kirin jensen

Judged by the standards of its day, the O2 was generally technologically superior to the 2600. The color palette and audio were inferior, but when the O2 came out, the norm was for Atari 2600 games to have at most five objects (possibly using the 2x/3x cloning) on screen at once along with a low resolution background. Some games used horizontal splits to show more objects (e.g. Air-Sea Battle and Street Racer) but nothing very fancy. The Odyssey 2 was designed to be technically superior to what the 2600 was designed to be. On the other hand, it turned out that some of the design decisions that contributed to the 2600's being cheap (e.g. forcing the processor to load all sprite data on a line-by-line basis) also led to it being extremely versatile, thus allowing for games that went far beyond anything the machine's designers would have imagined. Of course it is worth noting that the O2 seems able to get objects to move in ways that the atari 2600 finds difficult or impossible, for example the boulders on later levels of Pick Axe Pete and nearly everything in UFO.

Turtles is good on the O2 because the game design calls for what the O2 excels at-- maze walls and simple moving objects. Note that the enemy beetles are created by flickering (aha!) between two different built-in symbols (the ball and the X, if I recall correctly). The O2 could probably manage a decent version of Venture, or Mappy, or even Elevator Action. But anything that requires a background that can't be represented with lines or huge blocks is pretty much beyond it. Man. Your hostility toward the O2 is mindstunning. "That's only a good game on the O2 because the O2 is good at that sort of game." And Pick Axe Pete sucks because you haven't made past the low 100s. I don't care what it is that makes you like this about the O2. I'm specifically not responding (after this message) to any comment you have to make about the O2, ZylonBane. I no longer care if it's because your father was killed by an O2 or your mother was frightened at the circus by an O2 before you were born or your neighbor's O2 ate your Atari, I just don't. We get it. You HATEHATEHATEHATE the O2. You find inferior in every single way, including several imaginary ones. There's really no more for your 'heroic' services here. Now can you go back to stroking the woodgrain sides of your heavy sixer and whispering 'My precious' and leave the universe alone?

I guess 2600 coders just have higher standards than to do some half-assed port. Funny, that. "Hi, my name's ZylonBane. I'm still bitter that the O2 had a better game in KC Munchkin than the Atari had in Pacman. I'll never never NEVER admit there's anything good about the O2. Now I think I'll go play some sucky, slow-moving Donkey K0ong and bask in the flicker of my 2600, thank you very much." You know what? If Adventure were on the O2 (called, say, Quest!), at least your man wouldn't have been a dot, the dragons wouldn't be ducks, there might have been enemies other than ducks, you know - stuff like that. Maybe somebody will code a homebrew like that for the 02... Naw. 02 coders just have higher standards than to do some half-assed port. Seriously, ZylonBane, when was the last time you actually played a game on the O2. Or are you just so obsessed with hatin' the O2 that you've never played the best games much? Ever played Pick Axe Pete into the 1000s? Ever made it into 1000-2000 range on Attack of the Time Lord? What's your score on Killer Bees? What is it with you and the O2? Is your high opinion of the 2600 only based on the supposed inferiority of the O2?

This is also only a clone on a 7x7 grid, while most efforts regarding a 2600 version where shooting for a full 9x9 port. Of course with real Archon shapes, not with Mr. Generic. Some random Archon clone can the 2600 do at ease... And yet none exists. Funny, that.

Jaron Lanier's C-64 game Moondust would be nice on the 2600...

Agreed. I stick to my basic points: 1) Both the O2 and the 2600 are good units with some great classic games. 2) The O2 is all too often denigrated as inferior to rather than different from the O2 despite both being capable of things the other can't do. 3) The Atari 2600's main current advantage in homebrew programming is one of community size. If some of those who currently code for 2600 were to spend some time coding for the O2 and figuring out things it CAN do, rather than dwelling on what it can't, they might find themselves building some exciting new games for the O2. The plus is that it's convinced me to try to learn assembly for the O2 to create homebrews for it.

Lotta hate out the for the O2 among the atarians... easy to see why, given several games on the O2 easily beat comparable games on the 2600, namely: UFO>Asteroids KC Munchkin>Pacman Pick Axe Pete>Donkey Kong The Atarians have never forgiven the O2 for having a cool version of Pacman when they didn't. It's a small library of goodness - including UFO, the KC games, Attack of the Timelord, Killer Bees and Pick Axe Pete. The multicart would be the best way to check everything out on the console. And now, Mr. Roboto! shows you just how underrated the console truly is. And before you bitter Atarians speak, go try and build an Archon-style for the 2600, then tell us how much it sucks. What's that, you say? You don't think it's very doable? Poor babies...

Y'know between this hack and Hack'em, you've definitely demonstrated what Pac-man could've been. Amazing work. Definitely a demonstation of the 2600 at its best. Great work! I'm checking for your other hacks.

I thought about this for long time before responding. Mostly to answer for myself: How would I judge the best 1o for the 2600? On what basis do I make my judgement? Nostalgia was out. While I played a lot of the games back in the day I don't think that's the best way to determine the top games for the system. My criteria came down to: 1) Graphics. Fairly self-explanatory. 2) Playability. Includes ease of play and challenge. 3) Depth. How many levels to the game? How many enemies? 4) Reward. What sort of reward is there for successful behavior? Under that criteria, a lot of games that might qualify as 'classic' may not qualify as 'best, e.g., Space Invader or Asteroids. Two games not on my list deserve mention: Space Shuttle and Shuttle Orbiter. Although they don't quite fit into the game category, if I wanted to blow someone's mind with what the 2600 could do, there's probably not a better place to begin than not one but two shuttle simulators. My list 1) Beamrider. 99 levels, changing enemies and the 2600 version looks better than the original on the INTV. How often can you say the 2600 version of a game beats the Intellivision version? Wait, see below. 2) Starmaster. 'Nuff said. 3) Subterranea. Underrated, and exciting. I can barely make it through the third set of enemies, but the constantly-changing enemies keeps you going. 4) Robot Tank. 5) Solaris. 6) Riddle of the Sphinx. Perhaps the first true modern RPG. All the elements are there: changing stats, the ability to exchange items for more powerful items, a tightly defined quest. 7) Laser Gates. Demon Attack. Level after level of eye and thumb candy. And, yes, the 2600 version easily beats the INTV version. 9) H.E.R.O. 10) Jawbreaker. For all the talk of '2600 Pac-man isn't that bad' and 'Ms Pac-man is pretty good' (which always sounds to me like 'at least Ms. Pac-man doesn't suck as much as Pac-man'), here's truly great Pac-man style game for the 2600. Homebrews 1) Oystron 2) Qb 3) Crazy Balloon 4) Man Goes Down 5) Flow. Man, does this game deserve a cart release.

Oooookaaaay... Are you sure you're playing it properly? If you're using the right controller only, you're much more likely to ram into everything. And Stargate on the 2600? Doesn't even compare. after all, it avoids flicker by minimizing objects onscreen at any one time - and slowing everything down. Of course that makes it astonishingly unchallenging to play... I'm beginning to suspect that it's simply most of you suck at Freedom Fighters. That's OK. It is a challenging game after all. Oh, and Batari? Go look at the homebrew Mr. Roboto! and then see if you still want to say there's no more potential to be tapped in the O2

And you are now doing the very same, just the other way around. True. The 2600 is just more flexible than the O2, so a good(!) programmer can "squeeze" it more than the O2. Not necessarily so. How many people program homebrews for the 2600? I'd estimate at least 20-30 actively work on homebrews and hacks, but you might be able to provide a more accurate number. Having a huge fan base makes it easier to have a huge base of active programmers. These programmers share a lot of tips and tricks with each other. Even so, with only a handful of programmers for the O2, those same seem pretty capable of 'squeezing' the O2 for good games. Maybe the real problem is the mindset that the O2 has to be a piece of crap that' hard to program.

Now, who'd seriously want a 2600 port of Freedom Fighters?! Would've responded earlier, but I've been playing Freedom Fighters, Defender and Defender II in order to better reply. I know you're being sarcastic, but your retort kind of proves my point. No one would want a port to the 2600 of Freedom Fighters, sure. Let's look at why. FF is at heart a Defender clone. The 2600 already is awash in defender-related games, most of them crappy, one of them excellent - Chopper Command. In order to port FF, much of the action would be have to be changed. Bye bye, objects flying all about the screen! Hello, crappy, kludgy, left-right object movement. So long, highly responsive joysticks and swift player movement! Heya, stiff joysticks from hell and glacial pacing. Goodby, mindblowingly cool explosions! Howdy, epilepsy-inducing flicker. And that is one of the lesser games from the Challenger series. Sneer all you want, but the attitude "if they could make that on the crappy O2, then it should be easy on the wondrous Atari 2600" is insulting and wrongheaded. It's like arguing that because the INTV can't do gradients and multicolored sprites, then the Atari should easily be able to reproduce any game it has to offer. They're both good units. Each does things that would be difficult or impossible on the other. Unless you'd like to show me a game like Mr. Roboto! on the 2600.

Oddly I just came across these games last week. While I'm incapable of getting anywhere on Mantra or Jitter, Flow is just a world of fun for me. All three definitely deserve cart release.

You know, although, this is an older thread, I feel compelled to comment. You seriously underestimate the Odyssey2. Unlike the 2600, you can have objects moving in all directions - something the 2600 just doesn't like to do, thus the many games with limited movement of an up/down or left/right vein. This especially obvious at later levels of Pick Axe Pete!, but also notable in UFO! and Killer Bees! Even a reasonably authentric version of Freedom Fighters! would be taxing to the 2600.

Finally played this! Great work! Pluses: The song coda at the end of each round. Short, but satisfying - and nowhere near as annoying as a song at the beginning of each round (a la Pressure Cooker) Maneuverability - actually getting through the miiddle hole on level 1 is doable but difficult. Excellent! Quibble: Do you get extra men somehow? It might just be my sucky point totals, but it doesn't appear so.