Shaggy the Atarian
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Posts posted by Shaggy the Atarian
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I am interested in playing Lunar Lander Beyond, and don't mind that they've expanded on that. It looks like it's a creative, interesting way to take something, although it's not like LL had much "lore" to begin with
In the case of YR, like I said, I'm not big on retconning stuff as that more often sucks than ends up as better or more compelling, but maybe it'll be great and there's no reason for me to care. We'll see.
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7 hours ago, TampaBay said:
@Shaggy the Atarian Any update on the coin / credits fix? Wondering if you'll be able to get a "real" test this coming weekend.
They are still working on it, but not sure when it might be ready. Crossing fingers for the next day or two.
On 4/19/2024 at 9:01 PM, Lord Mushroom said:I thought Mario Kart GP DX was popular, just with different people. It is more for females and young boys, whereas Cruisin´ Blast is mainly for older boys and young men.
Mario Kart and Cruis'n have basically the same demographic (Cruisn just gives gas whether you push it or not, which is great for kids) although I see everything from kids to adults from both sexes giving it a play. That's anecdotal, but informed by what I've seen over the years. Maximum Tune definitely appeals more to the guys, in part thanks to the shifter and the more serious tone and style of play.
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Yeah, I haven't had much luck in finding out their recent history either. I talked with one of their guys to find out if they had a US strategy in place, but it doesn't sound like it for the time being. One of their guys does seem to fundamentally understand what an arcade game is though - he's of the type that thinks anything simple is "arcade." No big deal though.
I only played Jungle Hunt on the Atari systems (more on the 800 than the 2600 version), but always enjoyed that one too. Space Dungeon is also a fantastic game, but never went anywhere in arcades and only got that port to the 5200.
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Admonish me if this is the wrong place to put this...not sure, but I guess its technically modern. But Taito's The Newzealand Story is coming back from an unlikely developer...Commodore
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Just now, CharlesEChuck said:
My first reply to you surely wasn't meant as an attack. I'm sorry if it came through as such! Your response confirms my initial impression of you from the Asteroids thread. I hope you also take my word that your initial impression of me may have been a bit off. I really like Atari and don't think I need an agenda or stamp to support what I like. There's really no sense in shilling Atari on AtariAge, where most people have a deeper connection and longer history with the brand than the company itself. I started on the wrong foot with you and agree there's no need to blow it up from here. I wish you the best with your Arcade and look forward to more fun discussions
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24 minutes ago, CharlesEChuck said:
My guy, I really don't get what it is with you. You mentioned that you're disappointed this game doesn't seem to follow the original's lore. I disagree because the main story elements seem to exist in both games and what we know about Rising could in my opinion actually happen in the Yariverse and even make a lot of sense.
I already explained my pushback; you can have that opinion, I'm not saying that you can't, so I think you're reading way too much into my posts. Neither of us can know how this will end up, but I'll say for the Xth time, I hope it's a great game.
QuoteI read somewhere that Atari believes the best games happen when developers are given artistic freedom to do what they enjoy. Dreams Uncorporated got Lunar Lander and made a game in their very own style without much micromanagement to turn it any more "Atari-ish". I think this is likely what happens here. Wayforward got Yars and does what they do best. In their own way. If the resulting game is fun who really cares if it has a different story than a one-screener from 1981. Strange thing is, I feel we can completely agree on that point.
Yes, we do agree there for the most part. I don't care for when companies retcon things, as that's usually a red flag that it isn't good. That's the only thing I'm really concerned about when it comes to this game. No need to blow it up from there.
QuoteYou know, in the last days I closely followed what you shared in that Asteroids Arcade thread and really liked it (I still do). I thought you're the coolest guy and was happy about the fair exchange there. And suddenly you're here, crafting an essay to dissect evey single word I say, calling me names and my opinion absurd, even somehow implying I shouldn't comment at all, when all I did was wrongly using the word ONLY and not figure out how to edit when I realized it was not appropriate (even before you replied).
I am a long time Atari fan and I think you are too. There is no need to go about each other like this and it's certainly not necessary to accuse a new joiner to this community of ill will just because they have a different opinion than you. Fun with Atari and views on games are not exlusive to you and it's sad that you feel the need to be unfair and offensive. I was respectful all the time and I think you are not.Apologies for being a bit abrasive on my language, but you should realize that being pretty new and coming in with your own attack at the start on some little thing I said isn't going to start things off on the right foot. Since you're new and there's little history on your side, I can only react to what I see here and it just came off as a bit odd and shilly. Forums are always full of some pushback, so if you post something that someone else doesn't agree with, there's usually going to be some discussion about that.
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2 hours ago, CharlesEChuck said:
Ok, you're probably right, I'm the projecting shill and Atari continues with their recent practice of carelessly slapping their IP on existing games. I'll head back to the gate and wait there for approval before I dare popping into a forum again to share my opinion.
I'm sorry that your mind can't even conceive of anything other than what was shown in a 1 minutish trailer, but when all you've posted are "everything Atari does is gold!!!" posts, then make absolute statements like you did in this thread, you shouldn't be so shocked that someone might gently push back and see you as a shill.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
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8 hours ago, CharlesEChuck said:
Everyone says that this game will not fit the original lore without knowing much about the story of Yars Rising. I also don't know much but I still strongly disagree. The original story comes down to humans sending flies to space where they find superpowers to fight the mysterious Qotile enemy. Now, if you don't want another space shooter, the concept of a human infiltrating the Qotile base with the help of the Yars and their superpowers to hack and destroy e.g. their swirl (Qo)technology or whatever seems to be the only logical and fitting gameplay idea for a sequel you could think of! It just makes sense in every way.
You're close but per the comic book, the Yars/Razakians came from a crashed ship and space radiation, they weren't sent up into space as some kind of experiment. They were an accident. Not that this is a huge deal or anything as we're arguing over a 40+ year old game's lore.
Again, so far this feels like WayForward is interjecting the YR story into something else they had been working on. Perhaps not and I'm wrong. That's just the impression so far. No need to bend over backwards to defend a game none of us have played yet.
Regardless Rising's genesis, it's silly to claim that what WayForward is doing is the ONLY "logical and fitting gameplay idea" as 1) Rising appears to be a prequel, not a sequel. 2) Just the comic book & game itself provides plenty of lore for in-universe sequels - what happens after Yars exacts his revenge and saves Razak III? Shouldn't there be other Qotile aliens in the galaxy? Might they attack again? Are they attacking other planets/solar systems? Is there a reason behind all that, if so, what is it? Do the Yars go on the warpath to ensure that another Razak IV event never happens again or do they sit around in fear waiting for another attack to happen? There are many "logical and fitting" ways you could go with that that don't somehow involve a human hacker on Earth fighting against an evil human corporation. I'd say that's less intuitive and "fitting" to the story, just on its face. In fact, yet another evil corporation doing evil things is just as tired a cliche as an evil alien race invading planets at this point.
3 hours ago, CharlesEChuck said:Even the idea that the protagonist is not a Yar, who's very likely to be discovered on that mission, but a human with a secret connection to the Yars, kind of like a chosen one with powers routed in both worlds, is a perfect choice. Turning the original Yars gameplay into hacking sections, much like the Cyberspace in System Shock, is pretty genius and absolutely not something you could just "slap" on any generic Metroidvania game. All this shows that the people who thought up this game deeply care about the concept and lore of the original and conceptualized the game to be exactly like this from the start.
Perhaps you work for WayForward or you're a WF shill, but sounds to me like you're projecting. They just as easily could have already had a concept for their MV-style game where you played a mini-game as a part of the hacking component (most hacking elements of video games are just mini-games anyways, so is that really "genius?"), so when the Yar license came along, it became "well, scrap the one we had, put in the OG Yar instead." Maybe it is a sequel in that case although that doesn't really explain how any of the lore ties together or how the Yar/Razaks ended up back on Earth to imbue random humans with super powers. None of that comes from the comic.
Again, I'll give the game a chance and perhaps I'll really enjoy it. But you popping into the forums out of nowhere and making these absolutist statements about how they can only make the sequel in this way is a bit absurd.
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7 minutes ago, Giles N said:
Yeah, - that^ was what I considered had to be gameplay design flaw.
Learned now, it’s all in the manual.
I was 4 or 5, I might have read it in the manual, but I also might have not...t'was so long ago now 🧙♂️
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4 minutes ago, TampaBay said:
😀 It was never in the arcade. It was introduced on the 2600. Maybe it was ported to other consoles, not sure.
I actually love the game. I play it all the time, at least weekly. Once you know how it all works, it's a nice challenge.
It's a stretch, but it kind of was in arcades.
YR started off as a port of Cinematronics' Star Castle, but when HSW couldn't get that concept to work right on the 2600, he retooled it and gave us YR.
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1 hour ago, Giles N said:
This is a pure design flaw.
How could, or why should, a new gamer suspect touching the main-enemy(!!!) that one need nothing less than a cannon (!!!) to take down, to be safe, sound, and the next obvious and logical step in the gameplay scheme??
I know people back then had LSD on their sandwiches for breakfast, but you still shouldn’t be able to bring your mind to perform logical breakdowns like ‘’whats displayed there to kill and destroy you, which you need a cannon to take down… yes, little bee - just fly over and touch it… its safe’
To be fair, they mentioned that this was one of the two ways to get the Zorlon cannon in the original game's manual. I know most games have no manual anymore, but back in the day, you couldn't have a tutorial to explain things, so relied on the manual.
I would say it's not a design flaw for two reasons:
1) What happens if a player just sprays and prays the shield away with their normal shot? How are they supposed to get the ZC? The shield doesn't regenerate, so some way was needed to accomplish this.
2) This becomes a high risk, high reward feature that builds the tension
I grew up playing games like YR, and I think I just discovered this trick on accident. I didn't think "that's stupid!," it taught me to use strategy. If the shields were gone and I'd used, but missed, with the ZC, then I learned to wait for the Qotile to fire, hope it missed me, then immediately go and touch it to get the ZC. Otherwise, it's a tension building risk...will it kill me when I'm right there, or will it not. Still, it never fires immediately after it already has fired, so that's always your chance.
As for this new take in the form of Yars' Rising, I'll wait to play it and see. I am glad they are looking to bring it back, but when I first watched the trailer, it seemed to me like they just had some other Metroidvania in development, Atari asked if they wanted to do a Yars game, then slapped that license on to it. I could be wrong. Still, from the trailer, I am disappointed that it doesn't appear to follow the original game's lore (from the manual and comic book) at all, but we'll see if their surprise somehow ties it all together.
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1 minute ago, TampaBay said:
Yes, that's the one I played. I don't recall any issues with the sound, but as previously mentioned, it didn't seem like anything different than Mario Cart 8 Deluxe on Nintendo Switch.
Technically, the arcade Mario Karts are exclusives, in terms of tracks, items, some unique characters and some other subtle features (I can't recall if DX has the "live commentary" that Mario Kart GP1 and GP2 had). The Japanese version is superior though, as they received several years worth of content updates, while the US one stopped after two 😕
Here's one of the tracks that's an exclusive - the game is also supposed to have a lot more items, but IIRC there aren't any that do something different, they just look different:
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10 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:
No idea which one exactly, but he said it was boring, and the sound coming from the speakers was "muffled"...
Probably is this one, which has been on the market since 2013. I'd guess that the game hasn't been maintained recently if the speakers sound like that.
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9 minutes ago, TampaBay said:
Nice job with your Search Engine Optimization! I searched on this game to see more about it and yours was the first entry to come up! 😀
I'd probably give that game a try, except, and I'm not a germophone AT ALL, but I just can't get into wearing those public VR goggles.
It helps that I'm practically the only one out there talking about any new arcades
Or at least ones that have no license/name attached to them.
The germ thing doesn't bug me either, but wearing a headset that some other sweaty dude just wore does slightly...and those little pointless face masks (those will not prevent transmission of something like pink eye) ruin any immersion you might feel otherwise. The main problem for me is that I can't use most VR without experiencing a migraine for hours afterwards, even if it was just for a few minutes. I don't have migraines in normal life, so it's enough to make me only use this stuff on rare occasion at tradeshows.
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16 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:
I'm probably in the minority and somewhat driven by nostalgia, But the more I see modern arcades, with their GIANT screens and Huge games taking up huge real estate, (Your Space Invaders Frenzy, Fast & Furious, and HALO Firestorm blahditty Blah), and (understandably) costing more for the arcade owner and costing more to play; The more I appreciate the way it used to be, with smaller cabs and screens where you'd walk up and enjoy your game, (Or maybe you and a friend for fighting, co-op, or alternating players type games)...I'm actually glad the Asteroids: Recharged is not a Giant, room-sized, experience...
Maybe the pendulum will swing and it will get back to being able to enjoy your game in anonymity and not broadcast it to everyone who walks by, nor worry about how many tickets the machine is spitting out...
PS: Nothing wrong with the Big games, per se, I just Also want the smaller cabs to come back in fashion.
If it did well enough, I would prefer the 2p version of the game, just because it's half the size. Most of us ops would prefer smaller games too - aside from costing less, it lets me pack in more games. It's nice to have a spectacle game or two, but not for the entire arcade. Unfortunately, most stuff being made right now is all about being spectacle games. Here's yet another that Raw Thrills recently rolled out
4 minutes ago, TampaBay said:Cool. Looking forward to seeing how next week goes.
Yeah, once they implement waves and leaderboards, I'll be paying more attention to repeat plays. That's always the best tell
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4 minutes ago, TampaBay said:
Haha, excelllent job with building the anticipation!! 😀
Yep, I figured sales wouldn't be over the top with the coin glitch. Was just curious if people were actually playing it, or just walking by!
Aside from the one dude who spends hours on it, most have played for several minutes, then walk away. New weekend and new people though, so we'll see
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1 hour ago, TampaBay said:
@Shaggy the Atarian First week of Asteroids is in the books. Understanding it's basically been on free-play 😀, did people seem to enjoy it?
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For its first week in operation, it made $14. Slow week, as mentioned, but also the coin glitch. The Alan-1 guys did drop by yesterday to do some troubleshooting & debugging, so the amount of free coins its spitting out have diminished a bit, but it's still doing it. They do hope to have it fixed soon (next week, perhaps?). Then we'll get a much better idea (also assuming that things pick up)
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24 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:
Dang, I want one of those. I do not have any arcade machines, but that would be a good first one.
A lot of people are surprised when they discover the arcade version of that, but then a little shocked by how balls-to-the-wall difficult (and different from the 2600 version) it is. I couldn't really pass it up when I found it a decade ago though.
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7 hours ago, jhd said:
I love the detailed discussion about the business side of running an arcade. Thank-you @Shaggy the Atarian for sharing this information.
I do have a question: what happens to these machines after, say, three or four years in service when they have been superseded by something newer?
Is there a market for used hardware; say in smaller communities? Is it just sold for salvage/scrap/recycling?
I know that there are individuals who collect classic arcade games (and/or turn them into MAME consoles), but these new games are far too massive for that to be a viable option.
You're welcome
How long you hold onto a game does depend on the game and the location - I still have a few games that I opened with 16 years ago as they still earn consistently. But when it comes time to say goodbye, yeah, there is a decent used market out there. Many locations just focus on new stuff because that's what makes money, but for those who don't have unlimited budgets like Dave & Busters or Round1, they'll tend to look for some good deals on used. You have to have a really old game with a name for collectors to be interested in it. I probably should put my prototype Hydra up for sale here soon or sell off my Pitfall II...pretty sure those would go to a collection and not an arcade, unless a game museum wanted them.
Once in a while, there is something that you can't seem to move at all. It sucks, but that's where you just end up scraping or selling the cab off for super cheap. I've only done that with things that aren't special - generic cabinets or a weird indie game that was too custom to do anything with on something else (a tank game from a now defunct manufacturer I had to junk as I couldn't get parts for it anymore). I have a racer I might have to do that with, as every time I've listed it for sale, no one bites, no matter what the price (well, I haven't listed anything for free...would be nice to recoup a few bucks from it, at least for the cabinet).
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8 minutes ago, TampaBay said:
Cool, thanks for the update. As always, appreciated. Yeah it will definitely be good to see when it's all settled in, the credits issue is resolved, and the crowd is back to normal foot traffic.
$250 a week sounds like it would have to do pretty stellar. Is that a tall order?
I've seen it happen before - my Cruis'n Blasts for example, paid themselves off in 5 1/2 months (were about $14k). But I've not seen anything that was a joystick or similar game do that before, with one exception, Super Street Fighter IV AE. That one feels like a unique case.
If something like Asteroids can perform like either of those at my place, then I would be impressed.
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1 hour ago, TampaBay said:
@Shaggy the Atarian So, how did it do on its opening weekend? Did they ever fix the coin / credits issue?
Not yet, they are saying probably next week at this point, although disconnecting the knocker did dramatically cut down on the number credits the game gives itself. Still, if there was a way to look at how much time its been played vs. coin drop, they would be wildly different.
From Thursday-Monday, the game pulled in 43 coins, so $10.75. Not bad given the nature of the glitch. But if you start comparing to other new games - a single Maximum Tune driver did $74.25 over the weekend - then not so much. But, it did do better than some of the classics like Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga which didn't manage $5, so that's a win, I guess. Just as long as its not making $15/wk when its fixed.
What are my fellow operators going to want to see out of a brand new game at its price point? Minimum $250/wk or higher (which would mean it pays itself off in a year or less). You could get away with a little less, but more than 2 years ROI will be a tough sell since the market isn't a vacuum.
To be fair, it was one of the slowest weekends we've seen all year. April/May tends to be my slow season, excepting anything like Spring Break or some other time off of school. In a way its good, since the glitch isn't going to produce correct results anyways. So, if there's any time for it to have problems like this, now is better than when more eyes would be on it.
I will also be recommending that they add under the control panel lighting. As weird as it might sound, the game is too dark in my arcade, so I think that is keeping some from noticing it.
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4 hours ago, TampaBay said:
Gotcha. That would explain the 100 credits. Thanks for the update.
This gentleman has been playing the game for 3 hours straight. He did put tokens in it at first... until realizing that it was basically on free play
What was kind of odd is that he came in and asked if we had Asteroids - without noticing the game. I haven't had anyone ask me if we have that in quite a long time. So I guess it was drawing him in with its mere presence, haha.
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On 1/21/2024 at 6:57 AM, jgkspsx said:
1. Krazy Ace Miniature Golf (rankly unfinished)
2. Dirty Larry (aged poorly, played like crap all along)
3. Super Off Road (frame rate is horrific and controls are deeply frustrating)
4. Batman Returns (Batman does not play well, all of the artistic effort went into the first level)
5. World Class Fussball/Soccer (in a world full of good soccer games, being the worst soccer game on the Lynx is a sure way to not get played much)
I've only played two of those (Dirty Larry and Batman) and would agree that they are just not very fun to play. At least they look great
But to be fair, I had Batman on the Gameboy and would rather play the Lynx game, if I had no other choices. For some reason, most Batman games from the late 80s/early 90s just sucked, as they dialed the difficulty up to 11.
I remember reading a review of Krazy Ace in Gamepro where it sounded like they enjoyed the game...but I should fire it up on my LynXGD to see what it's all about.
On 1/22/2024 at 7:07 PM, PFG 9000 said:Here are mine:
Hard Drivin' - I've heard the arcade original was great in its time, but I've only played the ports, and they're all terrible. The Lynx version is no exception - while it's a programming marvel, it just has too painful a framerate to be enjoyable.
Lynx Casino - Boring. Some of the graphics aren't bad, but I can't stay awake long enough to appreciate them
Viking Child - I could see this being a pretty decent game, but it plays embarrassingly slowly. It should never have been released in its current state.
Krazy Ace Miniature Golf - It's not terrible. But it's really unpolished and feels more like a demo. Yet for the longest time it was the priciest, most hard to find Lynx title.
Probably one of the sports titles I haven't played. They're not at all my thing. So if they're bad, I wouldn't know.
Basketbrawl, however, is bloody good fun. I really like that game and it irks me to see it listed so often here. It's not perfect, but it's absolutely playable, and it's a really fun concept. I love knocking out the other team and then scoring basket after basket while they're napping.
And the guy who listed Rampart clearly needs to play more games.
Hard Drivin' is only good in the arcade, where it doesn't have the frame rate of a snail running through molasses. It is surprising that something as vastly low powered to that arcade hardware could even manage it in some degree though.
I've not played Lynx Casino but did play Viking Child quite a bit. I liked it and wouldn't put it in my bottom 5, but it did need some extra polish and for the love of MIKEY, some music. The main thing that bugs me about it though are the attacks. The coder should've been forced to play some sword swinging platformers like Strider for a week straight, then gone and worked on VC. That's the main element that should be satisfying in a game like this.
I can't agree with Basketbrawl, but maybe its because I'm not a fan of sports games. Whether its on the Lynx or 7800, BB is only fun to me when its played against a human opponent, but good luck finding someone who wants to spend time on it.
My bottom five but in no particular order of suckiness
- Hard Drivin - For the reasons stated above
- Steel Talons - If you're going to hate on Hard Drivin' then you gotta hate on this one. It's a nice technical achievement but its not very fun.
- Basketbrawl - If I want to play a beat 'em up, I'll play Double Dragon, not this thing where you're fighting over a ball most of the time.
- Block Out - Never cared for this one in any version. If I'm going to play Tetris, then I'd rather play Tetris. In the case of the Lynx, play KLAX instead
- Ishido - If I'm going to play a tile puzzle game, Shanghai. This game just isn't fun, even if you know what you're doing
Batman might be #6 for me
On 4/2/2024 at 2:14 PM, jeremiahjt said:I think I am just not bothered by the choppiness. The same thing happens sometimes with games that have sound problems or slow down. It just does not bother me.
To each their own, but hearing this is like hearing about a person without an inner monologue - I just don't get how it doesn't bother you. Maybe its because I'm around arcade games every day, where they set a standard for smooth frame rates and quick responsiveness. Switching to something janky & choppy (particular when it comes to ports) is hard to be happy with, for me.
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2 minutes ago, TampaBay said:
What's happening with the coins? I may have misunderstood your earlier post. I thought it was something like "for every token inserted, you get two credits instead of one" (or along those lines).
There are three issues at play that we've discovered so far:
- What you mentioned, it giving out extra credits when a single coin is inserted
- It gives itself random credits while it is just sitting there in the attract mode
- During gameplay, it gives out a large number of credits every time the knocker goes off (which it does frequently - with every large asteroid hit, when you push hyperspace, when you hit a UFO)
Alan-1 is aware of it and is working on a fix, but probably won't be in place until after the weekend.
Nobody realizes that walking by though, but so far I haven't seen anyone play it during my time here today to see what the reaction is, or have to explain it. I do plan on printing a larger sign mentioning that it's a test game though, and may have glitches
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Yars Rising, Atari's Metroid Dread moment!
in Atari General
Posted · Edited by Shaggy the Atarian
Sure, and you'll never make everyone happy.
I mentioned in the debate the last page, one other little thing that bugs me is how it seems to use some of the usual tropes of another evil corporation story. Perhaps with the hacker angle and Yar being the avatar it'll be interesting and entertaining. But, just seems like a missed opportunity to build on something that isn't a trope, since I can't think of any other pre-made stories like YR where its about mutant flies capable of interstellar travel dealing with a mortal enemy