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DoctorSpuds

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    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    Ow... now you reminded me that I've got the upper compartment of a closet full of university textbooks

     

    Well... the good thing about these expensive games is that they may cost as much as a college textbook, but they hold their value far better in the long run. You could try to donate your old textbooks, if you have any used book stores in your area you could check them out, you'd probably get a few bucks per book, but they'd be out of your life for good.

    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    People like the rarity, not the game itself.

     

    I suppose all collectors are guilty of this, we all want to have a game to show off, I know I have several (Chuck Wagon, Bumper Bash, Custer's Revenge, ETC...). I would never, however, spend 100+ dollars on a game, that's my limit, that's why I still find it so confounding that people will shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a game that hasn't even been properly coded.

     

    It's actually rather nice to have a price cap when it comes to collecting, just so it doesn't get out of hand.

    • Like 2
    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    That's the thing though, Z26 isn't getting it right, what you're seeing in Stella is what you'd likely* see on a real Atari.

     

    If you want to force the game to be NTSC then you should also set the height, which would be equivalent of adjusting the Vertical Size on your TV to make the extra tall picture fit on the screen:

    * it's also likely the picture would be scrolling so much on your TV that it'd make the game unplayable.

     

    So you're telling me that one of the most expensive games on the 2600, a game that we all drool over, would not display properly on either a PAL or NTSC television? Unless of course you have a TV that can adjust the vertical hold, but even so, you'd likely cut off the score trying to get the bottom of the screen to fit. I'm sorry but Air Raid is garbage, why do we even like this game?

    • Like 1
    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    This is actually a PAL game, so the magenta background colours are valid. And the switching to B&W is because that's what a PAL TV would do when the scanline count goes from even to odd and back again (ie, inconsistent line counts). This effect can be turned off (PAL colour-loss effect).

     

    In the future, if you have a problem with a certain game, feel free to send me a message about it. Particularly when you will be reviewing something using Stella. It should absolutely never be necessary to revert to an emulator that has been obsolete for years.

     

    Going forward, this is a problem we face with Stella. The more accurate we make the emulation, the more 'crude' some games really show themselves to be. In Stella 6.0, the sound is now cycle-exact and much more authentic. But it makes some games sound worse than you remember, but actually true to how they really were.

     

    I manually switched Air Raid from the Autodetected PAL to NTSC and have encountered a different problem. The bottom green bit has been totally cut off, I know this is due to it running in NTSC node and not being able display all 290-ish of the lines, but it is really quite obnoxious since now I can't see how many lives I have. For Air Raid only, I will use Z26 since it gets it right first time every time, otherwise it's Stella all the way.

    blogentry-62222-0-87941200-1546532575_thumb.png
    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    I was, until very recently, the proud (?) owner of this game. If your joystick has a rapid fire button, if works.. umm, well in this game. In fact it would be hilarious, excepting that it amplifies the peculiar embarrassment associated with playing.

     

    I actually have an Amiga Powerstick that I use for rapidfire games like this. Simply hold it horizontally between your fingers and thumb, and start vigorously jerking your arm up and down so that you hit the buttons on either side with your fingers and thumb. It will damage your pride beyond repair, but is an effective way to play the game, it's also an excellent workout for your upper back and arm muscles, kinda like a shake-weight.

    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    I did a quick Google search to see what the elusive screen two is for Spiderdroid. Like with Amidar it's the same maze with different sprites, on screen two the enemies turn into pretty decent approximations of skulls, and you turn into whatever the heck the player controlled thing from Amidar screen one is except the head is slightly modified.

     

    Here's a brief update to my recent status concerning my copy of Spiderdroid: you'll have seen that I had some trouble with my copy of Spiderdroid, I managed to snag a copy factory sealed for cheap, but when I opened it there was no instruction manual. I, and everybody who replied suspected foul play but the seller has opened another copy of Spiderdroid (I don't understand why he even has another copy) and is sending it through the mail free of charge. Bullet dodged, I would really hate to have to track down a manual since no matter what it's going to be overpriced like the game. If you ever buy from Ebay Seller 'oddnix' they'll treat you right.

    • Like 1
    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    I like to mention my stacking solution for M-Network carts whenever someone brings up their awkward shape. Those little sheets of adhesive clear rubber "feet" you can buy at most hardware stores. Put two of them under the label end of M-Network games and then they stack fine. Nice review as always. I appreciate the comparison with the intellivision version too since I was planning on giving that version a whirl soon. Nice insight on the programming side of things too, SpiceWare.

     

    That is an excellent Idea, I'm gonna have to do that sometime. I wouldn't classify the Intellivision version as 'Bad' it's just very slow in comparison, but the graphics are nicer, and the maze is better laid out. And besides, the Intellivision version is incredibly cheap, I got mine boxed in the wild for two dollars. And SpiceWare, well, he knows things, he's one of the few people out there who can truly appreciate the technical side of things.

    • Like 1
    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    Now pitch the idea to the developers to make a game that matches the hand drawn screenshot!

     

    How about reverse Missile Command where one (or two) player(s) using a standard joystick control a flying saucer on the top of the screen, if you had a controller splitter of some type you could have two playing saucers, perhaps Paddles could be utilized, removing the vertical movement but allowing for more players and more fluid and reactionary movement. The saucers would be limited to the top quarter of the screen to allow some time for the bombs they drop to reach the cites below. The player who is defending the cites will use a cursor system much like in Missile Command, but with Track-Ball support (because we're not neanderthals) to shoot down the bombs and the saucers. The defender will have to have unlimited ammo to protect the cites while the attackers will have limited ammo, if you're playing with two attackers the ammo is halved, of course there'd be variations where the ammo is limited on both sides, or unlimited on both sides. For extra variations, the control of the attackers would be augmented to either allow for increased or reduced mobility. To reduce unfair deaths on the side of the attackers the defender's would have to be limited in their shots to the top quarter of the screen so that they are unable to fill the area up with missiles, or perhaps remove the blast zone like what's seen in missile command and have them stay as small bullets. I'm not sure how possible it would be but to have a one-player mode where the saucers are controlled by AI would be needed for all those Lonely Larry's, like myself, out there.

    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    So you concluded it is Base Attack / Z-Tack? I was about to suggest that from a screenshot search, but it didn't look close enough to feel confident about mentioning it. I also realize the screenshot is hand drawn, not a 2600 display but that was somewhat common back then, I've seen a dozen hand drawn VIC-20 screenshots too, more or less alike the actual display.

     

    Both Rom Hunter and I believe that the game is Z-Tack, I PM'd him and that is what he told me. I didn't believe him at first, and did a little investigating if you take a look at my Thunderground review I go into a bit more depth, but he was correct. I still don't know why of all the screenshots to use they used one that depicts a giant red bubble firing at a bunch of giant blue boils on a green hill with a blue sky, since apart from your ship being red in Z-tack the screenshot is not indicative of the game on the cartridge. I don't know where these guys got the screenshot from, considering it wasn't on the original Z-tack packaging I'm led to believe that they drew it themselves or gave a brief description to somebody who'd never actually seen the game before and they drew it.

    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    Since it's outputting a steady 312 scanlines the up/down movement is on purpose - I believe it's meant to be an underwater distortion effect. I think the effect would have been better if the ©BIT CORP at the bottom did not move.

     

     

    Thanks for the clarification! I came to the same conclusion that the vertical movements were intentional, oddly enough that makes it even worse since it was purposely implemented into the game rendering it thoroughly unenjoyable to play. If the programmer had simply left it out it would a far more playable game since I'm not getting headaches from looking at it for prolonged periods of time.

    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    Combined with other forms of mismanagement in Atari, and they may just as well have dumped the entire company in the desert where they got rid of E.T., Pac-Man and other surplus cartridges.

     

    True... None of us really know what would have happened, it could have ended up all peachy and rosy for everybody involved, or it could have doomed the future of videogames as we know them. Let's leave that sort of thinking to the philosophers.

    DoctorSpuds

    Posted

    Jawbreaker was programmed by John Harris at Sierra specifically for Tigervision, he also programmed the Atari 8-bit version as well. I've played the Atari 8-bit version, the C64, and the Vic-20 version (Jawbreaker II) but still find myself preferring the 2600 version because the Commodore versions are frightfull, and the *-Bit version is basically Pac-Man but with more unpredictable ghosts and a different maze layout.

    • Like 1
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