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Brand new 5200 Owner....I'm Impressed!


Atarius Maximus

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I've been a long time 2600 fan, and finally decided to pick up a 2-port 5200, trackball, and 10 games from ebay (both joysticks that came with it actually work!). When I first unpacked it, my jaw dropped to the floor when I saw how BIG this beast really is! Sheesh! It looks really cool, though.

 

I'm really impressed so far, the graphics on the games I've played are outstanding (compared to my favorite 2600 titles), and I actually thought the joysticks were kind of cool. I got the hang of using them to play Pac-Man & Galaxian pretty quickly, but man, Super Breakout is amost unplayable with a joystick. Centipede with the Trackball is just awesome!

 

Since I'm a new 5200 owner, I was wondering if anyone could recommend a "definitive" 5200 title that I should look to buy first. I've already got Pac-man, Galaxian, Super Breakout, Popeye, Centipede, Defender, Kangaroo, Baseball, Football, and Soccer.

 

AM

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a game that couldn't be done on the 2600, Ballblazer! 8)

 

Another great Lucusfilms game is Rescue on Fractalus.

 

there are a bunch of great games on the 5200, my favorite is probably realsports baseball although centipede with the trackball is close so its cool that you already have these.

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I'm fortunate that I got Space Dungeon new, so I have the dual-stick holder. I'm also lucky that it's still in one piece. Actually, as a kid I left it out, it was stepped on and broke in two. My Mom must have used some sort of witchcraft, because at the time it happened she found some sort of glue that she used to put it back together, and to this day the holder still works great!

 

Anyway, for a long time I've wondered how people new to the 'scene' can play a game like Space Dungeon or Robotron 2084 without those holders. Do any of you do this? If so, how do you hold the sticks? DO you fabricate some sort of bracket of your own? I'd imagine there has got to be some way to keep the sticks in place, completely immobile, or else the game would be unplayable. And I haven't ever seen the brackets available since I've been into the videogame collecting community, probably the last 4 or 5 years.

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Since I'm a new 5200 owner, I was wondering if anyone could recommend a "definitive" 5200 title that I should look to buy first.  I've already got Pac-man, Galaxian, Super Breakout, Popeye, Centipede, Defender, Kangaroo, Baseball, Football, and Soccer.

 

AM

 

I would hold out and save up for a Multi-cart. That way you can play all the games (except for Miner 2049er and Super-Pacman). Now that I said that I would get Miner 2049er. It's bankswithed so the Muli-cart won't run it. Eventually the mystery of Super Pacman will be figured out.

 

Oh and don't forget about the 2 homebrews that were recently done. Castle Blast and Haunted House II 3-D.

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Forgot to mention - back when it was current, I was a Space Dungeon god, able to play pretty much as long as I wanted without ever running out of lives. I loved that game. It definitely ranks up there as one of my alltime favorite 5200 carts.

 

I also liked:

Realsports Football & Baseball, Miner 2049er, Dreadnought Factor, Joust, Pac-Man, STAR RAIDERS!!!!, and others I can't remember.

 

Honestly, until the Dreamcast the 5200 was my favorite system ever. I preferred it over everything else, including newer systems like the Playstation, Saturn, Jaguar, etc....

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DEBRO wrote:

 

I would hold out and save up for a Multi-cart. That way you can play all the games (except for Miner 2049er and Super-Pacman). Now that I said that I would get Miner 2049er. It's bankswithed so the Muli-cart won't run it. Eventually the mystery of Super Pacman will be figured out.  

 

You mean of course Bounty Bob Strikes Back isn't on the Multi-Cart. Miner is and works (or is that plays) great.

 

One of my new favorites now that I have the Multi-cart is Millipede. This game rocks. I can't believe this game never got released. Stargate is excellent too. Defender was great but after a while it got to easy. I think I got something like 300 million after playing it for a week (not continuosly) until finally I just quite because I didn't want to keep my machine on forever. But Stargate is much harder but in a good way. Jr. Pac-man is great as well as Super Pac-man (although I only have this on an emulator.)

 

Of course the all time worst game on the 5200 is James Bond hands down. It Sucks!!!

 

Speaking of unreleased games. I noticed today on Tempest (I whish this game was finished) that if you press the number keys it makes about 8 different sound effects. Has anybody notice this before? Does anybody know what these are for other than to make funny sounds?

 

Allan

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You mean of course Bounty Bob Strikes Back isn't on the Multi-Cart. Miner is and works (or is that plays) great.

Thanks, that's what I meant.

 

Speaking of unreleased games. I noticed today on Tempest (I whish this game was finished) that if you press the number keys it makes about 8 different sound effects. Has anybody notice this before? Does anybody know what these are for other than to make funny sounds?

 

Allan

Keep your eye out. Something tells me that there will be a more complete version of Tempest released around another CGE ;) As for the sound effects yes I noticed this too. I was on the team that was disassembling the game. I can only say that I think Keithen put this in to show the different sound effects in the game.

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Anyway, for a long time I've wondered how people new to the 'scene' can play a game like Space Dungeon or Robotron 2084 without those holders. Do any of you do this? If so, how do you hold the sticks? DO you fabricate some sort of bracket of your own.

 

Rectangular cardboard + Duct Tape (the savior or handyless man). It works pretty good, though sometimes the sticks pop out.

 

Honestly, until the Dreamcast the 5200 was my favorite system ever. I preferred it over everything else

 

(sniff!) Steve is my hero!

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Thank you for all of your suggestions. I didn't know about the Multi-Cart, I just contacted Sean about buying one. I'll probably still end up trying to find all of the original carts anyway, due to my obsession with collecting original carts! :)

 

I'll probably take Cafeman's suggestion and build a dual-stick holder out of cardboard and duct tape. It's funny how a roll of duct tape can solve so many of life's problems!

 

AM

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Some 5200 games I'd recommend - as in I still have fun playing them -

 

Pengo

Space Invaders - different but good

River Raid - if you like it on the 2600 you'll like it on the 5200, as also goes for other Activision titles like Pitfall and Kaboom.

Berzerk - "Chicken, fight like a robot!" What more is there to SAY.

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  • 3 weeks later...
I would hold out and save up for a Multi-cart. That way you can play all the games (except for Miner 2049er and Super-Pacman). Now that I said that I would get Miner 2049er. It's bankswithed so the Muli-cart won't run it. Eventually the mystery of Super Pacman will be figured out.

 

Oh and don't forget about the 2 homebrews that were recently done. Castle Blast and Haunted House II 3-D.

 

I apologize for bringing up an old topic but it appears that I don't have permission to access the Multi-cart website. What exactly is it called? I checked the search engines and it appears that Skelly's website no longer exists. :sad:

 

Also someone mentioned whether or not those dual joystick holders obtainable. Well they are, I guess. I recently picked up a pallete of junk (as far as anything that I would keep goes) and buried in the bottom of one of the boxes was what appears to be a brand new, still shrink wrapped, Robotron: 2084 box. I say, "appears to be," because I can't tell if it's new or a reshrinkwrapped box. Anyways, on the box it says, "Dual Joystick Holder Included!"

 

I'd open it, but I'm not keen on opening what may be really a new product. What does that thing look like?

 

And what console is it for? I'm guessing the XE line up since the silver box is familiar to me. Probalby what I purchased in the past for my old XE a long time ago, but I can't quite remember.

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Pengo, Space Invaders, and Real Sports Football are definitely needed in a 5200 collection. Using the keypad to call plays in football is really fun.

 

Pengo is a must have no matter what. I love how the 5200 renders the sound effects and graphics when you get three STAR bricks together.

 

Oh did you guys forget Dig Dug? For shame. When I was young I spent about 9 trillion hours on this game alone.

 

It is no secret that this is my favorite system of all time. The way the 5200 does games like Pac-Man and Centipede is irreplacable by anything modern. Modern technology will NEVER go backwards, and will never have the same flavor.

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I apologize for bringing up an old topic but it appears that I don't have permission to access the Multi-cart website. What exactly is it called? I checked the search engines and it appears that Skelly's website no longer exists. :sad:

It looks like his page is down. I'd imagine it's temporary though as I was just there the other day. Check again later.

 

Anyways, on the box it says, "Dual Joystick Holder Included!"  

I'd open it, but I'm not keen on opening what may be really a new product. What does that thing look like?

Like this: http://www.atariage.com/5200/images/contro...stickHolder.jpg

con_JoystickHolder.jpg

And what console is it for? I'm guessing the XE line up since the silver box is familiar to me. Probalby what I purchased in the past for my old XE a long time ago, but I can't quite remember.

Does the box not say? ;) I'd imagine it's the 5200 version you have based upon the description. See here for a comparison: http://www.atariage.com/5200/boxes/b_Robotron_back.jpg

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It is no secret that this is my favorite system of all time.  The way the 5200 does games like Pac-Man and Centipede is irreplacable by anything modern.  Modern technology will NEVER go backwards, and will never have the same flavor.

 

Agreed. Pac-Man and Centipede have trademark 5200 Fat Sprites. The look and "flavor" as you put it is very satisfying to me as well. You lose a lot of that experience by playing on a PC via emulation.

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Does the box not say? ;) I'd imagine it's the 5200 version you have based upon the description. See here for a comparison: http://www.atariage.com/5200/boxes/b_Robotron_back.jpg

 

As suck as this sounds. That's not it. :|

When I saw the reference and description of the game, I figured it would be a 5200 game. Shame really, I kind of like that 5200 box art more.

 

I finally thought to run a search on the box part number, but all I get back are huge (poorly done) reference lists. No scans or descriptions, much less what console it's for.

 

So I did a really rotten scan of it (didn't feel like moving the scanner around to acommodate the box). I apologize to all modem users before hand, it's fairly large.

 

http://www.geocities.com/liquidpenguin/rob...obotron2084.jpg (Edit: fixed link)

 

It says that it's for the Atari Home Computer with a minimum of 16k of RAM. Great, considering how many cartridge based computers Atari made that really narrows it down.

 

So without opening the box, and given the apparent age of the box, it looks like (to me) it's an XE/XL cartridge.

 

Sorry for the thread hijacking :D

Maybe I ought to create a thread in the proper section?[/url]

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