JeffVav

???? The arcade game does flash when you get hit. It's a thing that MAME has never emulated correctly. (It also doesn't do the vector defocus correctly, nor does it implement ROTJ's reverb circuitry.) Here's a video from a genuine sitdown cabinet. It isn't quite as dominant in this one, but it seems variable from machine to machine how intense it was: Edit to add: it may also be that the camera just didn't pick it up as strongly, but nonetheless it is there in the original arcade machine, and you can see it somewhat in the video.

Surely someone who uses the word "grok" can understand that something doesn't have to be traditional to be legitimate?

I don't know of a way to get a perfect score without running to the left. I run right briefly to pick up a treasure on the tail end, then left.

While it's technically true that you'd have a 1ms smaller window, it's practically at the level of sigma noise. Most games evolve their logic once per 60Hz frame interval (i.e. 60FPS). That's 16.7ms between your inputs even being read. 1ms is subframe, specifically 6% of the frame interval. So given a flat random distribution, there's a 94% chance that a 1ms delay will have absolutely no effect whatsoever, let alone a consequential one. In practice there are much more significant contributors to latency than LCDs. For example, because an emulator is effectively reconstructing the CRT response, synthesising it to a frame buffer (typically a back buffer) and then flipping it, you will have at minimum a whole frame's worth of delay (16.7ms) simply because it can't flip the buffer to present it until construction is finished. Worrying about 1ms LCD response in that context is philosophically equivalent to having a Diet Coke with your 2nd slice of cheesecake. Anyway, just try https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime for fun and see what having 1ms less time would mean.

The compilation on PC was called Atari: 80 Classic Games in One. The compatibility issue crept in with Windows XP, I think. (The issue was a black screen transitioning between menu and game.) There is a patch available on my website that should address it, though I don't know if new issues have crept in since. The patch addresses some other stuff too. See the patch notes. 80-in-1 wasn't discontinued because of Battlezone. Battlezone remained in Atari's Greatest Hits on iOS and Android after the property was sold off. There was a grandfathering clause you can find in the publicly-filed bankruptcy documents when the property was transferred to Rebellion. Atari was permitted to continue to sell all pre-existing products that contained Battlezone; they just weren't allowed to create anything new with it. It's funny that you mention Rebellion feeling differently, because it was basically the opposite: the sales of Battlezone were allowed to continue, but Math Gran Prix (also sold in the bankruptcy) had no grandfathering provision, and so was pulled from AGH immediately (and replaced with Stunt Cycle). Oh, edit to add: regarding the desktop theme, the screensaver in 80-in-1 just cycled through the attract modes of the arcade games. There were custom wallpapers, custom cursors, custom icons, and custom fonts though. One of my favourite features of 80-in-1 was support for the 2600 driving controller via Stelladapter, which you could use to play Tempest with a genuine spinner.

When many home adaptations came out I remember being disappointed that they weren't more like the arcade. Asteroids probably deviates more than Pac-Man in that respect. But now understanding the 2600 and its limitations (and the additional artificial limitations the business people put on Tod) I do have a much better appreciation for what they accomplished. And with both Asteroids and Pac-Man I enjoyed them once I got past the arcade expectations.

We always like to offer options. There are options for the vector render too.

No. Kind of the opposite. Most of these games don't save high scores so we have special code to inject them. Some games saved only the top 3 and we wanted to save all 10 (or whatever) so again, special code. I think Red Baron was one of those that only saved the top 3 or so, but it must restore them on a slow burn, clobbering what we tried to inject. In other words, sounds like a long standing bug no one has ever reported. For now, the likely work around is to never leave the game when it's in game over mode. Then when you return it'll restore the "full state" of the game in progress rather than trying to inject the high scores, which should avoid the bug.

Not an oversight. The leaderboards are designed to mirror the high score boards in the game. The original arcade Monte Carlo has distinct high scores for each track selection, the others did not.

In all the time we've spent testing our emulation I have two observations about Return of the Jedi that nag at me: 1. Darth Vader is heard saying "leave them to me. I will deal with them myself" and then never does. That's the first and last time you hear from him. 2. The notion of Chewie being attacked by "homing logs" is kind of trippy and suggests that Ewok technology is more advanced than it seems.

The trackpad on PS4 and touch screen on Switch help. Regarding the controller, I know they're taking great care fussing over getting it right, and the prototype I've used felt familiar. The muscle memory kicked in quite naturally.

We (Code Mystics) did the emulation. It's our first project with Arcade1Up but we're retro emulation veterans. (Pioneered the genre back in the mid-90s, basically.) We compared side by side with the real deal cabinet to make sure it was accurate. The frame rate only slows down where it's supposed to. (The original Star Wars has a variable frame rate based on how busy the screen is. We matched that. If you don't, the game would play faster than the original.) There's no sound skipping.

Arcade1Up has a licensing guru for this sort of thing. All I know is it's complicated. More complicated than you might imagine. Which is probably why this hasn't really been done before.

Doesn't the fact that this thread was started nearly 10 years ago tell you all you need to know?

All I can say is the prototype gives me great confidence in the quality of the control. They know how important it is.

Hey all, Hope you're as excited about this as we are! Arcade1Up is putting out a genuine licensed Atari Star Wars arcade machine (with Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi built-in too!), complete with the iconic yoke controller! And, Code Mystics has been retained to do the emulation! We're all fans of this game since our own childhoods, so this is a passion project for us. (Just look at http://www.codemystics.com/products.shtml?-2 if you want proof.) It's going to be handled with care. https://www.destructoid.com/classic-atari-star-wars-arcade-games-are-back-in-this-new-arcade1up-cabinet-557246.phtml

Wouldn't know. The new owners are Warner Bros. and they rarely return my calls. (Haven't done anything with them since the Ready Player One tie-in. I'd love to get a new Midway compilation out with the games from Midway Arcade Treasures 1-3 in one purchase, but there's been no bites yet. Seems like they like to treat these games as bonus material, like in Lego Dimensions, rather as their own headliners.) Anyway, knowing how lawyers work they will do what they have the best paper trail for. Defender II has greater precedent these days, so I expect they'd stick with that.

Speaking as someone who heard it from the horse's mouth (i.e. a Williams exec), it wasn't just fear, they were actually legally threatened. There was a Ouija Board style thing named Stargate and the owner wished to reserve the right to distribute a computer version, so was claiming trademark infringement. There were justifiable suspicions this was just a shakedown, but rather than engage they just renamed the game "Defender II" in the home releases. Consequence for me was I had to edit the Stargate ROM to say "DEFENDER II" on the title screen instead, which included defeating all the tamper protection in the ROM specifically designed to thwart people from changing copyrights or branding. Caused some "interesting" QA headaches.

FWIW, many Konami games require alteration these days, and at least as far back as 2011 when we released the emulations of them on PS Home. It's still achievable though.

Can't speak for Atari, but the reason we liked having games like that in there was that we saw these compilations as a compendium. It was part of the history, good or bad. Fun With Numbers was featured in many of the early catalogues when there weren't a lot of titles in there. Seems wrong to leave it out just because it had fallen out of favour. It's not like anyone ever thought Atari would sell more copies or command a higher price for having them in there. Of course, that philosophy can't be fully realised when you can't include licensed titles like Space Invaders, Pac Man, Superman, etc., but you make do with what you can.

At least on console and in Vault we were able to include the manuals and comics so you had some chance of knowing what was going on.

My favourite non-Atari, non-Activision, non-Imagic game for the 2600 was without a doubt Empire Strikes Back: https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=501 Mightn't have pushed it much technically but it was damned fun.

Benefit of the doubt: the unauthorised art use was released by Evercade. Atari could easily have had no involvement in it beyond just licensing their games.

Strange. When we did Atari Flashback Classics, we recognised that Aquaventure was a prototype without official artwork and did our own: Nothing personal, CPUWIZ, your artwork is great. Just knew it wasn't Atari art, didn't know who made it, and didn't expect we could use it.

Not sure if this'll be an unpopular opinion, but I wish they'd done what we did years ago with the Jakks Mortal Kombat plug n play: 1 player station rather than 2, but you could buy two and daisy chain them if you wanted to play head to head. It could've helped get the price down a bit. Also, having built-in WiFi but no online multiplayer seems like a missed opportunity.