SpiceWare

What a piss poor store! ..Al I wouldn't say that; though, half joysticks would have been nice - I'd have given Pleiades 3 1/2 instead of the 4 I did.

There's no + or - option when reviewing games for the online store.

In school a 90 isn't perfection, but it's still an A

True, But as game complexity increases, the ability of having two player games decreases if I understand what I've read here. I would also support using both pot inputs as well and use resistor values to determine which button is pressed. We should look at all possibilities. After all, some of the best games on the VCS are two player. Additional ROM with RAM(3E format supports up to 512K Rom and 32K Ram) and the Chimera Cartridge would make it possible.

Interesting- I don't think I've seen anti-aliased text on the 64 before.

I second this, it's a nice way to give back to the community! I've started reviewing the 27 items I've purchased. I've done 9 so far in a little over a month.

If I recall correctly, my trackball was one model, but used the other model's protocol. Another cartridge? Is that a trackball game, or a joystick game? Is it possible you forgot to change the switch on the trackball from joystick mode to trackball mode?

There's 2 different trackball protocols - perhaps the cart doesn't support the trackball model you have? In the hack page for Missile Command TB there are actually 6 different versions - the 2 trackball protocols as well as the Amiga Mouse times NTSC/PAL for each of those.

Fixed - thanks! Reviews seem to be going quicker now, the next review is already 90% done. Probably go up tomorrow.

I tried the arcade version in MAME, which is why I think faster would help - it removes the tedious aspect. Should be "loss". I actually rate it 3.5(and FF 1.5), but that's not an option for the store reviews. That also explains the overall score, it averages 2.33 which rounds to 2, instead of 2.67 which would round to 3. Fixed the spelling error, thanks for catching it!

Graphics have been inverted new colors LAVACOLOR = $20 BUBBLECOLOR = $28 [*]Set TV TYPE = B&W for "full lava" * I've done some preliminary work on Lava bubbles above the horizon. At the moment it's a no-go as there's not enough time to do it w/out any graphic corruption. * note - this uncovered a bug in the original code. If the difficulty level is set to B then the lava doesn't smoothy go up, it "jumps" over the wide section of the cannon. I haven't fixed this, so to work around it set the difficulty to A. cf20070930.bin

Cat Trax, Funky Fish, Pleiades Bundle, by UA Ltd. 2/5 Cat Trax 2/5, Funky Fish 2/5 and Pleiades 4/5. See individual game reviews(found under Reproductions, not Homebrews) for more detail. Unless you're aiming for a 100% collection, just pick up Pleiades and use the rest of your money for some other homebrews. Cat Trax 2/5 You're a cat on the town trying to find some food and the occasional bundle of catnip. Sadly, the local dogs won't leave you alone. However; if you happen upon a mysterious bottle labeled "L'eau de Dog Warden", you can turn the tables on the mutts and send them to the pound! When you power it up you get a nice looking eat-the-dots maze game. Unlike Pac Man, there's real dots instead of wafers, intelligent flickering of the dog sprites and the maze has an interesting, non repetitive layout. It even has a real basic attract mode. Two scores are displayed, so I initially thought it supported two players. Turns out to be a one player game, with current score on the left and high score on the right. There's no game variations, just start the game with your fire button. RESET returns you to attract mode. SELECT can be used to change the maze color(purplish-blue or green), even while playing the game. The TV TYPE switch is used to pause the game. The difficulty switches are not used. When you start playing it the initial positive reaction quickly fades. Controls are crappy, changes to joystick direction have a delayed reaction - you'd expect more responsiveness considering you're a cat. Collision detection is poor - you'll often be caught even though nothing is touching you. As if that wasn't enough, the dogs are rather dumb - they'll often bounce back and forth between two maze intersection points, even when you're chasing them - boring. Sound effects are adequate, though it would have been nice to be able to turn off the background siren noise with one of the unused difficulty switches. Comes with a nice box and an OK manual, with graphics by David Exton w/Dale Crum. To sum it up, it's a Pac Man knock off with better graphics but sloppy controls and poor collision detection. With a little bit of polish this could have been a fun game. Funky Fish 2/5 Sea monsters and their minions have invaded your neighborhood. Even though you're the MOST laid-back fish, it's up to you to save the day! At first glance it looks like an underwater version of Defender, complete with radar screen showing the positions of the four monsters you need to take out. It appears there's a massive algae bloom going on as the water's green. Like the other UA Ltd. games, there's two scores displayed, one of which is the high score. There's also an attract mode, though it doesn't show any game play as Funky Fish just swims all the way left, then all the way right while shooting. Use your fire button to start the game. RESET returns you to the main menu. The TV TYPE switch is used to pause the game. SELECT and the difficulty switches are not used. When you start playing the game you realize your character really is "the MOST laid-back fish", I don't recall ever playing a game that moved so slowly. This might be OK if it were a kids game, but I found it extremely annoying. Even worse, the ocean doesn't wrap around and you start in the middle - this means that once you've killed off 2 monsters you have a long boring swim all the way back the way you came just to get to the other 2. When you finally make it to a monster the minions start to come out. To eliminate the minions you must shoot them to change them into cherries, then eat the cherries before they revert back into a minion. Once you've killed all the minions the monster will self-destruct, but before that happens you need to absorb some energy from it to make it to the next monster. While the minions have interesting looking graphics, the monsters are just squares(to be fair, the monsters in the arcade version are just a floating eyeball). Other graphics are well done with some nice looking wave action and plants swaying in the currents. Sound effects are adequate. Comes with a nice box and an OK manual, with graphics by David Exton w/Dale Crum. Has potential - if the fish swam faster, like in the arcade version, it would be more fun. Pleiades 4/5 You thought you defeated them in Phoenix - but the invaders from Pleiades are back with a vengeance! Hop into your ship to defend the base. Take off once the threat is cleared and attack the mothership in orbit. After that, land back at the base to prepare for the next assault! Start the game with RESET or joystick fire button. SELECT chooses 1 of 4 game variations. Variations are to play the full game(all 3 waves) or to only play a specific wave. Set left difficulty to A for practice mode (infinite lives). The TV TYPE switch is used to pause the game. Wave 1: Invasion. In the first wave the aliens are attacking your base. The base has buildings, a rocket, a couple radar towers and some hills in the distance. Unlike the arcade version, the base does not take damage during the assault. While that was visually impressive at the arcade, it's loss does not affect the game. The aliens attack in a variety of patterns, but they don't move smoothly - instead they jump from position to position, reminding me a lot of LCD games. The aliens will periodically lay down a shield which you must take out in order to hit the aliens. There's also a simple background tune played during wave 1. Wave 2: Mothership Assault. In the arcade, wave 1 was followed by an attack of birds, somewhat like the attacks in Phoenix. Once that was done, you'd attack the mothership and her defenders. In the home version these waves were combined - the mothership's defenders are the the Phoenix ships. In the arcade you had to target the 5 engines to destroy the mothership. That was probably too complicated for the Atari, so instead you have to destroy the mothership's command module as it periodically appears behind open exhaust vents. While it does get harder on the later levels, it's still the easiest of the 3 waves. Wave 3: Landing. Once you've destroyed the mothership, you have to land back at the base in order to defend it against the next invasion wave. In order to land safely, you must avoid the debris from ships damaged during the last attack. There's a couple flags on the landing strip, they're worth some bonus points if you pick them up. This wave is the most difficult of the 3, but with practice you can do it! Hint - use GAME 4 with Left Difficulty = A to practice. Has the best graphics of the 3 UA Ltd. games. There's an attract Mode that shows off all three waves, and some fairly nice sound effects. Comes with a nice box and an OK manual, with graphics by David Exton w/Dale Crum. Next up, Krokodile Cartridge

that'd be the first thing I'd try. could also be a broken solder joint, but it probably won't be easy to get to it.

Planned to look into that next. I think I'll have to invert the graphics though - currently the bubbles are holes in the playfield. For them to stand out they'll need to be the playfield. There's also the possibility that I'll be limited to only updated 1 or 2 of the playfield bytes. I'll post something tomorrow with the lava already risen.

I have quite a few Commodore 1702 monitors that I use with my classic consoles. Those were all built in 1983 and 1984.. ..Al Commodore 1084S for me. I have a 4 way video switch so I can select between the VCS, Amiga CD32, VIC 20 and Sega Genesis Nomad. Also have a 1084(not stereo) for my 128.

Updated the lava to 8 frames of animation, added the orange lava color cf20070929.bin

Updated to use 8 frames of lava animation, added the orange lava color.

Cool - I'll see if I can figure out how to do that this weekend.

193

That's what I ended up having to do. I tried posting it first to see what would happen since I'd added the Cannonfire entry, like I had added The Spazmatics entry before. This time the date did not change and the post showed up as the 2nd most recent blog entry instead of the most recent.

Cabana EP+, by Tree Wave 5/5 Tree Wave is a duo comprised of Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray. What makes this duo unique is their instruments, which include an Atari 2600, a couple Commodore 64s, Compaq Portable II 80286 personal computer and even an Epson LQ500 dot matrix printer! Surprisingly, all this old technology makes for a very organic sound. My favorite tracks are "May Banners" and "Sleep", which happen to be available on their website so you can check them out before deciding to buy the album. http://treewave.com/mp3s.html Track 7's titled "Commodore 64 Data Track (Do Not Listen!)", but you actually can listen to it as only 4:00 on comprise the data, which is the synth program that Paul uses on the Commodore 64. Save the data portion(4:00 to end) onto cassette and pop in into your datasette for some retro fun. Also included are a couple music videos, Combat and Sleep. Combat is a neat tune that's not part of the CD. The video is created by a hacked version of Atari's original pack-in, Combat. Sleep is one of my favorite tracks from the album - for this video you're presented with a split screen view of the Atari, Lauren, the printer and 64 for a slick visual experience. Next up, Cat Trax, Funky Fish, Pleiades Bundle

Good job keilbaca

cool - is there a configfile setting for stereo? I tried parsing the source in CVS, but couldn't tell.

Thanks! Espire8's done some great graphic work. I'll have to say hacking the game to 8K was a bit more involved than I expected. Makes me even more impressed with Nukey Shay's exploits.

Just popped the cart in and stereo works perfectly in Street Racer! I did have to stop and think for a moment on how they got 4 large sprites to show up without any flicker.