Sirius, Plutos and Rampart Prototypes Released! For Real!

[+Allan]

The one issue that keeps getting brought up but doesn't seem to get addressed, is, that people are wondering if and when the Sirius and Plutos games will be converted to 7800 cartridges, for those of us who don't have emulators or CC2 cartridges. I don't like playing games on my CPU, but I do like having all the games for the 7800 to make a complete collection. Can someone shed some light on this, I realize it takes quite a bit of time, a huge expense, and an unbelievable amount of effort in order to make these conversions available to the public. But we still would like to know if this is something that is fathomable, or should we not even think that these games will be released for sale, like for example Missing In Action was back not too long ago. It seems like there is quite a bit of interest here for these games, and if we started here, I would be in for purchasing them. Please reply if you think you would be interested so we can let Atari Age and the developers online know, but also please reply to the original question, if you are here at Atari Age or are one of the developers. Thanks much, keep the protos coming.

 

It's amazing what a little reading can do for ya!!

 

Answer from the first page of the thread

 

Thanks for the sarcastic comment, Shannon. I'm sure everyone was "laughing out loud" to your input. Sorry I don't spend days on end reading these forums, let alone all 90+ comments on this thread in particular. Just a simple question, and you have to come back with that crap. Why don't you go read a book, or get laid or something, instead of busting people's balls on a Atari forum. I am a collector on the side, and didn't get to all the posts, I did read a bunch of them to which my question did not get addressed. Sorry that I work 70+ hours a week. Go to bed, Shannon.

 

But at the same time it's kind of annoying when someone asks a question, than it's answered, and then, right on the same page, someone else asks the same question.

 

Allan

Edited April 8, 2008 by Allan

[Underball]

there certainly are some oversensitive people in here from time to time.

[DracIsBack]

there certainly are some oversensitive people in here from time to time.

 

 

Yep. Some rather insensitve people too. Deadly combo really.

[atomickneedrop]

add another demand to the pile, both plutos and sirius.

pleeeeaaase...

[Shannon]

We are here to please.

[atarian63]

The one issue that keeps getting brought up but doesn't seem to get addressed, is, that people are wondering if and when the Sirius and Plutos games will be converted to 7800 cartridges, for those of us who don't have emulators or CC2 cartridges. I don't like playing games on my CPU, but I do like having all the games for the 7800 to make a complete collection. Can someone shed some light on this, I realize it takes quite a bit of time, a huge expense, and an unbelievable amount of effort in order to make these conversions available to the public. But we still would like to know if this is something that is fathomable, or should we not even think that these games will be released for sale, like for example Missing In Action was back not too long ago. It seems like there is quite a bit of interest here for these games, and if we started here, I would be in for purchasing them. Please reply if you think you would be interested so we can let Atari Age and the developers online know, but also please reply to the original question, if you are here at Atari Age or are one of the developers. Thanks much, keep the protos coming.

I would be happy to purchase on cart. say 40 to 50 $$$$

[+remowilliams]

We are here to please.

So there's no issue with making carts then! - right?

 

 

[shadow460]

The one issue that keeps getting brought up but doesn't seem to get addressed, is, that people are wondering if and when the Sirius and Plutos games will be converted to 7800 cartridges, for those of us who don't have emulators or CC2 cartridges. I don't like playing games on my CPU, but I do like having all the games for the 7800 to make a complete collection. Can someone shed some light on this, I realize it takes quite a bit of time, a huge expense, and an unbelievable amount of effort in order to make these conversions available to the public. But we still would like to know if this is something that is fathomable, or should we not even think that these games will be released for sale, like for example Missing In Action was back not too long ago. It seems like there is quite a bit of interest here for these games, and if we started here, I would be in for purchasing them. Please reply if you think you would be interested so we can let Atari Age and the developers online know, but also please reply to the original question, if you are here at Atari Age or are one of the developers. Thanks much, keep the protos coming.

 

It's amazing what a little reading can do for ya!!

 

Answer from the first page of the thread

 

Thanks for the sarcastic comment, Shannon. I'm sure everyone was "laughing out loud" to your input. Sorry I don't spend days on end reading these forums, let alone all 90+ comments on this thread in particular. Just a simple question, and you have to come back with that crap. Why don't you go read a book, or get laid or something, instead of busting people's balls on a Atari forum. I am a collector on the side, and didn't get to all the posts, I did read a bunch of them to which my question did not get addressed. Sorry that I work 70+ hours a week. Go to bed, Shannon.

 

Shannon's comment isn't any different from the tone on the rest of the forums. Ya gotta take a lot of stuff here light heartedly. I hope it didn't ruin the interest in the new protos for ya, or any classic game for that matter.

[Shannon]

We are here to please.

So there's no issue with making carts then! - right?

 

 

 

Don't make me say it!!!

 

Always a whiner in the crowd. Do I have to do all the work around here? Now I'm gonna take that link back!!

 

Back to yer regularly scheduled "lack of humor" class.... ok???

Edited April 9, 2008 by Shannon

[mimo]

We are here to please.

So there's no issue with making carts then! - right?

 

 

 

Don't make me say it!!!

 

Always a whiner in the crowd. Do I have to do all the work around here? Now I'm gonna take that link back!!

 

Back to yer regularly scheduled "lack of humor" class.... ok???

 

some people need spoon feeding, or can't be bothered to put the effort in

[Shannon]

Alright, alright I give. Uncle! Uncle!!

 

Let's chill. I know we would all love to see this become a cart so hopefully those involved will be able to find a way.

[sukotsu9]

Just another quick note about "Plutos": I'm playing last night and the missus walks over and asks, "Huh? Is that Atari?!" Nevermind the 7800 in the floor. "I thought everything was supposed to be square and blocky." Dead serious, like those were the programming restrictions (You can make anything you want, as long as it's blocky). In her defense, I do play more 2600 games than 7800, though. And the graphics on these protos are really good ("Sirius" is almost SNES good).

[thursday83]

I figured I'd get the oversensitive and the lighten up comments, no sense of humor comments. Very typical of those who want to have a clean and safe forum. That's fine. I have a great sense of humor, but little tolerance for people who think they are funny by wasting time posting some snide comment instead of addressing the question asked. It would have been just as easy to say "check page 2" or something similar. Someone stated that it is annoying to have re-answer a question (Allan) that has already been addressed in the thread. Well it is also annoying to have you point that out and have to read it. I'm glad that some people saw past all of this and instead addressed my original question, thanks for that. Remember, I didn't start the first jab, Shannon did, and I didn't ask for backlash and additional snide comments, I thought I was bringing up a valid question that was relevant to this forum. I'll know in the future not to post unless I've read all 100+ comments from everyone else on this forum.

 

Anyway, enough is enough, still looking for a copy of the fixed "Possible Mission" if there is anyone out there who is looking to get rid of one. Thanks much, and my apologies for stirring this pot.

[HammR25]

I'll know in the future not to post unless I've read all 100+ comments from everyone else on this forum.

 

If you had read the 3 posts before your own post you could have saved the time it took you to post and come back for an answer. That's what Shannon was getting at but in a not so nice way.

[Shannon]

I dunno. Some people seem to spend more time responding with useless posts then the amount of time it would have taken to read thru the thread real quick. I hope you didn't wast too much of your free time doing so...

 

[CPUWIZ]

add another demand to the pile, both plutos and sirius.

pleeeeaaase...

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=123961

[thursday83]

I dunno. Some people seem to spend more time responding with useless posts then the amount of time it would have taken to read thru the thread real quick. I hope you didn't wast too much of your free time doing so...

 

 

You just aren't going to let this die, are you. Very mature. Well I'm letting it die, I said my piece and am moving on now. Thanks for the feedback, I don't come on these forums very often.

[TREKSTER]

Sirius and Plutos both look like high quality games.

 

If they'd been released at the time, I'm sure that more 7800s would have been sold.

 

If the 7800 had come out sooner (and it could have) they would have sold more.

[espire8]

Started playing Sirius tonight. So far I made 2nd place at 035,450pts on the preset hi-score table at stage 2. sorry that the score is so tiny in the screen shot.

I am very excited and grateful for these prototypes being released. One thing that did stand out with Sirius and Plutos is the lack of any background melody.

I think the sound fx is fabulous. In fact, I perfer no background music at all as the sound of rapidfire photons and explosion when I'm hit gives me enough audio clues to what's happening. I just tried playing one of Mars Laser's albums while playing Sirius and that worked for me.

 

 

Sirius' graphics are flat out awesome. Plutos graphics are nearly as awesome, and it plays really well.

 

But yeah - the lack of background music is a bit distracting on both, and the ridiculously impossible difficulty level of Sirius makes the game fairly unplayable.

 

Really cool to have though.

Fire up your ipod while you're playing, that's the next best thing.

 

 

i guess games were hard 10 years ago... we getting weaker and older...

 

Sirius would have been considered hard even 10 years ago. It's just a mean game from start to finish. Oddly I think the first level is probably one of the harder ones due to those little asteroids.

 

Tempest

 

Both Sirius and Plutos are excellent 7800 games; I like Sirius more though. Once you know the tight spots and enemy patterns, it's a walk in the park. I'm pretty good with the first stage now, -what mess me up alot is when I get greedy for points and try to blow up everything in sight when I'm fully powered up. Heh, I'm a typical shooter type gamer and I like the challenge as it is. I don't know why almost everyone say sirius is too hard, I've played worse shooting games, like neo-geo's "Last Resort" that don't let you pass a certain stage and continuing is futile without a second player to assist you.

Sirius is hard when you first start to play as it is naturally with most shooters. I think the difficulty is spot on. At least it don't set you back to the begining of the stage every time you lose a ship as with games like R-TYPE. In Sirius, the bonus points in the end of the first stage earns you a couple of free ships and you don't lose all your power ups after getting hit the first time which gives you a fighting chance. It ain't that bad. Very impressive for a vintage system, though there are other wonderful 8bit shooters like konami's Lifeforce for the NES which if compared still has much better colors. Anyway, with Sirus, you can expect to lose alot while learning the game's attack patterns and playing becomes more satisfying once you master it. The hard level is there to keep the game challenging for veterians like myself. Though shooters are not for everyone, knowing how to beat them have become a dying art.

[phonedork]

Surprisingly these games look somewhat decent. I almost thought it was R-Type from the small pic. But when I emulated it I realized it wasnt close. But it would have been nice to have these games back then. I would like to see a great port of Gravitar on the 7800. I think 7800 does well on vecter graphics. Space Duel was cool and the Space War Demo I emulated was nice.

[DracIsBack]

Surprisingly these games look somewhat decent. I almost thought it was R-Type from the small pic. But when I emulated it I realized it wasnt close. But it would have been nice to have these games back then. I would like to see a great port of Gravitar on the 7800. I think 7800 does well on vecter graphics. Space Duel was cool and the Space War Demo I emulated was nice.

 

As an aside, I *hate* playing games on emulation. I started it doing that years ago when I had (foolishly) gotten rid of all my old consoles. I couldn't stand how the games looked on a high resolution monitor or (often) how they played. Sometimes the control was off and I found that the high resolution screen made the games look worse than on a TV where intended. In the end, I ended up getting consoles again. Still fire up emulation to try games out but typically play them on real machines.

[phonedork]

Surprisingly these games look somewhat decent. I almost thought it was R-Type from the small pic. But when I emulated it I realized it wasnt close. But it would have been nice to have these games back then. I would like to see a great port of Gravitar on the 7800. I think 7800 does well on vecter graphics. Space Duel was cool and the Space War Demo I emulated was nice.

 

As an aside, I *hate* playing games on emulation. I started it doing that years ago when I had (foolishly) gotten rid of all my old consoles. I couldn't stand how the games looked on a high resolution monitor or (often) how they played. Sometimes the control was off and I found that the high resolution screen made the games look worse than on a TV where intended. In the end, I ended up getting consoles again. Still fire up emulation to try games out but typically play them on real machines.

 

Well...

 

Unlike most people here unless you have that cuttlecart 2.... then you have to emulate Plutos and Sirius. There are no carts for them. So yea I emulate them. But as far as Emulation is concerned, MAME is great. I mean yea it would suck emulating Ikari Warriors for the 7800 when you can emulate Ikari Warriors the Arcade on MAME. So it depends on what ya emulate.

[Trebor]

As an aside, I *hate* playing games on emulation. I started it doing that years ago when I had (foolishly) gotten rid of all my old consoles. I couldn't stand how the games looked on a high resolution monitor or (often) how they played. Sometimes the control was off and I found that the high resolution screen made the games look worse than on a TV where intended. In the end, I ended up getting consoles again. Still fire up emulation to try games out but typically play them on real machines.

 

I can understand your point. However, emulation has come a *long* way since the early days. I can output my graphics card display to a traditional Tube TV. I have RetroUSB adapters with two Atari 2600 joysticks and two (original) NES pads. Additionally, I have two Saitek P880's (To handle all other consoles/computers the Atari 2600 controllers can not handle) and a HotRodSE for Arcade gaming. Finally, I also have an X-Arcade Trackball.

 

Quite frankly, when it comes to Atari 7800, even if I had the option to use the (original) controllers within emulation I would not as they are such a 'hand cramper'. I much rather use the original Atari 2600 controllers, or if I must have two independent buttons, then my HotRodSE or Saitek P880 (Both are very comfortable to use).

 

Honestly, if you're outputting to a television (For some even if you're outputting to a monitor and tweak the video setting/filters correctly), and you're using the original controllers along with emulators such as MAME, Nestopia, and many more (Stella's almost there - Just needs to fix some of its display issues), which emulate the sound and graphics so accurately on top of containing so many audio and video settings, it would be extremely difficult to tell the difference between the real deal and emulation.

 

On the other hand, some may not have the patience, willingness or drive to tweak the emulators and configure them correctly, then obviously the real thing is your only route. Though it occupies much less space than having all those different systems and computers. Truthfully, some things can never be "emulated" that are Arcade related (sitting inside a Pole Position cab, or the flight controls on a Star Wars cab or the complete Battle Zone cab experience). However, for most consoles and computers, if you have the right controllers and have the audio and video set properly, the experience (While playing) is identical. Outside of actual game play is another story. You're not literally inserting/ejecting a cartridge or disk, or turing the power on/off of the system. Which if you absolutely must experience or perform those actions, or else it takes too much away from your enjoyment or gaming, then again emulation is not for you.

 

Furthermore, Atari console emulators do not have the equivalent of a Nestopia just yet (Meaning perfect emulation of all games (Outside of perhaps a handful of some odd-end Chinese pirate game titles) along with all the video/audio/input bells and whistles).

 

Kat5200 for the Atari 5200, I do not believe has any outstanding game problems, but could use some more video and audio controls. As I mentioned earlier, Stella still has some minor graphic issues to fix (Additionally as a side note, the Pitfall II sound chip does not sound 100% correct within any emulator either). As for Atari 7800 emulation, unfortunately there appears to still be some graphic issues with a couple of titles, along with timing problems in some games for years now. Nonetheless, the titles that are emulated without issue, you can experience and appreciate fully.

 

Outside of the issues sited above, in which some/many/all of the listed things may not even be noticeable or cared about depending on the issue, game and/or the person, emulation can be as good if not better than the real thing, IMHO. Honestly, I have both - The real deal and emulation. I do most of my gaming through emulation. It is *that* good.

 

-Trebor

 

Edit: For grammer.

Edited April 13, 2008 by Trebor

[DracIsBack]

Hmm ... I'll have to give it another try. I used MESS and other emulators a few years ago and just couldn't stand how different things looked and played. I'll have to try again.

 

Cheers!

[+thegoldenband]

Great find! These games represent a major addition to the 7800 library.

 

As a side note, I'm kind of bemused that everyone is characterizing Sirius as absurdly difficult. I got to Level 2 on my first try, and didn't have much difficulty at all making it to Level 4. I don't think I'm an unusually skilled player...?

Edited April 23, 2008 by thegoldenband