p.opus

I don't care about the secondary market. Those who want secondary carts, buy them to collect, not to play. As I have said, most of the games I have I have repurchased three or four times over, and quite frankly I have no desire to line the pockets of some guy because he stumbled across a cartridge in a yard sale. I would be much more willing to pay 80 bucks if they released boulder dash than pay 40 bucks for a copy of H.E.R.O. that some guy picked up for .50 at a Goodwill.

In my opinion, if the title is out of print, then there is ZERO difference between buying a used game and downloading a ROM. In both instances, the original copyright holder is getting ZERO benefit. I've purchased three flashbacks and all available Atari greatest hits. Thus I have purchased my license to use the software many times over. All the other ROMS I have are no longer available, so I don't see the need to pay for a used cartridge since I know the seller isn't going to forward any of his proceeds to the copyright holder.

Speaking of which, I think there needs to be a 5th anniversery re-issue of BoulderDash. My Harmony won't support the demo. I could upgrade it I know, but If I'm gonna spend that coin, I want the whole game and the community has been very good about not releasing the full ROM. Actually I don't care if it's for the 5th anniversary or not. I would love for this cart to be re-issued.

That's enough to induce a full body shiver.......brrrrrr.......make it stop....!!!!

Looks like you have your hands full. I recognize all the animals except one. I get the bird,and the porcupine raining quills (nice touch, that). Of course, the gator. But I couldn't pick out what actually did you in. Was that a rat?

Yeah, the video actually makes me want to play. Plus I want to see if I can get through 40 days, just to see if there is a special prize inside The fact that it's a "Christian" video game is so 80's. There was a big charismatic movement in the 80's and you saw a lot of "Christian" this and "Christian" that designed primarily to fleece the flock. In many cases it was garbage, but that didn't stop people from eagerly taking money from those who wanted to keep their "Treasure In The Kingdom" and not throw "Pearls Before Swine". A "Christian" title that actually had production values and people who care for the quality of the product is a rarity indeed, and it's worth a peek based on that alone.

Took about a week to a week and a half for me. Not bad. It had to come cross country.

That looks absolutely great. I can imagine it is harder and harder on each subsequent day. I wonder if there is an "end game". like releasing the animals or the something using the famous "atari rainbow". Only the developer can know for sure.

Never played them. I would have hated it on the NES if for no other reason than the NES controller. I still abhor keypads.

Luckily we can get a Rom and play it on an Atari 800 emulator with a Joystick. I now play it in all it's glory and still get my butt handed to me more often than not in the Commander level.

Easily the best game I have ever purchased for the C-64. I loved Elite, and bought it multiple times as I upgraded my computer, but ROBB holds a special place in my heart. The way the difficulty would ramp up as you proceeded into your mission. ROBB is probably responsible for the most broken C64/Atari Joysticks of any game I have owned.

Uhh...it was Beethovens 9th. Epic Fail (facepalm)....my apologies to Alex and the rest of his droogs.......But thanks to Trinity for all the beautiful music :-)

I never noticed that on Starmaster, but now that you mention it that's so true. In Robot Tank, however, it was painfully obvious. One of the suggested strategies from Activision was to put the enemy behind you to keep it from firing at you....Whaaaaaa!!!??? My biggest beef with 2600 Star Raiders was the neutering of the galactic map down to one starbase one fleet. Makes the whole idea of hyperwarp kind of pointless. Plus the fleet was moving towards your starbase while you were actively fighting. How could the enemy and you move between sectors DURING combat but needed to hyperwarp when not in combat. That killed the whole suspension of disbelief for me.

Easy. The insect theme wasn't appealing to me. It feels like "half" Star Castle. I didn't buy the neutral zone where you were safe from the drone but still could be tracked by the big cannon. Finally,I didn't like that you had to nibble the shield or touch the Quotle to bring up your own cannon. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Again, no one is forcing you to read this. You, are not the arbiter of what threads are valid, and feel free to use the ignore this topic button. And while I don't think phaser patrol is better, it does have some things that star raiders does not. Unexplored sectors, exploding torpedoes, and target lock with seeking torpedoes to mention a few. I also appreciate that one hit with no shields doesn't necessarily kill you. It causes damage certainly, but doesn't automatically end your game. No more needs to be said. We can all go back to discussing something that XylonBane approves of.

I like Atari, but Nolan living in my guest room and telling hot tub stories makes me shudder a bit.....

I think like many games of the 2600 era you have to judge it not with the entire library, because it is definitely weak tea compared to even the rest of the library. Laser Blast came out the same time as "Bridge", "Dragster" and other Activision titles that showed the promise that was to be fullfilled with River Raid, Pitfall and other Activision classics. I never discovered the pattern, so the game remained brutal to me. And that laser was just so satisfying to use. It was instantaneous, that meant there was no avoid it like you could with other games. When I discover the pattern, and it becomes rote, then my feelings may change. But then again I roll over Space Invaders all the time, and I still have affection for that game. In fact the 2600 version of Space Invaders for me is more fun than the arcade version. I don't know why, I just prefer it.

That's good to know. All of my gaming is done now using a harmony cart. Eliminates wear and tear on the slot. A light sixer and a harmony cart. No flashback can compete with that.

My childhood 2600 was a light sixer. But when I went shopping for a "real atari" (after not being 100% satisfied with any of the flashbacks) I found a Sears Light Sixer for about $15 less than a comparable Atari Light Sixer. For gaming itself, you can't beat the light sixer. As others have said, some games use the console switches for functionality, and it's a lot easier to toggle the difficulty switches on a sixer. If you are collecting, then a heavy sixer has the added rarity of only having a 1 year production run. But for everyday gaming a light sixer gives you the same functionality of a heavy sixer without the cost.

I have never been a fan of the second joystick being used to extend functionality. A joystick is held using two hands. There is no simple way to pickup the second stick in the heat of battle. At least with the console switches, or even the "Star Raiders" controller, you can quickly hit a button with one hand and continue. I've tried using the second joystick on stargate, and it is such a PITA that I find myself simply avoiding using smartbombs and invisio. Indiana Jones is a little better because you usually have a break in the action to bring up your inventory. double joystick has always been kludgey for me. Stargate could have just as easily those functions to Color/BW and the difficulty switches, but by that time, the fours and Jr. were the dominate consoles and those switches were no where near as convenient as they were on a sixer. (which is why if I have a choice I will always own a sixer).

The "crappy games" urban legend certainly has a lot of traction, but as others in this thread mentioned, it just was not proven out. People point to Pac-Man as being so crappy and yet it was the highest selling cartridge in the history of the system. If more than doubled all of HSW's games combined. No one expected Defender, Missile Command, Pac Man, Asteroids, or Space Invaders be clones of the arcade machines. However it did replicate the experience close enough for a lot of us. We dealt with basic graphics and flickering objects on the screen because that what we had come to expect. When the supercharger cartridge came out, I was astonished at the screenshots, but never saw ANY of the games in the wild prior to owning a Harmony Cart. No one paid for it. I didn't know anyone of my friends that had one. For me, the "death" of Atari, and more specifically the 2600, wasn't about bad games. It was a result of two things. 1. Market Saturation. By 1982 and 1983 there were SO many games out there. Each one costing about $20 to $30 bucks a pop (which is 60 to 90 of todays dollars). There just wasn't enough people with the means to move all that product. Pitfall II was clearly a superior game to the original, but it's sales numbers pale in comparison. The same thing could be said about Stargate. So "quality" wasn't the problem. 2. The computer as gaming platform. By 1984, the Commodore 64 was available, which offered a base cpu at 200 bucks. The same entry price point as an Atari before the price cut. The 64 undercut the competition by hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Atari responded by redesigning their 400/800 series into the more competitively priced XL series and tried to go head to head with commodore's Amiga with the ST. For a generation raised on the Video Game Console, the computer offered so much more. Plus you could con your parents into believing that you needed one to do your school papers in college. (Never mind that the printer cost more than the computer....). Atari tried with little success to create games for other platforms using the Atarisoft label. The death of the 2600 as a game platform was inevitable. The reason it was a crash and not a "correction" was due to the market saturation. There was just too much product in the pipeline, and when distributors and stores had to clear out the channel at a loss, they were hesitant to buy more.

@Ketah Never took offense. In fact my response was on a mobile phone, (which explains some of the bad grammar and misspellings....stupid predictive text...) and I don't remember seeing the last response as being so old. I had found the thread when I was looking up some information of Phaser Patrol, since I now have a Harmony Cart, and wanted to know if Phaser Patrol had multiple difficulties...(which I found out in the HTML docs located here, thanks a ton to whoever wrote that up). It is funny looking back nearly 35 years ago, how different our perspective is. Case in point. Defender is now crucified because Stargate came out in 84. So the fact that Stargate was one of the last gasp cartridges of the system, it makes the orignal Defender that came out in 81 garbage? I remember having a ball playing that game, and still do. We tend to look at the entire body of work on the 2600 and criticize the early games because they were written on cartridges with less ROM. In Atari: Game Over, HSW basically told the bosses that Star Castle could NOT be done. Well, two version of Star Castle are currently available via home brew. So it CAN be done. But it couldn't be done withing the ROM limitations that HSW was given at the time. Phaser Patrol is clearly the superior 2600 "star raiders" but only due to the advantages provided by the supercharger cart. Starmaster game me moments of the same terror I had playing the 8bit version of Star Raiders, but it did not come close to the immersion factor I had when I had to bring up a clearly damaged long range scanner and try to determine which of the two mirror images of my starbase was the real one. And how to use the long range scanner to actually line up with base. I still get a real kick playing that game, and it's played more often than some of the more modern games I have on my Alienware Alpha I have. @Zylonbane: I don't remember tying you up and forcing you to read this thread with Beethoven's Fifth playing in the background. . I must have blacked out....

While Phaser Patrol beats all the other 2600 space combat games, it is a bit unfair to compare them. Because in the day, you needed a supercharger cart and take player to load it onto your Atari. Solaris also benefited by being released late in the 2600 life line where the carts also benefited from more ROM. But even Phaser Patrol and Solaris can't hold a candle to Star Raiders. Star Raidersb made you feel as if you were piloting a starship. I remember the first time I used my damaged long range scanned to determine my star base was, because my targeting computer was destroyed along with my shields. The tension was palatable, and the relief that flooded over me with I spotted that glowing golden dot in the distance and realized I was safe. Few games, even today can replicate that feeling. And though that happened over 30 years ago. I may not have an 800, but I can emulate one and the game still feels new to me all these years later

I guess I need to figure out the pattern.

I read a review absolutely slamming this game, and I wonder if he played the same game as I did, or if he didn't know how to play. My dad and I loved this game, especially on Difficulty A where you had to wait until your shot killed your opponent, or you gathered up your own shot. We had a great time setting up traps for each other, shooting around corners and the like. This is one of the best two player games ever.