PitfallHarry77

I really like this Galaxian ND hack as I am a big fan of the original but just wish they had got rid of the border. I am another one who likes the Atari version better than the arcade. I was just wondering if there is a PAL rom of this floating around somewhere or a way that it can be purchased on a cartridge? I am going to have a retro games stand at a fete for high school aged students. I think the version without the border will be better at promoting the joy of the Atari 2600. They have enjoyed Video Olympics and Warlords in the past. I have seen the Galaxian PAL60 Arcade version and think it is fantastic but I would also like to get the original without the border if there is one available. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

I am sorry to hear that Assembloids hasnt done as well as you hoped. I think it is a fantastic game and we really enjoy the demo in my house. I think it is the best puzzle game on the Atari 2600. It is great fun to compete against each other for a high score and it has a unique and addictive quality about it. I will buy a copy as it is something that I think it will really endure. It is timeless fun and will always be great many years into the future if the Atari still works. I also noted positive reviews from the VideoGame Critic. I am just collecting cartridges as some of my original boxes werent in a great condition to begin with. My copy of Space Invaders was from the damaged items bin and had already been semi-crushed. I am making slow progress through what is a growing list of top quality homebrew games that I would love to own. My progress is slow as they are a little expensive once I include postage to Australia so I plan to get a couple at a time. The homebrew games are absolutely worth it though and such good quality!! They are great for birthdays, Christmases or just a treat every now and then. I have Pacman 4K and Chetiry so far and need to add Space Rocks, Medieval Mayhem and Assembloids amongst others. I am really pleased with my purchases and they take pride of place, getting a lot of interest from others. I hope the sales pick up and your game gets the love it fully deserves.

I had a go at Mappy and it controls really well and I was very impressed. I can add it to a growing list of Atari 2600 arcade ports which are just as fun as the original and some even more so. Frenzy also looks really great and I particularly like the fluid movement of the main character. There is a lot of fun to be had with it. Anyone know if DK Arcade is set for a cartridge release?? It is the one where everything is on one screen as opposed to Donkey Kong VCS where it scrolls up. I would like to buy a PAL version of it if there are plans to release it. It is another top quality port and I really like the difficulty level which makes it very addictive.

I had a look at some more footage of Mappy and that is an absolute must buy when it comes out. It blows my mind how good it is. The list keeps getting longer of essential purchases. That Jex is a good take on Qix and I would be interested to see it as well. Has the basic idea.

Thanks for that SpiceWare!! That footage of Mappy is incredible and way beyond my expectations of what would be possible. I cant wait to see it completed.

I agree that Arkanoid would be great with an Atari paddle. LEM is a pretty good version of Lunar Lander. It is a pity we didnt have it back then. I had a look at Jump Bug and it looks an interesting game. Visually, it is a cross between Moon Patrol and Rampage. I am not sure how the Atari would go with the scrolling buildings. I wonder if something like Mappy is possible? Finally, has anyone heard if there has been any progress with a better version of Mario Bros? I think Dintar 812 was working on it a while back and it was looking amazing.

I would like to see an updated attempt at Tutankham as it is great on the Colecovision. Arkanoid is an interesting one as it would be possible in theory as it is similar to Breakout. I dont have programming knowledge though so I dont know if the Atari could handle the movement and the number of sprites. Would be awesome if it was possible!!

I had a go at Star Castle Arcade and it is a really good port. I had never heard of Bagman so I will have a look at that one. Did it make it to Australia? Robotron would be awesome but the controls would be difficult. Rally X is a good one but I think the guy who did Halo 2600 has done that. I am looking for a PAL version as he did a good job. Galaga would be good but I really like Galaxian which is close. Qix I would imagine would be really difficult with the movement. There are some interesting responses and some I will have to have a look at as I havent heard of all of them.

I was interested in what everyones favourite classic arcade games were that never saw a port to the Atari 2600. My absolute favourite would be Zookeeper by Taito. This is game is so addictive and so much fun. Would it even be possible on the atari?? Maybe not back then but people continue to do amazing things on here. I would never have thought I would see Draconian on Atari or Super Cobra as it is in its new and updated homebrew form.

We fired up Toyshop Trouble once we were in the new house and it worked a treat and fun was had by all. My kids really love that game! I would include a photo if I could work out how to attach one but thank you once again.

Thank you very much for that SpiceWare!! I am currently moving house but will give it a go later today. Your Draconian game is superb by the way. I had a go at the arcade version of Bosconian the other day which just confirmed even more for me how good your Atari 2600 version is.

Any sign of the Hyperkin Retron 77 over in the US yet?

My Christmas wishlist would be the following: - Draconian - Super Cobra Arcade - Space Rocks - Juno First - Thrust+ - Medieval Mayhem - Halo 2600 Maybe I am wishing for too many but they are all great games and I would be very happy to get any of them.

My Christmas wishlist would be the following: - Draconian - Super Cobra Arcade - Space Rocks - Juno First - Thrust+ - Medieval Mayhem - Halo 2600 Maybe I am wishing for too many but they are all great games and I would be very happy to get any of them.

Yes, that is correct and I would also assume there is a rom out there but I have had no luck finding one. I found one that was labelled PAL but didnt that didnt turn out to be correct. I have only just started collecting homebrews and Toyshop Trouble is on my list. I really like the idea of owning the cartridges but progress is a little slow mainly because they are expensive due to postage costs to get them to me in Australia. My list also keeps building as great games keep being released which is the best kind of problem to have. Games recently released such as Super Cobra Arcade, Draconian and Assembloids are incredible and demand purchase. I am just hoping to get some time in playing Toyshop Trouble before I purchase it later and if there isnt a rom available then I will just have to wait.

In these festive times just before Christmas I was just wondering if anyone knew if there was a PAL rom of this great little game floating around. It is on my list to purchase but havent got to it yet. There are so many good Homebrew games coming out. I only just got Chetiry and it is awesome. The fact you can save your score is amazing on the Atari.

Atari Journey This is my Atari 2600 journey. I am sorry if it is too long as a forum post but it links to my post on the games I owned as a kid. I cut it because it was too long already. The first game machine I ever played was a home version of Pong on a black and white television. I also remember looking over the shoulder of friends playing Donkey Kong or Turtle Bridge on a Game and Watch where I rarely got to have a go. The only time Santa ever let me down was when he never brought me a Turtle Bridge Game and Watch. Otherwise, he was fairly spot on. I watched other people playing Galaga at the fish and chip shop as well, but only ever as a bystander who was longing to be involved in defending against the alien invasion. Sometimes I just pretended I was playing. With this in mind, it was with great excitement that we received an Atari 2600 one Christmas. I can't quite remember which Christmas. I thought it was Christmas 83' but apparently the Atari Jr didn't come out until later so maybe I am wrong. Ours was the one with the mini rainbow strip. Whichever the case, my days of watching video games over people's shoulder were now over. The Atari lasted until 88' as our main source of gaming fun when it was replaced by a Commodore Amiga. I had wanted a Commodore 64 for a long time before that but now my C64 owning friends were suddenly envious of my brother and I because they wanted an Amiga. The Amiga was fantastic and I still love it today, with many great games that will never age and will always be fun. However, there were also a lot of games that seemed invented as graphics demonstrations and completely lacked engaging gameplay. I was guilty of being sucked into these games at the start. Some games were overhyped and the Amiga was also flooded with wannabe Mario platformers that were completely forgettable. As great as the Amiga was, it also meant I went through the early 90s never owning a NES, Super NES, Sega Megadrive or PC Engine. I will come back to these machines later. I moved on to a PlayStation in 96' and at first it blew me away with the gaming experience that I thought would never be possible outside of an arcade. Wipeout looked amazing and Destruction Derby looked like Daytona to me. While there some more great games, it suffered the same as the Amiga where at times the focus was on graphics and sound rather than the all important gameplay. There were some truly awful games with FMV cut scenes. I then switched to a PS2 in 2002 which was backwards compatible with the PS1. Games were getting so complex at this point that they were like interactive movies with complicated control schemes and needed a lot of time invested in them. It is always a concern when the first 45 minutes is completing a tutorial on how to play the game. While the PS2 has fantastic games in its own right, it is also great for old arcade compilations which is mainly what I use it for today. Playing classics like Defender, Joust, Robotron 2084, Roadblasters, Zookeeper and even Dig Dug never gets old. I moved on to a Nintendo Wii in 2010 and while I had as much fun as the next person with Wii Sports and the Wii really does have some great games if you look at the best games available, the Virtual Console cemented it as one of my favourite machines. It meant I could catch up on all the classic games that I had missed out on growing up that resided on the NES, PC Engine, Super NES and Megadrive. I also purchased a Gameboy Advance with a full backlit screen in 2015 which I use for lots of retro games. This thing is amazing as I bought it online and it has the backlit screen but in the original casing rather than the SP. This was after I took a group of students to Japan on a cultural exchange tour and they bought me a Gameboy Colour as a thank you gift. I loved the games but the screen gave me a headache. I thoroughly recommend the Gameboy Advance for retro gaming. In 2016 my Atari journey came full circle. Through people like Metal Jesus and Atari Leaf, I was recommended great games such as Hero, Spider Fighter, Solar Fox and Atari Circus. I managed to get hold of Stella and soon realised that I enjoyed the games so much I wanted to start collecting again. There were also some amazing homebrew games and hacks by people such as Darrell Spice Jr, Nukey Shay and Thomas Jentzsch which really honour the tradition of Atari 2600 games and come up with the goods when it comes to gameplay. I am a big fan of games such as Space Rocks, Medieval Mayhem, Ms Hack and Thrust. There have been some fantastic releases such as Halo, Pacman 4k and different versions of Donkey Kong. I even started running a retro game stall at a school fair to help get the next generation involved and the high school kids really enjoyed it. We also raised some money for charity. I was amazed to discover that the Atari 2600 holds up well even today in a world of Playstation 4 and Xbox One. It has a special magic that will never diminish and maybe is even building as the years go by. You have to remember that I don't feel best qualified to talk about Atari from back in the early 80s as I didn't have many games and they weren’t the best games that were a true reflection of the capabilities of the machine. Although I loved some of the games I had and have fond memories, I never thought I would actually return to it. Some games came with catalogues inside them that were incredibly enticing with the famous Atari artwork and game descriptions. I really wanted River Raid and Pitfall as they looked good but for whatever reason it never happened. This was in the days before Game review magazines such as Zap, C&VG and Mean Machines. You often made a purchase based on limited knowledge. The games that I had I just didn’t have enough to them that I thought I would fire up the Atari again on a regular basis – how wrong I was! It is pretty exciting to see something like the Atari 2600 that is 40 years old yet very much alive. With the recent release of Scramble and many other great projects on the go, I can’t wait to see what comes out next!

The following are the games my brother and I owned as kids in order from best to worst. We had an Atari Jr. (mini rainbow version) and only one Atari Proline Joystick: Enduro We loved this racing game and I think it was the best game that we had and is still fun today. I have seen some reviewers say it is overrated and runs too long. To make such a comment is a bit like saying that a sport is boring when you have never actually invested in it enough to actually care who wins. I think all sport is boring unless you are actually supporting a team with some passion. I disagree with those who have criticised Enduro and think these people just needed to add some challenge and go for a patch or a top score. Just driving it casually and taking it 'for a spin' is a limited experience, particularly with Atari games. It is fun because you can get into some kind of zone where you have an almost telepathic ability to dodge traffic. The sound is timeless and brings back memories and the weather conditions made it the best racer on the Atari 2600. My brother and I both achieved a patch which I think you were awarded if you lasted 5 days. The best we ever did was 7 days but I am interested to see how our American friends got on because this was the PAL version which is slower. What is the standing record on Enduro? Space Invaders I enjoyed this one as a kid but think I appreciate it more today. I didn't really bother with the variations and I only had one joystick. I had also never played the arcade version to compare it to as it was all Galaga in the arcades at the time at the local fish and chip shop. I preferred an obscure shooter in my collection called Marine Wars because I was good at it and it had more variety. Playing 2 player and using the double shot cheat really adds to this game and today I love it even more and find it to be a great game and great arcade port. Marine Wars I am not sure if this came out in the US but it is a great little shooter. You are a destroyer against other ships initially and then planes. The impressive thing was that between levels it changed between night and day and at night the last line of ships was invisible. It was a great feeling of satisfaction when you hit an invisible ship. It was tough because although you were given a lot of lives to start with, your actual ship was a big target. I loved this game and played it a lot, holding the top score in my family. I also imagined I was taking part in some kind of great World War II naval battle such as the Battle of Midway which added to the appeal. Strategy X I am not sure if this was released in the US either. This has dated quite badly due to the poor graphics but back in the early 80s I really liked this game. You were a tank that had to shoot through a gate before making your way up the screen while being shot. In the second level you would get attacked by planes. I imagined the things shooting at you were like anti-tank gun emplacements surrounded by sandbags. My brother and I played this a lot and tried to top each other's scores. One year Santa brought this for my brother and I got Marine Wars (which I thought was better). Barnstorming Graphically, this has all the features of Activision with crisp graphics and the Activision sunset. Race a biplane over windmills and through barns while dodging geese is a simple premise. This game seems to polarise opinion with some raving about it and how simple things work best while others deride it for being dull and not up to Activision's high standards. I fall somewhere in the middle. At the time I didn't know about the patch for this one so I didn't really have a clear goal or the ability to save my score so I was effectively just 'having a bash'. You need a goal with these Atari games for them to come alive in terms of gameplay. As one of a select few games that I had over a 5 to 6 year period, this game was a little monotonous. However, on the Gameboy Advance with a save feature and the ability to go for a high score and patch, this game was addictive and quite a lot of fun. Skyjinks Very similar to Barnstorming and the same comments apply although this one copped more criticism. Trying to go for a patch or high score is fun, addictive and gives that feeling of satisfaction when you achieve it. In short bursts this isn't a bad game but not when you own it over a 5 year period and it bores you fairly early on in the piece. It also wasn't a game I could use to defend the Atari 2600 against my Commodore 64 owning friends who were playing Impossible Mission and Raid on Bungeling Bay. Realsports Tennis I loved this game at the time and it got a good run during the Australian Open or during Wimbledon, especially if Pat Cash or Steffi Graf were playing. I remember being particularly inspired by the 87' Wimbledon finals when Graf went down to Martina Navratilova in the women's final and then Cash defeated Ivan Lendl in the epic men's final. This game definitely got a good run that year. It had decent graphics and a scoreboard like the one on television. I have read reviews that say that Tennis by Activision is better but not in my experience. I only ever played Realsports Tennis against the computer and it played a solid game as you could add topspin, hit a lob and place the ball. I did the same with Tennis and the rally went forever. I couldn't win a point and neither could the computer. It was a stalemate! I would be interested to know if it is a different story if you play 2 player but as a 1 player game, I think Realsports Tennis is better. Othello This is a decent puzzle game but it isn't Tetris or Pokemon Puzzle League and it wasn't the game to excite me as an 8 year old. Despite this, I still had some decent games of this against my Dad and we still had fun. Decathlon This got a lot of play because it was really our only 2 player game and it was around the time of Carl Lewis dominating the 100m until he came up against drug cheat Ben Johnson in 88' at the Seoul Olympics. The Summer Olympics in LA in 84' stands out to me because it was the first one I remember watching. We used to write our scores down and after a lot of practice, I managed to achieve a bronze patch. I never actually sent away for it so there was no way of confirming my score. I also achieved this with an Atari 7800 controller which I think is worth mentioning. Playing this recently, it seemed more like some kind of torture than something you would play for fun. The gameplay just seemed so dated compared to some of the great Atari games I have played recently and everything moves too slowly. Furthermore, it is likely that you would destroy your favourite controller playing this game with 100m, 400m and 1500m of joystick waggling. Every event actually requires joystick waggling. I have fond memories of competing in this game and of the music as well. It is pure nostalgia, it has to be, as Decathlon isn't that much fun to play and it never will be. Space Shuttle My brother and I took this one very seriously and it was an upgrade from pre-primary when my class had actually built a spaceship, outfits for everyone to wear and were all set for a space mission. Our ship was sufficiently covered in tin foil and it had different rooms - it was pretty cool! However, there was one hitch, I stood down from the mission at the last minute because we also had space food and I wasn't too keen on the rhubarb and custard that was on the menu. Anyway back to Space Shuttle by Activision. We read the manual and had our overlays in place. I started as co-pilot and had to read out the instructions before I got a 'check' from my brother who was chief pilot. We fully believed that if we could do this, maybe being future astronauts for NASA was a career option. I remember that I mainly played Level 1 if I was on my own and I had fun because my imagination went into overdrive. Sometimes after playing Dam Busters on a mate's Commodore 64 I would pretend I was a bomber pilot flying a Lancaster bomber pilot deep into the heart of Germany. Docking with the satellite was when I pretended I was lining up to drop my bomb payload on the target below. The flashing lights when coming back through the atmosphere I pretended was flak. The experience paled a little with Dam Busters as there was no equivalent to being under attack by Messerschmitt fighters. I have since played Level 1 as an adult and it is a bit like the first level in Adventure. The space shuttle flies by itself and there isn't a lot to see or do. There are flashing lights, the satellite moving across the screen and two white lines in a yellow desert that serve as the runway. I always tried not to land as I wanted to fly past the runway and go to the mountains. I think I managed to overshoot the runway once but another runway just appeared. I guess the 'earth from space' effect is pretty good. Anyway, without the overlays and believing the hype about becoming an astronaut, it isn't much fun today. It was a technical achievement at the time but it hasn't aged well. Human Cannonball This one is very simplistic and involves firing a man from a cannon into a water storage tank. You have to get the angle of the cannon and the power right. There is some amusement to be had in seeing your little stick man go splat and there is also a decent challenge. However, I had this over a 5 year period and it doesn't have that kind of longevity and there are so many games I would rather have had.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Sorry I haven't responded, but I haven't been on here lately. You can certainly see why they went with the squares and it certainly doesn't lose anything in both Millipede and Centipede in terms of gameplay.

Yes, Spiceware, I am pretty sure it was you - Space Rocks is absolutely awesome by the way! I am only new on here and am not up to date with all the forums. Have there been any further developments in terms of ways of getting mushrooms on Centipede without terrible flicker? When something seems impossible, the talented programmers on here delight in shifting the goal posts and finding away around it anyway. I find the discussions about these things really interesting but often it is like they are speaking a foreign language as I don't know anything about programming. They tend to make the solutions all sound very simple although I know they aren't.

I like Keystone Kapers so I will have to give your hack a go.

I know there is the trackball version of Centipede available which is great, but I haven't played it like that yet as I don't have a trackball. Something to look forward to in the future. I have found that a prototype version of Centipede had a ship rather than a square and it is definitely an interesting version. However, I didn't think anything could be done to change the squares into mushrooms without there being far too much flicker (worse than the original Pacman someone said).

It is a good topic though and no one has responded for a long time so I will have a go. This one seems to polarise opinion but I like them both. I thought the graphics were good on Battlezone and didn't mind what was missing from the original. They were sacrifices that probably needed to be made. I like that you have to work out the best order in which to attack, what to leave alone etc. and you can really get 'in the zone' so to speak. There is also great tension when you take evasive action and the enemy fire wizzes past in front of you. Robot Tank has greater complexity with the weather and damage system. It is tense when tanks pop up suddenly at night and you really have to watch that radar (or not if it has been blown out). It is very suspenseful trying to get the score for a patch and you are on your last legs with no margin for error. It is a little unrealistic in that tanks don't fire on you unless they can be seen (which is a deal breaker for some) but I prefer to focus on the gameplay than realism. You faced with 3 choices when confronted with the enemy. You can duck out the way until you can get a better shot or play defensively and destroy any incoming enemy fire (which admittedly doesn't look great when it is a square). Finally, you can race to destroy the enemy tank which also eliminates any incoming fire. It is pretty compelling stuff when you are nearly at score for a patch, you are nursing a damaged tank and made the critical error to try to shoot down enemy fire rather than take evasive action. It is too late when you realise what you have done and your final tank is destroyed as the screen breaks to electrical interference - awesome!! It is a long way back to start again but you are already reaching for the reset button. I never had Robot Tank as a kid and it blows my mind the gameplay that games like this had compared to the Atari 2600 games I was playing back then. Both Battlezone and Robot Tank are great but Robot Tank edges it for me.

I would agree about improved controls. I love the hack that switches Midnight Magic to the paddle button controls (I think it was by Nukey Shay). I really like Midnight Magic but the joystick controls are a bit clunky. With the paddles it completely transforms the experience. It is the best pinball game on the Atari and I would argue one of the best pinball games period. I would love to play Centipede with the trackball and if only they could do something with those mushrooms. I think it has already been discussed on another forum though and it is impossible. What about changing the ship / cannon into something more like the arcade version? I wonder if that can be done as that would improve things a little.

I didn't know that it originated from a PAL territory so that is interesting. I have just got used to how it looks on the Gameboy Advance I guess. I will just have to give it another go and get into it with the colours as they are. It is a great game and I do like the strategy behind it. Would have loved to have had it as a kid back in the early 80s instead of playing games like Human Cannonball and Skyjinks.