Giles N

Cool - that’s some attitude !!! 😉😀

If so, it should have 2 cartridge dumpers: one for 5200 and one for Atari 8-bit consoles. Even it looks like a 5200 as to exterior, it should emulate everything Atari 8-bit, and have 4 controller-ports. (I don’t think they’ll do this now that the 400 Mini will be released, and they may need to focus on getting IPs or licensing games for these systems to have and generate official support, but sure it would be cool).

(Spoiler: playthrough if you watch all): (Originals and homebrews): (spoiler - playthrough if you watch all)

I look forward to get hold of and play the top homebrews made for the 8-bit homecomputer/computer-console-combo series (the ones which aren’t compatible with the standard 5200). Many of them seem really cool. Recent, yet truly old-school in spirit.

If they bought companies to ensure re-issues, remakes, or remasterings, its of course something they had to acquire. But if they’re running out of titles that actually are of relevance to retro-gaming, they’ll start getting problems. Check the titles that now are distributed under Pixel Gsmes UK, and ask yourself whether or not these titles fit well with the 2600, 8-bit series/5200, the 7800, the Lynx - and even things like the PolyMega project or modern remasters. Is it a match as to which crowd is core customers?

If Atari really wants to create some longlasting or longer-lasting ecosystems for: -the 2600+, -the 400Mini, -Atari 50th DLCs -Digital Eclipse releases -Nightdive Remasters -Recharged-series (even if through extension) -Polymega/Playmaji w/ modules it seems a publisher called Pixel Games UK, have tons of stuff that would fit into building all of the above-mentioned began projects. - - - I haven’t found any source for what Pixel Games UK is worth. I don’t know if a partnership or attempting an acquistion would be the way to go. Without more relevant IP, you can have production-teams, but they have nothing to work on, nothing to release.

@Lord Mushroom @ledzep You’re making this way too complex. Reading your posts, it can be summerized: ‘will younger gamers , or the majority of present-day Arcade-gamers, like the special control-types used in the Arcade originals?’ No need to debate this by subjectivistic opinions; you either need to refer actual tests, gamer-statistics or gather your own information in a systematic manner. Repeating arguments pro or con this or that, hardly have any value to this topic, since its so psychological, sociological and generational and many other ‘human’ factors, of the sort that cannot be concluded by mere deduction or induction.

…remember back in the late 80ies I saw people literally kicking and cussing (more like heavyweight-cursing) the Arcade cabinet as they lost again and again… …so, precisely, how does this translate to physical cabinet or software Arcade-operations in your view…🧐 — 😛😂…Do we need HAL-9000 (again…we seem to become more and more dependent on him for cut-through solutions)

… … yes, more common even than men… Stop quarreling about something (X-)Atari have had the perfect solution to for, a long, long time; they can save both the modern Arcades and the American military with one single item: …the forgotten controller that fixes all problems… both as to military super weapons and domestic entertainment…! You just gotta love-it-now…! There is no other option!

Why are you guys wearing helmets…is it so immersive one actually have to wear protective helmet playing it? Does the Cabinet come with the full 4D-experience, rock-pieces flying from the top of the Arcade as you blow up asteroids..?!

The music is one the elements most are satisfied with. It’s low volume on the Bot-speech that’s gotten the most criticism, as well as the graphics being just too cartoony for what the original tried to convey back then (when all almost all graphics were super-simple).

The tragic* condition of 24/7 CUDS hit me full-on, precisely 5 days before I turned 40. Hit me here in Norway, far, far from Ohio. Folks, that means its been spreading - its a mental pandemic. - - - * ‘‘tragic‘‘

Having tested the Recharged titles, my first impressions are: -Asteroids does a good job of sticking to the classic roots, with new things feeling in place and properly balanced. Fun, but I miss ‘checkpoints’ -Berzerk: plays and sounds well, needs some polish to palette (darker floors, more electro-shiny metal walls, as attempted illustrated), and again checkpoints or small breaks. Gameplay needs ever-so slight fine-tuning. 3 player could be cool here. -Black Widow: fun top-down single screen shooter, but with some many neo-vector-styled insects on screen, I sometimes loose sight of my spider - which should’ve sort of visually stuck more out. It can get crowded and messy/confusing. But fun stuff. Just need to see where my character is on the screen. -Breakout: I usually have zero patience for this genre. Usually I test it and put it away. This was a very positive surprise (I played using mouse). Almost for the first time in my life I had fun playing a pong-off-those -pesky-bricks types of games. 9/10 -Caverns of Mars: must get to grips with it. I was tired last night when I tried to test it, and I just spectacularily crashed into everything on Mars. Need to teet more. -Centipede: well, given that its obviously meant to look neo-vector-stylized: fun shooter. I liked the power-ups and controls. If this will come into a Arcade cabinet, please remove this grid layer-thing; here it was distracting. Think you could add 5-player simultaneosly here on giant Arcade with a huge screen, and make it more fun as long as the centipedes just comes in waves. Haven’t played it long. Any giant Boss-Centipede anywhere? If not; could use that every xx-round the player(s) completes. -Gravitar: must play more. Felt a bit clueless to win-objective here. Felt a bit chaotic both to arsthetics and whats what: your bases, enemies etc. Whats going on here? -Missile Command: fine stuff. Played with mouse. Nothing to complain about, but no big surprises so far. I believe the 2600 or 5200 version have levels counting up status, and giving you back some bases. If this isn’t included, include it: the player needs to feels a wave is done completed and needs ways to rebuild bases and use points of credit-money to boost weapons and bases and shields. That shouldn’t estrange it from its arcade world. - Yars: a thoroughly positive surprise on every game-element. Fitting graphics, loved your Space-Bee-something. Loved the action packed yet strategical hammer-shooting at enemy hive-structures. Loved the game-mechanic that you need to risk getting close to scoop-up ‘space-honey’ enough to get big canon readied for firing at the center-enemy. I’ve tried old, original Yars games for arcade and Atari systems and they feel wierd, messy and not much fun. This had a very clear ‘arcadey how-to-win-scene’ intro, and everything were brilliant playing it on PC. 9,5/10 Whether it’s a natural choice for Arcade I dunno. -Quantum: this is leap in game-mechanics experimrntation. Cool that core gameplays are still getting very new takes. With mouse on PC it was fun as new take on action-puzzlers. Felt like a very novel take on QUX types of games: complete a line and conquer. I believe this one can br tough to ‘sell’ to Arcade-gamers, unless it starts waaay slower, have much clearer graphics for ‘what is you’ and what are …things to encapsulate. - - - I would say: Missile Command, Yars, Centipede, Breakout, Berzerk and Black Widow… with some tweaking of details mentions, will make for fine NeoRetroCade-games.

@TailChao Sorry if this question has been asked before on the thread. It’s become a very long thread. It’s good one can extract the ROM from the Steam version to the GameDrive. But would it be very difficult/time-consuming to have direct R&V 7800 ROM for sale on PenguiNets page…? Essentially that all conversions from Steam-file type are done by PenguiNet and sold separately.

In the same manner that you removed this grid-graphics(overlay) in Asteroids, I think several color-settings needs to be set differently in a Arcade version of Berzerk:Recharged, in order to make it look and feel more ‘throwback’ to the original. (But as I mentioned, please keep a lot of bullet-action and weapon-upgrades in there. Just make the aim and movement of the player a bit tighter/precise). Here’s a rough take on the direction I think could it should look more like:

Sure I’ve always wanted my personal fan-club… really like 10000 fans in a rock stadion cheering at me… …but heck, I take what I get: a personal AI fan-bot shouting ‘man, you rock at Asteroids’, ‘yeeahh, you’re doing Asteroids on steroids!’ - sure, why not… But why does my own personal, single fan for the game-session have to be small…too? Like it isn’t enough it’s only one… single fan; he or she has to be small also….? Like, the Arcade being really, really dead honest with just how many fans and followers the gamers really deserves: 1… and it must be small one too…?

We understand you’re only yoking, but you must find proper ways to control it, and more thrusters and handlers won’t help your open yoking …

…yes to all that, but you forgot the electric chair …

…way back in dem days when I was a hopping youngster in my boys’ room, I could get through Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts … on highest difficulty, using only one life. Now I cannot praise save-states enough … … ok, so as to where we are now in the debate as to which age-groups always enjoy the most those hard-as-nails games… …I now feel really old and young …

Seriously; I don’t see what essentially something like a gas-pedal have to do in a space-game. It gives no feeling of spaceflight. Flight-sticks and thrusters (handlers) could feel ‘natural’. Super-big panorama-screens: sure. But as to the gas-pedal, I’d leave that for car-games, or new type of pedal for Arcade FPS-games (not rail-shooter, but move-around in 3D first person shooter. Not sure how it would look though). It’s not just enough to throw-in a physical ‘something you don’t have at home’. It has to feel meaningful to the franchise and setting. Has to hang together. Even if it’s ‘just a game’, the elements used must be compatible and create the right atmosphere and right feelings, not just ‘work technically’.

For Lunar Lander? How dare you! …. why not? Here is a picture from a real-life space-landing…

^ ^ Precisely ^ 😂

That too, but I was talking about Asteroids Recharged. Here is much more realistic take on the forthcoming Lunar Lander Beyond Arcade. It has of course a sligth disadvantage as to visibility of playfield (to right and left of the center panel), albeit scoring high on cabinet-realism: game game play play field field (left) (right) 😁😃 - - - Control instructions hangs by the side of arcade cabinet: a Flight manual of about 1700 pages,

I believe balance between paying for a audio-visual rollercoaster-ride and actual quality-playability, must be maintained. Cool with special buttons, sticks and cabinets, but people won’t come back if the core gameplay isn’t fun or the game feels unfair or frustrating. If you want to make money, you cannot only think short-term, you need to have the ‘why come back for more’-factor in view and to be satisfied too.

Since you removed the semi transparent grid-graphics in Asteroids (very good choice; it felt like ‘what’s-this?-I-get-its-NeoRetro without wierd grid), I think slight aesthetical changes should be done to Berzerk. 1. Floor must be much darker. Not black, but much darker, so the walls really feels like eerily lit-up walls in a futuristic setting where light-sources may be of different types than what we’re used to and simultaneously create a stronger throwback to Berzerk original. I’d suggest dark-metallic grey. 2.Let palette on walls and robots change as the game proceeds, with missions/challenges intersped throughout the game. 3. As all mission/challenges are done it just cycles - either with infintely recombined mazes ‘Gauntlet-style’ or jump to more difficult. 4. Change the robots so they move a tiny bit slower, both towards the player(s) and with equally slower animation, giving them a ‘heavier feel’. Change the wasp-yellow to futuristic yellow or futuristic-whstever in color. They aren’t toys but killing machines. Increase robot speech volume to much-much higher than it is on the home-version, so their voices really cut through. As robots are shhot down m, have 10 different visual ways they gets destroyed: falling face-down, being shoot hole through, being blown up with robot parts flying in arches, some burning up in oil-spill, others electrocuting as gun-fire short-circuits they protective armor (think droid death in Star Wars 1-3 and similar movies, you get the idea). Spectacle of visuals and sound and effects are fun in Arcades. ‘Attacking’ the senses in the way that causes adrenaline rush (not head-aches post-gaming) is what made some arcades, like Afterburner and Mercs so much fun. 5.Some gamers have complained the gun-aim of the dude the player controls feels a bit off, or semi-sluggish, or imprecise. Perhaps fine-tune the aim with the Arcade-sticks you plan to use. And as always; the more firepower-to-the players, the more fire, explosions, things getting destroyed, and overall high Rambo factor, the better, in my humble opinion. 6.Give the robots some subtle, low-volume, low-freq. clancking as they run - now heavily - towards the player(s). 7. When Evil Otto enters, make the room begin to blink red-alert fashion (like selfdestruct alarms in every sci-fi movie of the kind). 8. Have a galactic princess to rescue in the prison-cell section… no wait, that was another … uhm .. genre 😜😅 9. If you actually manages to best more than 256 rounds of the game… let the screen begin to buzz… then come back on… with Evil Otto looking at you… and exploding (this is/would be in my opionion a cool allusion to early arcades like Pac Man, which the creators didn’t believe could be beaten, so they coded it to crash after round 256. I believe Tunnel Runner for the Atari 2600 have similar thing to it. This point really is not-core whatsoever, and would just be fun poke to early arcades. 10. Evil Otto is really evil: after you come so or so far into the game, (made it through first round of missions), Evil Otto has grown in size, or begins to glow and give off sparks, jumps more aggressively, does inteliigent out-smarting jumps (jump first just along walls, then suddenly begins to chase one targeted player, ignoring the others (showing evil AI-cunning) 11. Evil Otto is really, really evil. He can at certain levels come to a computer wall, where he stops to give place you’re in a self-destruct instruction. Only way to break it off, is for player to move so close to super-evil Otto he resumes chasing instead of setting off self-destruct. This should only happen if player(s) have ran back forth between 2 rooms to escape Otto more than 8-10 times. Its timer.