Giles N

How did your favourite game get treated?

Thanks, I also hope to be a little into the 5200!

Here’s a list of scores given to Atari 7800 games by Video Game Critic. http://videogamecritic.com/7800.htm Do you agree? Why/Why not?

It could be sort of cool to have it as a complete game, playable from start to finish with no bugs. It would increase the 7800 library with one more game (instead of 85% of a game). And it has a lot of cool elements. So what would be needed? What in the game itself needed fixing? Who and how could it be done?

Actually - when considering the really short line of titles for the 7800, it’s a comparatively strong line up with quite a lot of variety for a console given the few titles: flight-simulation to classics-arcade to homecomputer-style games (Tower Toppler), newer arcade-ports, unique titles only found on this system, puzzle-action like ‘jinks’, etc.

I tend think of the games for the Atari 7800 as belonging to sort of generational types of games: So I get to like 2 or 3 generations: 1978-1983 84-88 89-92 (incl. officially unreleased titles). The ports from the ‘classic era’ 78-84, really do shine: Ms Pac Man, Dig Dug, Joust, Centipede Food Fight, Robotron 2084, Galaga, Xevious, Asteroids, Mario Bros, Donkey Kong, Among the titles of the next period you have more bland quality, and not all of them are at all as close to the arcade as the ports from the classics era. - Pole Position 2 is good, and has many of same elements as the arcade but feels much stiffer, - Rampage plays very crisp, but has graphics thats ok, but not like the Arcade with its large-sized monsters and colourfulness, - Double Dragon have nice background grfx, but slowed-down action and much stiffer gameplay, - Xenophobe (which I hardly knew about), which has fairly crisp (1:1) gameplay but little options, and much less variation in grfx. - Choplifter plays and looks well, but is very short, - Ikari Warriors is slowed down but ok++, lots of fun so I guess Commando is the best here But many games from this midfle era are also ports, not from arcades, but from home-computer market, or unique games to sell the 7800 or compete with other consoles or homecomputers, rather than be Arcade ports per se: - Ace of Aces, F14 Tomcat, Karateka, Wintergames, etc. Then you have these games released by Atari in about 89/90 to try to regenerate or revive the interest for the 7800; I think many 7800-fans really often tend to have at least one favourite from this ‘batch’, Ninja Golf, Scrapyard Dog or Alien Brigade.

I played it first on 5200 emu system ‘Kat5200’ with a xbox/usb controller. Then I (after much to-and fro) got actual 5200 unit up an running. And guess, what? Having an analogue stick that did not selfcenter, actually helped, the Arcade had wheel which did not center/move back in position, so even though I never got far in the Arcade, I got the precision needed to steer clear of other cars while holding the right turn-angle. 🙂

I actually thought analogue orginal controller worked well with this game; but as to pass other racing cars, one has to keep the stick very steady and precise. now, sometimes the others cars shift file, or creates room for you to be able to pass them z-manouver-like, but do this at low-gear, or let-up your speed so dies down. If you have a fair inkling to which curves comes when, you’ll notice big Ad-signs are mostly on the outer side of the curve, so you can drive into the green on the inside of somecurves, but get out on the road asap. So, steer precisely. gear-down or break when trying to pass cars, If two cars block the road ahead, lower your speed til you hang behind them, and wait for them to change position, or a long straight, where you can attempt to sneak past them in the middle.

Cool stuff! Cool set-up! Good round! 🙂

Ok, thanks for input... Well, it doesn’t need to be a competition between NES-like games and Arcade ports: you have Commando which I think is as good, or better than the NES version. But I agree there’s lot of quality in the titles you mentioned with exception made for PacMan-collection which I have not played so can’t tell. But Ms PacMan is very good.

And the controller works?

And you then need to deal with these colour-modes and sprite-sizes? I mean, programming them to fit or overlap correctly, or if an object is composite of many sprites, then all these sprites to do the same thing? When you see the ‘classics’, guess at how they did this of that? Do you have access to the code of original games, to read and learn from these? Or did you learn everything from scratch reading programming books?

These titles aren’t Street Fighter, we all know. Still could be fun to find out if there are good ways to master them to some degree as they are part of the 7800 library. I particulary find it difficult to understand how I will keep an opponent pinned down, vs him breaking free. And this^ problem is the same for both these games. I hope this thread can be used to discuss how-to play and master these games... ...since they’re part of the 7800-library.

One of the reasons I ask all these questions, besides quriosity, is that when looking at videos of 2600 games and 5200 games, one the things that was most noticable to me, was that it was very common for 5200 games to have multicoloured objects while on the 2600 it was very rare, only more like the exception.

You program and do grfx and sound yourself?

Ok, thanks, Antic and Gtia A8 I’ll try those entries. — I’ll never be into programming, but its sort of relaxing to try my hand a some old-school-pixel-placing.

Its cool stuff for sure, but it was more the other way round I meant, since it then could play 2600, 5200 and 7800 games... ...but wait; can this converter play 2600 games on the 7800 via the converter?

I’m not saying anything should be left to chance here. It would have to be a quality-unit with quality-controllers, being able to run old carts and providing availability for the titles for these systems (and possibly more). Which could mean that Atari or whomever would or could do such stuff would have interest in providing professional output, professional availability for the Homebrews made later.

I think that a built-in eshop with arcade-titles and atari-console-software-download service could do a lot. One could also build in cart-slots for NES and SMS, Genesis and SNES so you would have a box with 8 slots lined up in two rows. And as to eshop-download: to make available Atari400/800 games (lets say 2-10$ each), which would really expand the catalogue.

I have 40++ 5200 carts 30+ ntsc 7800 carts 25+ pal 7800 carts a few 2600 games, but not many; I mostly connect with multicolour-sprite/multicolour-background level of grfx, with exception of early vector-games where 3D made things more difficult. But if a Super-Atari-FrankenTron78000 could play any atari-console-cart from any system using cartridges, how many titles would exist?

You could have a download service where you pay for atari-arcades, or also Namco and Data East Arcades from 7-50$ each.

Then make the demand great again 😅😂 🤪

What I would like, would be a console where you could put in original (ie old) cartridges in say 2, 3 or 4 different slots, to be able to play any atari-console-thing on one unit.

I can’t believe that making a new sort of joystick for an AtariRetron would be like ‘difficult’ to a professional hardware-firm; emulations do it. Old 15 pin PC joysticks did it. And number-keypad. Come on, thats not like difficult.

Yeah, and call it The Atari Super-Retron 78000