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Tinman

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Posts posted by Tinman

  1. Posted

     

    Best: Yars' Revenge

    Because this game is very good and I can get far in it. :thumbsup:

     

    Worst: Football

    Because it's confusing and only 2 player. :thumbsdown:

     

    Years Revenge is definitely one of the best, but I have to disagree about Football being among the worst. Yes, the graphics are pretty laughable and it sucks that it's two player only, but the game is actually a lot of fun to play!

  2. Posted

    Since I've been playing them all over the last few days, I thought I'd give my list of my

    favorite first-person space shooters. I should start by saying that Star Raiders on the Atari

    800 is my all-time favorite video game on any system ever. And it has been since I first

    played it way back in the 1980's. No other game has pulled me in like Star Raiders on the 800

    did, making me feel like I really was flying around in a space ship fighting evil aliens. So,

    for the 2600, a lot of what makes me like the space shooters there are how well they compare to

    the original Star Raiders. Does this mean that the 2600 version of Star Raiders is my favorite

    on that system? Not necessarily...

     

    This is not an all-inclusive list of space simulations on the 2600; I know there are others.

    But these are the ones that I tend to play the most and are my Top Five. Here they are in

    descending order:

     

    5. Star Voyager (Imagic)

     

    s_StarVoyager_2.png

     

    Star Voyager is decent, but a bit plain. I love how you can select between lasers or photon

    torpedos, although having to use the right dificulty switch to do it means that you can't do it

    as quickly or as often as you might like. Besides which, I've never really figured out a good

    strategy for using one over the other. Like most of these games, you can warp from one sector

    to the next for your battles, however there is no "galactic map". Instead you simply warp by

    flying through the star portals which appear, and you can't choose to navigate to different

    sectors; you simply move to the next level.

     

    The worst part of this game are the colored borders around the screen. I really HATE them!

    They totally take you out of the simulation and remind you that you're playing a game and just

    really seem out of place to me. Generally speaking the graphics on this game are the worst of

    the bunch, simpler and more blocky.

     

    Star Voyager (and all Imagic games) does get bonus points for the coolest box and cartridge

    artwork. It also gets bonus points for having a couple of two-player modes, something none of

    the others have.

     

    4. Space Attack (M-Network)

     

    s_SpaceAttack_1.png s_SpaceAttack_3.png

     

    The Atari version of Intellivision Space Battle is fun and a good port of the original. Unlike

    all of the other games in this list, in Space Attack you have more than one ship battling the

    bad guys. In fact, you have fleets of ships that you must send out to meet the alien fleets.

    When one of your fleets meets one of theirs, you do battle. Unfortunately, sending out your

    fleets is much more complicated on the Atari than it is on the Intellivision, as the Intelly

    version made good use of the keypad on the controllers. I wish the Atari version had shipped

    with a keypad controller like Star Raiders did! That said, it is very fun to have to manage

    the multiple fleets, especially with the "A" difficulty set which lets the computer manage some

    of the battles while you're fighting others.

     

    In battle mode, Space Attack is the least simulator-like of all of these games. The star field

    is colorful (love that!), but static. Instead of moving through space, you simply move your

    gunsight around the screen, avoiding the enemy fire when it turns red (if it touches your

    gunsight, you lose a ship from your fleet). Learning to "lead" the enemy ships with your fire

    takes some practice, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty straightforward.

    If you really like Space Attack, you need to play the original Space Battle on the

    Intellivision. If you can handle the INTV's hand-cramping controllers, you'll enjoy that game

    quite a bit.

     

    3. Star Raiders (Atari)

     

    starraiders_3.png s_StarRaiders_2.png o_StarRaiders_1.jpg

     

    Oh, I had such hopes for this game! Having loved the original version on the Atari 800, I knew

    that this one wouldn't be as good (how could it be on the more limited 2600 hardware?), but I

    figured it would come the closest. Plus, it shipped with the very cool Video Touch Pad (the

    old Atari keypad controller with an overlay), which would make accessing the various features

    much more easy than on the other games here, which all rely on the 2600's various console

    switches.

     

    So some of the features were changed or missing; the aft view (which I almost never used) and

    the slick little animation where the astronaut floats out to meet you at the starbase. I can

    live without those. And the galactic map is far smaller with many fewer sectors. But some

    other changes seemed less necessary but more glaring. Your targeting crosshairs are now a long

    horizontal line across the screen. And the flicker! Why so much flicker?? Far more than on

    any of the other games here. Perhaps because Star Raiders tends to have a lot more on the

    screen than the other games (except Phaser Patrol, but that's a different story...) Also, if

    you read the manual, the backstory has been changed as well. You're now fighting "Krylons"

    instead of "Zylons", for example. Weird.

     

    One of my big problems with Star Raiders is the movement of the aliens. They seem to fly only

    in loops, moving towards you and then back away, and hitting them is just a matter of timing

    your left-and-right shots to intercept them. And while the movement of the stars across the

    screen is very well done, overall everything seems just a bit too jerky and not smooth enough.

    Again, I wonder if that's because of all the stuff on the screen at once. Trying to emulate

    the original a little too closely may have been the problem here.

     

    In fact, that may really be my biggest issue with the game. It's too easy to compare it to the

    original and it suffers for it. Taken for what it is, it is very fun, it does a good job of

    simulating space battles and has most of the features I love on the original. You have to

    protect your space stations by attacking the aliens closest to them, you have to manage your

    energy reserves and dock to replenish them, and you can lose or damage systems like your

    shields or targetting computer and engines.

     

    2. Phaser Patrol (Starpath)

     

    s_PhaserPatrol_2.png s_PhaserPatrol_3.png

     

    It seems almost unfair to include Phaser Patrol, since it requires the Starpath Supercharger,

    which gives the game more RAM and better graphics to use. It has as much detail on the screen

    as Star Raiders, however none of the flicker. It also uses the extra memory to good effect,

    with a much larger galactic map (including sectors where you have no knowledge of what's in

    them until you warp to them), and a gorgeous colorful starfield in the battle mode. Sadly, the

    stars don't fly past your cockpit in this game, but they do scroll left and right and up and

    down as you fly around.

     

    Of all of these games, Phaser Patrol is probably most similar to the original Star Raiders (as

    well as to the 2600 version) with a sector map, long range scanner, a targeting computer, and

    shields; and it has the coolest Atari 2600 animation I think I've ever seen as you activate or

    deactivate your shields! The shields slowly collapse from the top and bottom of the screen,

    making the black of space look dark grey instead. It's a really need effect.

     

    The targetting computer is also more advanced here, giving you the distance to the aliens as

    well as the ability to "lock on" to one of them. If you fire when the torpedo sight turns red,

    your torpedos will chase the aliens across the screen to hit them.

     

    Really the only negative about this game is the fact that the starfield doesn't whiz past your

    cockpit as you fly. Had they included that effect, I think this game would be number one on my

    list.

     

    1. Starmaster (Activision)

     

    s_Starmaster_2.png s_Starmaster_4.png

     

    Now, I admit that Starmaster probably has the most sparse graphics of all of these games.

    Activision definitely kept it simple on this game, but it works very well. In fact, so well

    that this is my favorite of the bunch.

     

    Like the others, you have a galactic chart as well as your cockpit view. And you have aliens

    from which you must protect your starbases. You do have shields, but no way to turn them on or

    off manually, and there is no change in the graphics to indicate when they're off, except an

    "S" which appears on your damage computer. But, like the other games, you never really want to

    turn them off, so this is not an issue for me.

     

    The graphics are sparse, as I said, but very smooth and fast. There aren't many stars to see,

    but they whip past your cockpit as you fly. The aliens as well whip around the screen as they

    shoot at you and dodge your fire, occasionally coming close to you (making them much easier to

    hit).

     

    Much of Starmaster is a pure shoot-em-up with fast gameplay and graphics, but you do have to

    use some strategy, particularly managing your energy reserves and trying to kill of the enemies

    closest to your starbases. If you lose all your energy or all your starbases (or take a hit

    without shields), it's game over. In gameplay, I think Starmaster stands up best to the

    original Star Raiders, even if it doesn't match it feature-for-feature, and for this reason it

    is my favorite of the bunch.

    • Like 6

  7. Posted

     

    - Joust+Donkey Kong (first played on a mate's 600xl on Cart) and I thought they kick ass

    - Star Raiders, too (but I was more into Star Master on the 2600)

     

     

    Starmaster pales in comparison to the original Star Raiders, in my opinion. That said, it's one of my two favorite games on the 2600 (the other being Adventure). So, while not up to Star Raiders, it's still one VERY good game, and better, I think, than the 2600 version of Star Raiders.

  9. Posted

    I learned to program on Commodore PET computers that we had at school, so when the VIC-20 was released, I was immediately interested since it was based on the same platform, but with improved (color!) graphics and sound. But the 20-column text mode was a big turn-off. That was a step backwards even from the PET. When the Commodore 64 was released, that pretty much ended any interest I had in the VIC-20. Of my friends, I recall one of them ended up buying a VIC-20 and later replaced it with the 64. The rest waited for the 64, or did what I did: buy an Atari 800 instead. :)

  13. Posted

    I'm glad you were able to get your joystick working! I never was as mine had a bad USB plug on it. Unfortunately, after I sent it back, I still have never received a replacement or a refund, and this after more than a year of emails and trying to convince the guy to send it. He always promises he'll get the replacement out "tomorrow" and has even promised to send a better model, but I'm not expecting to ever get anything from the guy. I've just decided to write it off and accept that I got ripped off. But I am telling everybody I can to be VERY wary about doing business with the guy.

  15. Posted

    Thanks again, guys, for the help! I finally did find a solution, but it's an odd one. I moved vBB (and bB) from the c:\batari_BASIC folder to c:\Atari, edited the new .bat file to match, and re-ran the config wizard.

     

    Weird! But it did it. :)

  17. Posted

    Thanks again, guys for the help. I'm attaching a couple of screenshots. One of my vbB settings page and the other of the error I get when I try to run my program from within vbB. As I said before, I can compile it using the bB command-line and run it directly in Stella, just not from vbB.

     

    setttings

    runerror

  19. Posted

    THANK YOU everyone who has responded! I'm making good progress. I still cannot compile or run my program from within vbB, however I can compile it using the command line and I can run my .bin file in Stella directly. I'm now learning about collision detection... :)

  20. Posted

    Hi all,

     

    I'm looking for a bit of help getting bB to work. I just installed it, and Visual bB today, and was trying to get my first little program to compile. Unfortunately, when I try to compile or run it, I'm getting the following error message:

     

    [12/21/2011 5:50:36 PM] saving C:\batari_BASIC\SampleProject\default.bas succeeded.

    System path does not include C:\batari_BASIC\bB

    Precompilation failed, aborted at 12/21/2011 5:50:37 PM

     

    I have checked my environment variables, and I do indeed have the bB folder in my PATH. I searched this forum for others who may have had the same problem and I found a couple of messages, but no definite solution other than to make sure that the path to bB has no spaces in it (which I did).

     

    I admit that I'm new to this and have probably missed something obvious. I'm not a very experienced programmer. I used to do some coding for work, but that was a very long time ago. I appreciate any help I can get! Thanks!

  21. Posted

    I remember way back when, when I used to write code for the Atari 800 and also the Commodore 64. Although it was possible to write better programs (and much faster ones) in assembly, doing so was far more difficult than using BASIC, so I and many others used BASIC. I never did really get the hang of assembly.

    • Like 1

  22. Posted

    Exactly. And I'm just saying you should try out Space Armada which has ever more (and progressively changing) differences which make it even more juicy. :P And of course it's fine that you prefer it, I also was just saying why I don't (although it is one of my all time favorite 2600 games). :)

     

    Point taken. Although I've never been as big a fan of Space Armada. The sprites always seemed too large. Besides which, was that one ever released for the 2600? I only remember it being on the Intellivision.

  23. Posted

    However, definitely NOT Space Invaders. There's just zero chance the 2600 version matches the arcade. And if you think it does you might as well play Intellivision Space Armada because it's about the same as the arcade as the VCS version is and maybe it will be better for you. :P

     

    I, for one, never claimed that the 2600 version of Space Invaders matched the arcade, only that I like it better. In fact, it's the differences that make me prefer it.

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