Shaggy the Atarian

Any word on how this project is progressing?

That's even stranger (to me anyways) that it won't run on regular 2600 hardware. Since the 7800 has to be used anyways, I say take the code and hack it to take advantage of 7800's chips. It could make a great entry for the contest.

I thought that a little weird as well. It doesn't make much sense to call it a 7800 game when it really isn't. If it could be hacked to take advantage of MARIA and the other things, then I would be interested. :wink:

Other than the font that looks pretty cool. May I ask what it's for?

Here's a shot from MESS (I hope it works)

Thats VERY interesting Gunstar. Do you have any other info on this? On how it 'could' be used with BS/BS:G? My imagination is starting to go into overdrive! There is a code for BS/BSG to activate that allows an analog controller to be used through port two to play the games. Of course you have to have an analog controller that's modified to work with the Jaguar ports of course. There was one released years ago for a short time, but the company went under and they had stopped making them anyway after it was realised that there were wo different versions of the Jaguar and so the controllers would only work with earlier "K" series Jaguars. JaySmith 2000 has one of these controllers I believe. They wer made by the infamous 'Dark Knight Games' company I think they were called. it is possible to modify PC or other analog controllers to work though, that's all they did. Some point in the future maybe we'll have another choice... I actually got to use one of these controllers once. Somehow a guy at a local game store where I purchased all my Jag stuff from was friends with the Dark Knight Games guy and he had one of these joysticks. (The guy was a big Jag fan and because of that they even were selling the new Telegames releases just like any other major release from Sony or Nintendo at the time). He had the CDR version of IS2 there and the joystick and let me play around with it for a while. I had thought that the stick would have been made available to all shortly afterwards but that didn't happen of course. It's too bad that I don't know where he is now, I'd buy it off him.

I'm chiming in a little late on this, but I got the Anthology for Christmas and I have to say that I've enjoyed it a lot so far. I really like the interface, I think it's much better than what they had on the PC version. The only thing that I have found slightly annoying is that there are a few vector games where it seems like the graphics are too small. But even still I've found everything to be playable and I really enjoy the challenge modes, especially where you have to play the challenge modes on the arcade games to unlock the modes for the 2600 ones. I thought that such an approach was a good idea and helps the replay value of the package as a whole. I do agree that the paddle games are just strange to play on the Xbox controller, but short of releasing a rotorary controller for the Xbox it can't be perfect. Overall, thumbs up on this compilation.

Hopefully that day will arrive early this next year and it will continue on for a long time to come.

Any idea as to how vectors could be handled in comparison to filled polygons? As it may just be a raster technique, would there be much of a speed difference in the end?

That would definently be a great project for the contest. Hacking would also be easier than starting from scratch for newbies.

Wow, that is great to see. The way it looks, you could probably do something like a simplified Cybercon 3 (the control scheme is too complex for a joystick though...maybe if it had video pad support). But I hope that you'll be able to continue to develop this. :wink:

I didn't even know that this game has an ending. I guess that means a no for me. How can you find out if you're close to the last gate or not? I don't recall there being any level or gate indicators...

I thought that these were sort of rare. From the way it's mentioned in this thread perhaps the red end label is more common than we think?

Well I got to play SD for the first time today thanks to this sweet catch I got off eBay that arrived today. Well after playing the game for over a half hour or so I have to agree with the general consensus that this is among the best games for the 5200. The gameplay is very addicting, and my controls work pretty well for the game scheme. It's hard to imagine that it has 99 levels, you could really spend a lot of time on this game if you explored every level all the way through. Now I just need to get Robotron for the 5200 to also use my new handle with.

It certainly was very close to it(being the first). Atari did call the 5200 the "Personal Arcade Machine" at one time though, even though the graphics weren't up to par with the arcade machines of the time...but it sounded cool nevertheless. Still, I think the 7800 has the best arcade conversions available for it on a classic home console. With Beef Drop that will become even more of a fact.

Wow, and I thought I was the only person who was thinking that perhaps it could happen again. It most likely won't with all the money involved in the industry, but there is too much shovelware out there. There are so many clones and sequel games that I've become slightly uninterested in 'modern' games. Granted there are a few that catch my attention and I buy and play them, but there have been some disappointments in games I thought would be better than they turned out to be (like with Fable). I guess that's why I mostly play classic games these days. They are always cool. I'm mostly sad to see the arcade go away...it would be great to see a revival in the arcades

That's some interesting information to know. I suppose it's that flexibility that allows it to pump out games with the quality we find in Ballblazer and Tower Toppler.

It's impressive to watch the progress of the 7800 version of the game since that first BIN was posted some time ago. So would you consider this close to done Ken?

I wondered why the power cord was so long and the joystick cord so short. I guess they wanted you to sit really, really close to your TV.

I just received my order in the mail (thanks BTW!), I have #58. I sat down and played the game for a few minutes and it turned out to be more addictive than I imagined it could be. I'm glad I was able to pick this one up. I also got Marble Craze...after playing I now will demand that all Atari 2600 games has music like that, but that's not realistic of course. Very cool game! I didn't have a chance to play Skeleton+ yet (it's a present I'm giving to a friend anyways), but the clear cartridge housing looks cool

The card I was using was the same one mentioned (Hauppauge PVR 250MCE) but the delays I was getting out of it seemed to be longer. I haven't had a chance to make those adjustments yet, hopefully I can do that sometime this week. I had wondered if it was MCE that was causing the delay, since it seemed tobe recording what I was doing at the same time, but when I set it up again I'll double check that.

Marble Madness would make a great title for the 7800. I agree that it would have been nice if there were a few games that supported the trackball for the 7800. To have made one probably wouldn't have cost Atari much...

It certainly seems like a game that could have an ending. I remember I made it to the last part once but I forgot what happened if it just counted down or what. It would be interesting to know if it was supposed to have an ending...

I'm also getting one. For my Christmas shopping I purchased Skeleton + (w/ clear case) Marble Craze (w/ clear case) Cabana EP+ Should be a great little game to have though. Perhaps after it's no longer available we can add a rarity # to it on the guide.

*cough* Realsports Baseball *cough*