those circumstances if a player shoots a saucer and it turns into a power-up, a saucer can scoop the power-up... up first and use it against the players! So, if there is a smart bomb power-up or shields or whatever (because another saucer was killed) then a surviving saucer could grab it and use it on the players themselves, hahaaha. It would be cool if in higher levels the saucers are a bit smarter and try to grab the power-ups immediately, I'm thinking about how those mines in Star Castle get pretty quick after a lot of levels. This way it's a harder challenge for the good players to want to beat while cutting down on the 40 minutes of play on one quarter problem that arcade owners would like to avoid because these arcade games are supposed to make money.

That's a solid idea, except I can see the younger sibling screaming to be let back in and the older sibling still alive saying "What? Aww, I didn't see that you were disabled... too bad!" and fights breaking out, hahaahaa. If the ship is disabled it should also be blinking or something so the other player can see that it's useless and needs reviving? I think the reviving should cost a power-up (whatever the rescuing player was using) or an extra life/ship (if there are any stored up).

Not this again. I would "love" them if they didn't suck. Which they do, playing those home versions in an arcade would change nothing. But these announced arcade versions are being modified, apparently, to remove most of what sucks with the home versions, or didn't you read the list of shit that they are doing to Asteroids to make it truer to the original arcade look and feel? I'm sure there will still be bits of it that I won't like so much (compared to the originals) but the changes as listed sound like what I was saying about the home Recharged version already. Meaning this arcade version sounds playable and maybe even fun enough to play over and over, though I think the real fun will be playing with friends vs. solo. Assuming these arcade versions are going to be much truer to their original ancestors, this will be your chance to finally play these games with the correct goddamn controllers. From what has been stated, Asteroids will be all buttons (yay), Missile Command will have trak-balls (double yay), Lunar Lander will have the actual thruster control and the rotation buttons, this is a great start. And the graphics will be toned down from the goofy home versions, at least from what Asteroids looks like, I hope the same is true for Centipede and Missile Command, less cartoony/childish and sluggish and more like the original versions. I don't expect them to be exactly like the original versions because then what would "Recharged" even mean at that point. I like that the power-ups in Asteroids aren't as frequent (from what little I could glean from the video) and they don't come towards you (too easy), you have to fly out to them at least (avoiding asteroid collisions) but that means you can also ignore them. I also like the the feel of the game is much closer to original Asteroids and there're only 4 shots on screen at any one time, none of this constant mini-gun bullshit. I'm sure there's a machine gun power-up or something (actually I hope not) but the idea that the base amount of firing is closer to the original is a welcome sign. I am looking forward to huge fans of the home Recharged versions stumbling through having to use correct controllers and the games not being as easy and cartoon-based.

For Lunar Lander? How dare you! For Pole Position, sure, but that would be expected. I do hope for Lunar Lander that the thruster control is a little smaller (especially if they're going to have a big cabinet for multiple players) that otherwise looks and operates just like the original (POT connected to a lever with a spring). That way people who want to make the MAME Asteroids/Asteroids Deluxe/Lunar Lander cabinet can have enough room for the smaller thruster and the buttons. Reproducing the thruster like the original would be cool but I don't see that many people (besides myself) owning an actual Lunar Lander that would want/need a replacement.

Are you fucking serious? Is this Christmas again so soon?!? Dude, that marquee topper panel would be fantastic! Especially if it accurately displayed the current state of the player's game, which missile base is firing, which ones are reloading or out of missiles, etc. You will be remembered in song! But to reiterate, get those volcano fire buttons back, the Missile Command fans will love it. I just checked my Lunar Lander arcade cabinet (I don't own a Missile Command... yet), the Select/Start/Abort buttons (which I believe all light up) have a different feel to the Rotate Left/Right buttons so it would matter using the right ones for the missile fire buttons.

That is a solid idea. Another option (or in line with your idea) is to have the occasional power-up that is an extra life. So if you're limping around firing only one shot, since the idea is co-op, the other player can shoot the saucer and if it's an extra life (or "repair" life) with a special symbol you can try to fly over to it and gain back a life (the player who shot it gets the points if there are any) and now you're back to full-strength but only one ship unless you score over some threshold that gets you another ship. Or if you are fully dead and no longer on the screen then the other player can shoot a saucer that provides a regeneration power-up. Of course using that power-up negates whatever previous power-up that the player might have been using but it's worth it, right? Right?! Well, guess what will toughen them up? Having to a wait a bit to play again. Try harder, son!

Wow! I'll tell you what, I can't stand the Recharged home versions of these games so when I saw that first link I was expecting to be disappointed... but the changes you made are spot-on for a conversion to a physical arcade version! No gamepad/joystick control, thank you so so much, that was half the battle. I like your listed modifications for the arcade experience version, they are all in line with what made the home versions suck (in terms of not having them). As far as brainstorming ideas, how about an occasional comet zipping through the asteroid field, if it collides with an asteroid it comes apart in a shower of new rocks that could be very hard to avoid (only shows up on higher levels, assuming there are actual levels) since a regular asteroid that is shot normally is turned into just 2 smaller ones. Sort of like the Zakato mines in Xevious that would fly down and if not shot quickly will shoot out an arc of 5 shots (this is the one with the glowing center, not the all-black early one), the larger one would shoot out in all directions. So the comet flies in (with a tail), probably hits an asteroid, the asteroid splits into 2 smaller asteroids but the comet blows up into like 5 or so chunks that fly out but don't screen overlap (maybe they fade out like fireworks instead of being more rocks but will still kill you if they contact your ship). Not really a game addition, but I think you would be a hero to arcade cabinet owners if, for Missile Command and/or Lunar Lander, you brought back the Cherry (volcano) fire buttons! Not only because they have a very unique feel, but if you get them manufactured again that would mean a lot of old Atari games could get replacements. I think the buttons that don't light up are the ones no one has anymore, but use both versions for the arcade cabinets, please!

Which is the most fun or favorite isn't the same question as which is on par with the all time greats. I would say that I have more fun playing 2600 games because they are designed the way I like to play video games, which is basically the arcade game mindset (late '70s/early '80s). Most PS2 games, not counting their own versions of arcade ports, didn't typically play that way because they had more runway for bigger/grander adventure type games from what I remember, Sony wasn't making new versions of twitch shooter games for the most part. Same goes for XBox and other systems mentioned, they were on their way to the "realistic" games with better looking graphics and more to do in the games. While also using those miserable gamepads. On the other hand, I'd rather play 5200 versions of those same favorite games than the blocks shooting blocks at other blocks versions that many 2600 games looked like. But I know I'm in the minority there, I have almost no interest in spending 20 hours trying to complete a more immersive 1st person shooter/adventure game, that bores the fuck out of me after the initial 10 minutes of "wow" from the real-time rendered world I'm jogging through. Give me Xevious or Tempest or Star Trek: SOS or Bosconian or Wizard Of Wor any day of the week.

Comparing across eras is of course pointless and unfair due to advances/differences in tech. The 2600 was an all-time great because it was "first" with the big cart library (ya ya, the Fairchild or whatever was first with it's small miserable library of games), the arcade ports and the different controllers. Of course everything after that stood on its shoulders and fixed whatever failings it suffered from. The 5200 is an all-time great to me because it was the closest of the early 8-bit systems to the best arcade games ever made, the late '70s/early '80s games. This of course includes the Trak-ball controller. The arcade ports were fantastic. Not perfect, that is MAME's domain, but way better than the 2600 or other systems with the same ports, including the 8-bit computers. It of course lacks a lot of unique games which is the fault of Atari management, not the console. The homebrew additions prove this, specifically Adventure II. And it has the best, truest port of Tempest out of that era. I think the Atari 800 is an all time great but I think I'm the only person I know who owned one. My brother's friend got an Atari 400 but everybody else was Commodore or Apple from what little I can remember. So it probably doesn't rate for most people but I think it compares favorably to those two. The ST/Falcon probably falls into that same position of being in the shadow of the other 68000 machines even though its specs compare well, it just never took off unless you were making music using MIDI. I couldn't really get into that whole era of PCs, the GUIs sucked and they were trying to do things that wouldn't be achievable until the next gen of PCs showed up. For me, real PCs didn't arrive until the SGIs and 64-bit Intels that could do what we always wanted computers to do in terms of graphics and word processing and the rest. Just try surfing the Internet on a 386-era computer, you'll be in a killing rage after an hour yet that was normal performance back then. It's weird, I never laid eyes on a 7800 at anyone's house, it's like it never existed. Everybody seemed to jump to Nintendo. From everything I've read it didn't have the specs to compete in the year it came out, it should have been improved or released years earlier, so I assume that means no way. The Jaguar, no way. Could have been pretty good but it seemed to die pretty quick.

Oh I agree that certain controller options would have made playing some games easier. Easier is always easier, but that's why I brought up those arcade games, because the controls weren't that easy to deal with. Made the games more of a challenge. I think many times that's on purpose, some games want to be "real", meaning pretending you're operating some future alien tech or military station or something, so the controls are very specific and a chore to get the hang of when you're used to Space Invaders and Pac-Man. Defender is annoying to control, so is Star Trek: SOS, Tron, Missile Command, a few others. But that's also the fun of those games, to be able to play without thinking about the controls anymore once you get good at them. The ultimate was, of course, those BattleTech Centers with the immersive pods that you would sit in and have to deal with 40 different switches and buttons, hahaaha. But it was cool! I can't imagine how boring arcades would have been back then with nothing but digital joystick versions of all those games. So, so what that the analog controller wasn't the easiest option, live with it. It worked fine, you (we) just needed to figure out the limits and short cuts to get better play. I will agree that when your home controller doesn't match the arcade original (many times) then the console can take the blame and some games, as you say, were designed with self-centering digital joysticks which the 5200 never had. I don't understand why Atari never offered that option after the initial release in the same way the Trak-ball came out. Sell a digital joystick (but make it affordable), free money because many gamers would want one, sell an all-buttons Asteroids/Space Invaders controller, more free money, why not? Gamers back then loved collecting everything for their systems, I was a big fan of the driving controllers for the 2600 even though they only mattered for one game (wish they'd made more games for them). I will also agree that a legitimately shit controller is a terrible way to have to play video games. The 5200 was a pretty good controller, comfortable, it just had those mushy fire buttons and no self-centering but the analog play was really good and accurate. Any games that could take advantage of that extra really felt "right", like Star Raiders, compared to digital controls. The Intellivision controller caused my thumbs physical pain and also had mushy buttons, and they were uncomfortable in your hand, too rectangular. Never tried the 7800 controllers.

Ya, it is a bit of beating a dead horse because they're not that bad. Any normal gamer could adapt to the non-centering aspect in about 5 minutes. Any decent gamer could switch from Tron to Centipede to Defender in the arcades no problem so an analog stick that doesn't center should be trivial. My friends and I never had an issue with the 5200 joysticks, we just used our thumb on top and centered them ourselves. I will agree that the mushy fire buttons weren't great but that could be fixed if Atari had cared, as evidenced by the Trak-ball's fire buttons. I'm sure it's known and obvious & I simply haven't run across it yet, but not even addressing the different cartridge size, what was the need for 5200 games to have a different memory layout from 8-bit cartridge games? Everyone talks about, when converting 8-bit games to the 5200, having to move parts of the code to new locations. I don't get why the locations couldn't stay the same. What advantage did having a different memory layout or whatever give the 5200 that it could not have if it used the same scheme as the 8-bit computers?

By Thor's Hammer, I hope that the games get real controllers, like Missile Command, Centipede and Quantum getting trak-balls instead of just joysticks. I mean, since these are supposed to be "arcade" versions of the games and I believe from what I've read elsewhere slightly different from the home console/PC versions.

Agreed. My only real thought about this idea was comparing it to the 1088XEL in terms of physical looks (a crammed together computer inside a small all-in-one type of case) and thinking that probably nobody needs 2 of those, better to go the modular/expandable PC case with 5 1/4" drive bays (and hard drive internal bays) to maximize the choices when building this thing out. That way any cool/ridiculous suggestions could be potentially accepted after the fact either through an expansion card or a drive bay, something that a just big enough to house the essentials case could never hope to do. And the SIO port would allow for daisy-chaining all the stock classic devices from ye olde days. Some people would really want a cartridge slot, others wouldn't care. Solution: 5 1/4" drive. Some people would really want a floppy drive, others wouldn't care. Solution: another 5 1/4" drive (or external drive). But if the design is locked into a small case that barely fits everything then trying to shoehorn in one more cool thing might be impossible. Going standard ATX/PC case also allows for people to change out the case later if a better solution presents itself since trying to 3D print an "Atari-like" case sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

Ya, I don't understand this obsession (not just on this thread) with trying to get the smallest footprint possible for a PC. What, do people live in their cars? No desks? A normal ATX PC case with a few 5 1/4" bays would be the best option. It would provide the most ways to combine parts, a lot of the modern PC cases have room behind the motherboard for the cabling so it's not a bird's nest mess of crap over the CPU area. A mid-tower probably works fine for most people (I love full towers but I also love physical hard drives still). To my mind, considering that the 1088XEL already exists, so long as this thing has the SIO port, 2 (though 4 would be ideal) 9-pin joystick ports, expansion card slots, along with the ability to accept physical 8-bit cartridges (presumably using a cart drive in one of the 5 1/4" bays and if you're obsessive, have 2 cart drives connected for those old right side carts for the Atari 800) and floppy drives, it should be good enough as a modern Atari 8-bit. Also, a DVI or something more modern video out along with USB connections though I think the PS/2 keyboard/mouse idea is solid. Some of us still prefer spinning hard drives to SSDs so that would be a good option as well, 2-4 SATA ports on the motherboard would probably be more than enough. Though I know the idea is stupid and nobody would want it, I think it would be hilarious if there were a way (external expansion box) to be able to plug in the old Atari 800 memory cards for true, authentic Atari RAM (and the ROM board, hahaaha) but pretend I didn't mention that. I just love the look of those old 16K cards with the covers on them, can you imagine using dozens of those to get enough memory for complex software? By the way, would there be hooks through the keyboard for the System Reset/Option/Select/Start buttons? I don't know if that's obvious or not, I just miss that Atari keyboard with the unique symbols on it. I don't suppose there's an option for such an external keyboard.

The 2600 version has Trak-ball support?

I suppose he's also restricting his opinion to when those games were first released, back in the day. At that time the 5200 Pac-Man was great (even though I don't care for the game) and superior homebrews did not exist yet. So, it's comparing like to like during the era. I can see both ways of reading "they definitely made mediocre arcade titles" but I think he's right in that the arcade games themselves were not that popular or fantastic as games though I would disagree about Space Fury, I love that game but then I think (know) that all vector games are better than raster games, hahaahaha. As far as I remember nobody I went to arcades with cared about the rest of those games much except maybe Venture and the 2600 version of Venture was garbage until the homebrew Venture Reloaded arrived. Sometimes having a weak version of an arcade port is just as disappointing as not having it at all (2600 Pac-Man). Glad that homebrew versions can fix those mistakes even if it takes decades later.

Ha, now whenever I hear/read "to be fair", I think of this -

Not on purpose. I've bumped a few over the years when I was searching for something (to make sure I wasn't starting a thread that already existed) or I ran across something that I thought was interesting or it was unresolved so I wanted to know if whatever it was ever got finished. I'm not sure which is worse, the complaints that ohmygod that thread is 10 years old or the "We already have a thread about that, why don't you try using Search correctly?" snark.

Agreed, around here that meant Castle Golf (miniature golf, possibly waterslides, arcade games), SEGA Centers, I remember an arcade in the Del Amo Mall(?) that was huge and had lots of games (the Topanga Canyon Mall had one almost as big, I think). There was an arcade in Pasadena that was also giant, you could tell they had combined two buildings because the floor had an uneven seam in the middle, lots of older games there, too. But I could still find a Sea Wolf(!) in a few arcades even as I was also playing Star Trek in an environmental cabinet. The Starcade in Tomorrowland (in Disneyland) had lots of games, I think that's the only arcade where I ever saw a stand-up Tail Gunner. But at the same time some small locations had older games, too, probably because it cost money to get the newest ones. I played Canyon Bomber in the food area of a Sears in the Northridge Fashion Center, only time I ever saw one. There was a mini-mart near my friend's house that had a Wizard Of Wor for years, etc. The older games that had great gameplay were popular for years, not just the years they came out. The shitty ones, ya, they got replaced quick. Chuck E. Cheese had a Moon Cresta that always raped me, an arcade on my way to high school had the only Space Firebird and Polaris I remember. Oh wow, some great pics in this post about the Starcade - https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/starcade-at-disneyland-1978-79.497397/ Some old favorites in there back then. I remember upstairs they had two Space Duels along with those great air hockey tables.

Sure it does, all of it, because what you said was that nobody would want to play a relic of a game that was (gasp!) 3+ years old on the 5200 in 1982 which Space Invaders and Super Breakout, among others (they were planning Asteroids, remember) easily refute, and you also said that nobody would want to play a B&W game, either, even though many of the games that had come out in the arcades were B&W but with primitive and obvious color overlays on them, such as Space Invaders (and non-5200 games like Asteroids Deluxe, Star Castle, etc.), which could easily have colors added onto them for the 5200 to assuage gamers like you who would seem to be incapable of enjoying the game or playing it because it originally was B&W. I don't know what your hang-up is with games that were originally B&W, do you think that Atari couldn't add color to them for the 5200 like they did for some of the games they released? Do you think they couldn't also add some extras to make the game "better" than the arcade version? If the 5200 was sold specifically as a graphical upgrade to better replicate then current 1982 arcade games then it would never have had older games released for it, get it? Almost every game that initially came out for the 5200 in 1982 was based on a pre-1982 game! Pac-Man 1980 Space Invaders 1978 Defender 1981 Star Raiders (home game) 1980 Galaxian 1979 Missile Command 1980 Realsports Baseball, Football, Soccer (home games, not arcade ports) 1982 Super Breakout 1978 Asteroids (unreleased) 1979 I may be missing a couple, who knows, but do you see the pattern? No 1982 arcade games on the 5200 in 1982. Atari Football came out the same year as the amazingly "current" Space Invaders, 1978. So much for your theory. They went with the direction they went with for the sports games, I don't mind, I'm just surprised that they didn't base the Baseball game on Atari Baseball and add all the extras that Realsports Baseball got, and I'm really surprised they didn't release Atari Football with similar enhancements (my god, color!) since it was popular in many arcades back in the day, including after 1978, and part of that popularity was those giant trak-ball controllers. You either weren't around arcades in the early '80s, don't have a good memory of that era, or went to crappy arcades because I went to loads of them and they all had the older games, limited by interior space for the cabinets, along with the newest games. Some of the bigger ones had great "old" games like Red Baron (1981), Tail Gunner (1979), Rip-Off (1980), Centipede (1981), Berzerk (1980), too. Seriously, in 1982 did you refuse to play any of the games that had come out before 1982 because they were now "relics"?! If you think Atari Baseball and Atari Football look worse than the 2600 versions, you need glasses, hahaahahaha. But sure, stick with that story if it makes you feel better. They did, it was called the arcade port market. Coleco tried the same thing but with mostly lesser games. Even so, they had some good ports.

Ah, ok, that makes more sense. I never played that thing in an arcade (never saw a 4-player Atari Football, either). I will say that I loved the non-real pitches that these trak-ball arcade baseball games allowed, unrealistic as they were. Made trying to play 9 innings of computer baseball more interesting, hahaha. But I can believe that sports purists would have been annoyed with those bullshit abilities. I agree but there would have been nothing stopping Atari from fixing those issues with Atari Baseball. Which I can believe is what morphed into Realsports Baseball but it seems to have lost some of its speed along the way.

Oh, of course. Asteroids, Lunar Lander, Space Wars, they were like 10 (3+) years old! Nobody would want to play those games, they wanted colors, not gameplay. But what about Asteroids Deluxe, Battlezone, Star Castle, Armor..Attack, they had colors (overlays)! Some were from 1980, still a lifetime away from 1982 but closer, right? Space Invaders was color (overlay), that means people would accept it. Take the overlay off, though, instant rejection, completely different game. How do you play this without colors, what's happening? Yet the Sprint games were popular and they were always B & W from what I remember. Super Sprint was a slightly different perspective, but in color so clearly that one would be 10x as popular as the older Sprint relics at least even though the gameplay was basically identical. But the colorplay was night and day. Maybe it was illegal to add color to the home ports of B & W games? That was probably it, gameplay wouldn't be a consideration, Realsports Baseball was practically a different sport from Atari Baseball, right? One game has 9 players on a diamond, the other has 9 players on a diamond. One uses an analog joystick or Trak-ball controller, the other uses a Trak-ball. The learning curve would be too steep. Ya, Surround would be stupid. A Tron Light Cycles game would be instantly rejected, like that level in the Tron arcade game, right? Nice try using some of the most boring 2600 carts to move the goalposts about popular and fun arcade sports games that utilized the Trak-ball controller like the 5200 has. You missed the Basic Programming cart. Wait a second, if a game being 3-5 years old makes it an embarrassing relic, and this is 2024, that means...

I understand that but I was saying that if you got one of them done, the other would probably need almost no extra effort if, by my guess, they had very similar code. And like I said, the gameplay from the Atari Baseball game was different, faster than the Realsports Baseball. Obviously once they decided on Realsports Baseball it would have been ridiculous to come out with a second baseball game that was practically the same. I'm just wondering why they never ported those Trak-ball games first, especially considering their commitment to the Trak-ball controller.

Well, I was thinking mostly for Atari Football but I figured they must be similar in code since they came out roughly at the same time so why not. If your argument is that they would be nuts to convert a '70s arcade game then you have to explain why the other '70s games got converted. I have no problem with Realsports Baseball and I can imagine that that might have come about because they wanted Atari Baseball but updated so let's add more to the game. Atari Football was really popular back in the day, including the early '80s from everything I remember so I would think they would convert that game just to say they had another arcade game port (and to further push their Trak-ball controller). If you watch gameplay videos of Atari Baseball it seems to move faster than the Realsports version, that would be a consideration as well.