Which NES ports would you like to see?

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

What do you think, which game(s) should be ported over to the NES? I'm thinking about this for a while now and have compiled a little list (drawing from C64 favourites) myself:

 

Park Patrol

- Very unique concept, even on the NES

 

Encounter

- The NES definitely needs a good Battlezonish game

 

Paradroid

- Another unique concept missing on the NES.

 

Mega Apocalypse

- The best single screen shmup ever, a genre that ended on the NES with Galaga.

 

Project Firestart

- Should be an amazing movie-like experience - no loading times!

 

Wizball

- Another unique concept missing on the NES.

 

Katakis

- The best 8-Bit horz. scrolling shmup, another underdeveloped genre on the NES.

 

So, what would your choices be?

[Vic George 2K3]

TRON Deadly Disks would be a good one to port.

[Pixelboy]

Arcade:

- Bag Man

- Crystal Castles

- Gorf (with Galaxian level included)

- Kangaroo

- Pengo

- Tempest

- Tron

- Vanguard

- Wizard of Wor

 

Intellivision:

- Dreadnaught Factor

- Utopia

 

Spectrum:

- Head over Heels

 

Those are from the top of my head. I'm sure I could find more candidates for nice NES ports.

[MausGames]

I thought Solstice was kind of a ripoff of Head over Heels.

 

My pre-nes systems were the Apple IIe and the TRS-80 coco 2, and I honestly can't think of a single game that'd make a good port. I wanted to say Fractulus, but I don't think the nes hardware would do well with it.

[+atari2600land]

Frogger is strangely absent on the NES. If I knew anything about NES programming, I'd do that.

[Cybergoth]

I wanted to say Fractulus, but I don't think the nes hardware would do well with it.

 

It should do pretty good I think. The NES is clocked faster than a C64, so for example is the NES Elite port running significantly faster. I think Fractalus could be somewhere inbetween the C64 and A8 versions considering speed. I'm just not sure wether it'd require an extra RAM mapper. Most likely

[TMR]

I wanted to say Fractulus, but I don't think the nes hardware would do well with it.

 

It should do pretty good I think. The NES is clocked faster than a C64, so for example is the NES Elite port running significantly faster. I think Fractalus could be somewhere inbetween the C64 and A8 versions considering speed. I'm just not sure wether it'd require an extra RAM mapper. Most likely

 

Getting stuff to and from the screen RAM on the NES takes a lot more cycles than it does for the C64 or A8...

[Cybergoth]

Getting stuff to and from the screen RAM on the NES takes a lot more cycles than it does for the C64 or A8...

 

What are you talking about? The NES uses chuncks of 8K for its tile GFX, which can either be regular RAM or ROM, no? I thought you're basically drawing your image into an 8K RAM block, which should be the same process you're doing on the C64, the NES being clocked faster though. And NES Elite *is* faster, no matter what the specs may say

[MausGames]

I spelled it wrong so I figured nobody would know what game I was talking about. I really enjoyed the version I had for my CoCo2 when I was a kid, and wondered why there wasn't one for the NES.

[Kojote]

Frogger is strangely absent on the NES. If I knew anything about NES programming, I'd do that.

 

Not 100% correct... There is a game called Froggy (1k Frog)

It's very minor, but it's also only 1k. You could grab the file from

http://pdroms.de/files/1251/

[Breakpack]

Super Pac-Man,Jr.Pac and I think Baby Pac-Man with a decent looking pinball board could work <looks at High Speed and Pinbot>

Edited December 3, 2007 by Breakpack

[+kisrael]

Encounter

- The NES definitely needs a good Battlezonish game

 

Paradroid

- Another unique concept missing on the NES.

 

Encounter!

 

I've only played it on Atari 8-bits, but man, was it good!

It's a lot more fast paced than most Battlezone-ish games -- a bit more like Robot Tank than Battlezone --

I'm always impressed by 8-bit-ish machines doing 3D-ish environments, and darting among the abstract trees in a very symmetrical-feeling one on one duel would be a blast.

 

Paradroid is a well-respected choice but has a pretty big learning curve. I guess both a plus and a minus is it seems pretty well suited for the NES hardware. (I think, forget about # of sprites on a scanline)

 

Necromancer is another lesser-known classic from back in the day.

 

Another more interesting bet would Crossroads, a personal favorite of mine from the C=64 Compute's Gazette magazine. A bit like Robotron or DOOM, with tones of enemies in a maze, some of which fight each other and not just the player. Has there ever been an NES game using the character tiles almost exclusively? I don't even know if it's feasible but that game is a terrific.

[Vic George 2K3]

Frogger is strangely absent on the NES. If I knew anything about NES programming, I'd do that.

Not 100% correct... There is a game called Froggy (1k Frog)

It's very minor, but it's also only 1k. You could grab the file from

http://pdroms.de/files/1251/

 

A full-blown copy of the arcade original and nothing less is all we're asking for.

[vdub_bobby]

Hmmmm. What an interesting topic!

 

Paradroid would be a good one. I don't know about a 3D/FPS game, though - Ballblazer looks terrible on the NES. I have always understood that to be mostly due to limitations of the hardware and not just poor programming.

 

From the 2600:

Pitfall!

H.E.R.O.

Keystone Kapers

Frostbite

 

From the Atari 8bit:

Pitfall II (with the lost levels)

Desert Falcon

Montezuma's Revenge

 

Coin-op:

Jr. Pac-Man

Mr. Do!

Zaxxon

Frogger

Moon Patrol

Defender

Street Fighter II

NBA Jam

Pengo

Crossbow (light gun!)

[TMR]

Getting stuff to and from the screen RAM on the NES takes a lot more cycles than it does for the C64 or A8...

 

What are you talking about? The NES uses chuncks of 8K for its tile GFX, which can either be regular RAM or ROM, no?

 

As a default no, the PPU's memory is mostly ROM and that's where the NES fetches graphics data from, the CPU uses another address space and there's not much RAM in that one either! If a memory mapper is used that's a different matter, but getting a game onto a real cartridge with even an existing mapping scheme is fiddly and requires a donor cartridge for parts whilst designing a new mapper... [shudder].

[Crazy Climber]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Arcade port

Star Wars the arcade game and return of the jedi (2 in 1?)- arcade port

Double Dragon - arcade port

Diner would be cool also?

I know a lot of these have been done but they were not very true to the originals.

[Breakpack]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Arcade port

 

Strangely enough,I really enjoyed the NES version

[Cybergoth]

As a default no, the PPU's memory is mostly ROM and that's where the NES fetches graphics data from, the CPU uses another address space and there's not much RAM in that one either! If a memory mapper is used that's a different matter, but getting a game onto a real cartridge with even an existing mapping scheme is fiddly and requires a donor cartridge for parts whilst designing a new mapper... [shudder].

 

So did you just quote the part where I said that it'll most likely require an extra RAM mapper, or did you read it as well?

[Cybergoth]

Ballblazer looks terrible on the NES.

 

Sounds good, so on the NES the look follows the gameplay?

 

I have always understood that to be mostly due to limitations of the hardware and not just poor programming.

 

Doesn't "The 3-D Battles of World Runner" just prove the opposite?

 

From the 2600:

H.E.R.O.

 

Amazing idea!

 

Pitfall!

 

You can download that one from the nesdev boards I think...

 

 

Street Fighter II

 

I've seen several... what was the word again... "Hong Kong Originals" of that already... shudder...

 

Another one that should be interesting would be Robotron. I wonder how far you'd get when trying to create additional software sprites out of tiles

[vdub_bobby]

I have always understood that to be mostly due to limitations of the hardware and not just poor programming.

 

Doesn't "The 3-D Battles of World Runner" just prove the opposite?

Point taken. Forgot about that one.

Street Fighter II

 

I've seen several... what was the word again... "Hong Kong Originals" of that already... shudder...

 

Another one that should be interesting would be Robotron. I wonder how far you'd get when trying to create additional software sprites out of tiles

There is a NES version of Smash TV.

[+kisrael]

Another one that should be interesting would be Robotron. I wonder how far you'd get when trying to create additional software sprites out of tiles

There is a NES version of Smash TV.

Yeah, at some point in my online travels I either heard from the programmer of that, or from the guy who knows the programmer of that.

 

It turns out one trick to reduce flickering was just being really careful with palette use...

[Crazy Climber]

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Arcade port

 

Strangely enough,I really enjoyed the NES version

ish

[Cybergoth]

Another one that should be interesting would be Robotron. I wonder how far you'd get when trying to create additional software sprites out of tiles

There is a NES version of Smash TV.

Yeah, at some point in my online travels I either heard from the programmer of that, or from the guy who knows the programmer of that.

 

It turns out one trick to reduce flickering was just being really careful with palette use...

 

Thanks for the info guys, now I must check this one out immediately!

[TMR]

So did you just quote the part where I said that it'll most likely require an extra RAM mapper, or did you read it as well?

 

You didn't say it'd most likely require, just that you weren't sure if it would need one - two very different statements and, depending on the mapping scheme used, not all of them will be of any use anyway. Plus we're not talking Elite wireframes here, Fractalus is filled and, because one 8x8 pixel cell takes sixteen bytes on the NES and the equivalent area on the Atari's version is using four bytes (if memory serves) that's a very large difference in CPU load to consider.

[Cybergoth]

So did you just quote the part where I said that it'll most likely require an extra RAM mapper, or did you read it as well?

 

You didn't say it'd most likely require, just that you weren't sure if it would need one - two very different statements

 

I'm just not sure wether it'd require an extra RAM mapper. Most likely