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DoctorSpuds
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Blog Comments posted by DoctorSpuds
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5 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:
Excellent review! I thoroughly agree, especially about the sounds and music in Thunder Castle: they really demonstrate what the Intellivision's PSG could do in the right hands, and how important sound is to setting the mood in a game. The soundtrack includes some excellent choices of classical music, beautifully rendered by the PSG; game co-designer David Warhol's musical background no doubt informed their selection. The power-up theme in the Forest level, for example, is from Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain (the excerpt that is used in the game is heard in this piano interpretation by Boris Berezovsky, at about 2:55):
The music that plays when you die is from Beethoven’s Ninth.
Ah, my classical music knowledge has gotten quite rusty, though a casual player with minimal knowledge of classical music would likely mistake the short excerpts, like it did, as original pieces from the programmer. It is nice to know though, that the soundtrack borrows from some of the greatest classical music ever written.
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3 hours ago, carlsson said:
Is that Enduro bootleg yet another PAL game played on NTSC hardware, given the odd palette? Perhaps the colour/daytime shifts would appear differently on a PAL console then.
I don't think so. I am unable to try this with the actual hardware since my TV will just go to B&W when displaying true PAL games so I took a PAL Enduro ROM and forced it to play in NTSC mode on Stella, and aside from the rolling screen, the pallet wasn't the same.
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I know of at least one game that was programmed within the tolerances of both NTSC and PAL systems, Walker from Suntek, and it's possible that this version of Enduro has been modified to fall within this sweet spot as well, which would account for the crazy colors, but I doubt it. Either way this is a very modified game that somehow hasn't been dumped yet, which is kind of cool. My copy is also a dead ringer for the pictures of the NTSC copies on AtariMania, mainly since the PAL versions came in a blue box and mine is orange.
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2 hours ago, Psionic said:Actually, despite the 1981 copyright, Lost Luggage was released in mid-1982 (right around the same time as Racquetball and Space Cavern) so Kaboom! predates it by several months.
Yep, that's about what I figured, I wonder who came up with the concept first though, Activision or Apollo?
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On 7/19/2019 at 10:44 AM, CaptainBreakout said:
Ahh... Here's the review I was referring to. 9.5 out of 10 stars no less!
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/atari2600/585255-wall-ball/reviews/68994
It sounds like video game Stockholm Syndrome. This poor bastard was stuck with this game for so long that he began to actually like it. And the fact that he game it a 4.5/5 despite the pretty glaring negatives in the review, I'm guilty of that to I suppose but not to such an extent, simply reaffirms this.
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Yeah. I can Google my username and pictures from my blog and my galleries will show up in the image results. Everything right down to my profile picture/icon are seen by Google, even retweeted images are shown. Hell even images that are related to thinks I've liked on Twitter are shown, you can't hide from Google.
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3 hours ago, TrekMD said:
Thank you for sharing this! Quick question, I'm assuming the image on your post is the front cover of the ebook. The front cover doesn't show up with the image of the console for me on either Google Books (epub format) or Kindle (mobi format). Just double checking that's how it is supposed to be. Thanks again!
It doesn't have an ISBN so it technically isn't a salable Ebook. If I did get an ISBN then I could sell it on Google or Kindle, but the cost of getting a single ISBN almost isn't worth it.
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3 hours ago, EricBall said:
Nice build.
Currently my wife, son & I have started completing quests on Wynncraft. I used to play on 2B2T (and make YouTube videos), but now I just log in to see if my base is still standing, or is anyone has left new signs. My son used to play a lot on Hypixel, and the three of us have played a lot of local survival games (both PC and PS3).
oooooh you're bringing back memories with Wynncraft, I played the crap outta that!
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3 hours ago, Mike Harris said:
How is Minecraft these days.
The game is better than ever. I know the Java crap is pretty easy to deal with as all you'll need to do is install Java Runtime environment if you want to modify the game in any way otherwise you'll never know it's there. Microsoft has not really meddled with the game at all, all they really did was make a windows version that doesn't use Java iirc. As for the game, the amount of new stuff that has been added is amazing. If you want to build they have you covered with plenty of excellent new decoration blocks. If you want to explore there are now underwater temples, ruins and shipwrecks to loot for goodies. If you want to take the quieter approach you can play the game as a merchant/head of one of the new overhauled villages. Caving is pretty much the same as ever. If you want to take a more aggressive approach you can now raid the new 'enemy' the illagers who stage in massive mansions and are damn hard to kill. If you want to program then they've got you covered as well, somebody actually made a video player that lets you log in to Youtube and even an Atari 2600 emulator.
Minecraft has really improved from it's more barebones aspects to become a very fleshed out and varied game. It's well worth a look if you haven't played in a while.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
Besides I think if I'll ever start a blog about video game reviews, I will score those games according to vintage judo rules: koka, yuko, waza-ari and ippon.
That would be excellent. Now you've gotta do it!
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
So it seems they were quite positive about it, much because they didn't know how much better pool games might become in a few years time.
Well that review hasn't aged well, much like the game itself. I wonder if the writer ever played and reviewed any more pool games and looks back on this review.
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3 hours ago, carlsson said:
After a bit of research, you seem to be spot on about this being the first pool/billiards game on a home system.
It had to start somewhere, and sadly it hasn't aged well at all. Actually I wonder what people at the time thought about it.
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2 hours ago, carlsson said:
Not any worse than normal, perhaps a tad better compared to the YT videos I found.
At least its a bit more visually interesting.
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6 hours ago, carlsson said:
Now I'm curious how this game sounds (and looks) on your Franken Atari, the one with severe issues you posted about before. If it has such terrible sounds even on a good working 2600, how will it appear on a partly broken one?
Ask and you shall receive
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6 hours ago, carlsson said:
But the lack of comments or likes shouldn't prevent you from writing about the stuff you like. Once in a while, you'll get a comment, and then when you post an entry about some game more people can react to, you'll get the big exposure again.
You hit the nail on the head, and here's hoping tomorrow's review further proves your point.
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Perhaps beggars can't be choosers in Russia, or I am making uninformed assumptions of which type of games were available (either as originals or pirated) in the late Soviet Union.
Well, considering that it seems this game was made specially for both English and Russian speaking countries, the product catalog had the tagline in Russian with an English translation inside, I think for the first time they got to be the choosers. Perhaps that's why the game is set at such antiquated graphical and audio settings, to account for the folks in Russia who might not have tricked out PC's like we Americans and Europeans.
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Aha, now I know what the issue is. This game is known as Operation Hormuz in Europe and under that title, it is found on all of the above: Lemon 64, World of Spectrum, CPC Power, Atarimania. A bit odd that neither site has a function for "also known as" that would lead you right.
It looks like this game was recieved with firmly average scores ranging from 30 to 70 but mostly sitting around 50%. Oddly enough oldgames.ru (which MobyGames links to) gave this game, specifically the PC version of the game, a glowing review of 8 out of 10. So I guess everybody has different opinions but the game is still mostly seen as a big 'ol stinker.
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I'd like to see more big-box PC game reviews. For many reasons I'm too lazy to type up.
Can do! I got plenty of them to look at!
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Did Tigervision and Sierra On-Line have something in common? There is an Atari 8-bit computer game called Marauder which consists of two stages: first a kind of shoot 'em down, and then a Berzerk like game not entirely unlike the one in your review.
http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-marauder_3146.html
For that matter, Sierra On-Line published Threshold as well which probably means I am here asking a FAQ that I didn't bother to look up.
http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-threshold_5355.html
Edit: Aha, it seems that Sierra On-Line developed those 2600 games, which were published by Tigervision, so there are more games shared between those entities.
https://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=251
Ain't that weird... Tiger Electronics and Sierra On-Line partnering to release games on the Atari 2600. Then Again its not as weird as Quaker Oats buying U.S. Games/Vidtec to release games on the 2600, and wasn't Parker Bros.' game division owned in some part by General Mills?
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I love the variation in this blog. In four days time you've gone from an awful adult game to a dull childrens game.
I can't let the blog get stale, there are so many more games than what Atari and Activision released, ya gotta get in there and pull out the real winners, not just the easy pickings. Who knows maybe I'll inspire a few people to leave their comfort zone and explore this weird old console's full library, warts and all.
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They used a neat trick to pull off the character graphics. They set player0 to 2 copies close then lined up the players as:
010
which results in a 24 pixel wide character. The graphics and colors for each player are set at the start of each scanline. Then while player1 is draw the Reflect Flag for player0 is turned on - this makes the left and right side of the character a mirror image, and always the same color. The middle 8 pixels can be a different color, and since they're not flipped the middle allows for the off-centered hat decorations seen for Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie.
Clever, clever. It's too bad they put all of this effort in for this particular game.
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Jeez! This would conjure up lawsuits nowadays. But the Mystique games are super collectable, and I plan to snatch them up when I get the chance.
You missed your chance somebody was selling all three Mystique titles for 45 bucks each a week ago
As for Bachelor Party... A game like this nowadays would probably be released on some sketchy adult flash game website and be forgotten. There are very few retail games like this though, and to my knowledge there have only been a small handful over the years like the Lula series of games, which is why they're so sought after even though they're absolute garbage fires. No self respecting game retailer would ever sell something like this today... hmmmm... Maybe GameStop...
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Hm, do you mean games released on disk by Atari themselves, or also other publishers whose games they re-released on cartridge for the XEGS generation?I don't know if this list is complete, but it is a start:Archon (Electronic Arts, disk 1983)Lode Runner (Broderbund, disk 1983)Ballblazer (Lucasfilm/Epyx/Activision, disk 1985)Blue Max (Synapse, disk 1983)David's Midnight Magic (Broderbund, 1982)Fight Night (Accolade, 1985)Flight Simulator II (subLOGIC 1984)One on One (Electronic Arts, disk 1983)Rescue on Fractalus! (Lucasfilm/Epyx/Activision, disk 1985)
Whew, at least I'm not going crazy. I guess its like if a company released a game on the Xbox 360, for example, and later re-released it on the Xbox One even though the 360 version will still work on the Xbox One, Its not quite as strange as I though.
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Hmmm... Forgive me if you've done these before
Actually, you're right I have begged for suggestions before, I guess its been long enough that I've forgotten.
But I think this is the first time I gave a collection update.
I don't think I'll go for either a Jaguar or a Super Cassette Vision since I don't have the hundreds to spare on the consoles and the billions for the games. At this point I'm just waiting for a cheap enough 7800 that actually has that stupid expensive AC adapter, or to maybe find one in the wild, though that's incredibly unlikely and the price is probably going to be worse than whatever there is on Ebay.
Maybe an Adventurevision....
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I am not an Atari collector, but is this the same HomeVision who made the Repro Card, that let you copy games in the store? Did they release both individual games and those part of the copying system?
I believe so, the packaging that both the Copy Cart and the individual games game in are incredibly similar. They were never really advertised together but it looks like they were both from HomeVision.
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How to play 5200 games without the 5200
in DoctorSpuds Reviews Things
A blog by DoctorSpuds in General
Posted
I would only use an emulator to get screenshots for a review otherwise I prefer to use actual hardware, and I'm really only going this route because I already have an 800 that I was neglecting and playing on actual hardware just feels so much better.
As for the hate the 5200 gets I think much of it is unjustified, it is a good solid machine with its only handicap being the controllers and their notorious reliability issues. My best guess is that most of the people who discount the 5200 as a hunk of junk probably watched that one AVGN video from ten years ago and called it a day and have never actually played on one themselves.