Which is better, Star Raiders or Star Raiders II

[JonnyBritish]

As a newcomer to the Atari scene I know that Star Raiders was considered the killer application for the Atari home computers. How did Star Raiders II compare. Which one would you buy?

[TheGreatPW]

As a newcomer to the Atari scene I know that Star Raiders was considered the killer application for the Atari home computers. How did Star Raiders II compare. Which one would you buy?

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The Star Raiders games actually have little in common. Star Raiders II was just a cosmetic update to a game based on the movie, "The Last Starfighter" which was cancelled because of a licensing issue.

 

The original Star Raiders was a great game while Star Raiders II was a good game but lacked the ground breaking feel the first one had.

[Rybags]

In some ways, SR 2 is inferior to The Last Starfighter.

 

For "prettyness", SR2 probably wins.

 

For sim-feel and gameplay, Star Raiders wins easily.

[TheGreatPW]

In some ways, SR 2 is inferior to The Last Starfighter.

 

For "prettyness", SR2 probably wins.

 

For sim-feel and gameplay, Star Raiders wins easily.

 

Your definitely right about the "prettyness" of Star Raiders 2 because gameplay wise, it was not Atari's best.

[potatohead]

Agreed.

 

I would go for the original, if I had to choose. It's a great game that always challenges.

[Rybags]

Also, Star Raiders is a great feat given that it's an 8K cart and (almost certain here) only uses the lowest 8K of RAM.

[Allas]

Star Raiders was the most advanced game in his time (1979), a truly 3d game with 60fps motion. Simply spectacular at the eyes of anyone and a great piece of programming to keep the work with only 8K.

 

Star Raiders 2 came 6 years after and was programmed on 48K with very nice Atari graphics. Surely have his own set of good tricks on animation, but the gameplay is not the same as SR1, instead there are others interesting thing added on gaming.

 

I played SR2 first and is very fast and intuitive what you need to do. Instead SR1 is hard to play without the manual, so you need more patience if you want to game seriously this game. After playing both games, I only have to said that SR2 is amazing and the best version, but don't forget to take a look on SR1 because you have a great control over the ship.

[BSA Starfire]

Star Raiders is the whole reason I own an 8-bit, end of story, superb game

[Christos]

Star Raiders II is a great game on it's own, I had a lot of fun playing it. I think that it's unfair to compare it to the first game.

[+therealbountybob]

I played SR2 first and is very fast and intuitive what you need to do. Instead SR1 is hard to play without the manual, so you need more patience if you want to game seriously this game. After playing both games, I only have to said that SR2 is amazing and the best version, but don't forget to take a look on SR1 because you have a great control over the ship.

I only really played The Last Star Fighter (&SR2) both are quite good but gameplay gets a bit repetative so not ones I've gone back to. I only got a copy of SR way after 'the time' and never could work out what to do, so it's interesting you put about 'hard to play without the manual'. I'll have to give it another try and see what I missed out on

[carmel_andrews]

Got to be SR, no contest, the two games are somewhat different...SR II is more arcade like and SR is more simulation based

[carmel_andrews]

oops...sticky button...nothing to see here, please move on

Edited July 22, 2009 by carmel_andrews

[+doctorclu]

As a newcomer to the Atari scene I know that Star Raiders was considered the killer application for the Atari home computers. How did Star Raiders II compare. Which one would you buy?

 

Star Raiders WAS the opening killer app for the Atari 400/800. I remember that being shown off in stores as they were selling the computers. Impressed me a lot!

[+doctorclu]

Oh and Star Raiders 2 is a lot of fun as well.

[devwebcl]

Both are great games, however the showdown against enemies in SR1 are MUCH better than SR2, of course the GFX are better in the newer version, but the playability on version 1 is better. Besides SR2 is too easy for me.

[TheGreatPW]

Also, Star Raiders is a great feat given that it's an 8K cart and (almost certain here) only uses the lowest 8K of RAM.

 

Spot on about that. Atari programmers were able to do incredible wonders with low amounts of RAM. Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. on the Atari 8-bit also come to mind. Also games like Ms. Pac-Man (among others) on the Atari 2600 as well as Activision's efforts. Pitfall 2 on the Atari 5200 really gave gamers their money's worth. Obviously the list is much longer but I doubt anyone wants the full list.

[+Sauron]

SRII/Last Starfighter is not a bad game. However, I don't think much of anything from the 8bit era can compare to the original Star Raiders.

[carmel_andrews]

was there a reaon why the big A renamed Last starfighter, SR II...I do remember hearing that MCA sued warners over last starfighter (something to do with non payment or something) or perhaps tramiel's cheap and cheerful approach got the better of him and instead of totally re programming something like a star raiders 2 game, along the same genre/lines of the original (i.e more simulator based and less arcade like) he took the cop out approach and slapped on the SRII name on an existing WIP game title

Edited July 25, 2009 by carmel_andrews

[TheGreatPW]

was there a reaon why the big A renamed Last starfighter, SR II...I do remember hearing that MCA sued warners over last starfighter (something to do with non payment or something) or perhaps tramiel's cheap and cheerful approach got the better of him and instead of totally re programming something like a star raiders 2 game, along the same genre/lines of the original (i.e more simulator based and less arcade like) he took the cop out approach and slapped on the SRII name on an existing WIP game title

 

It was a licensing issue and Jack Tramiel's Atari did not want to pay so with some cosmetic changes, it became the sequel to Star Raider. There would have been no Star Raiders 2 if the Last Starfighter was produced. If a true sequel was going to be produced, it would have been known today as Star Raiders 3.

Edited July 26, 2009 by TheGreatPW

[Heaven/TQA]

i played SR2 many many times and love it... it was written for the A8 hardware... I loved the sound fx (the pulsar low-fi sounds of the motherships) and SR2 has more features than the last starfighter...so if you played TLF then you definitly should have a look on SR2 instead.

 

I loved to shoot the zylons and tried to hit the ships on the edges so they are steering down... and the bombing was nice, too... (oh... are we alowed to write that nowadays? ok, it was to defeat menkind )

 

ps. I don't played SR too often because at that time we were on 2600 and Star Master by Activision is far better imho... but friend of mine had SR on 2600 with the extra pad... that was cool, too... on the A8 I was little bit disappointed because of the slowing down when explosions are on screen... as coder I hate slowdowns... but at that time I haven't realised that it was the first Atari computer game ever... and 8k...so kudos there...

Edited July 26, 2009 by Heaven/TQA

[emkay]

Perhaps Starraiders was a programming milestone, the presentation was ugly. No blaming on the 1979's style of a 3D scene, but why was information on the screen that low, just like the gr. 7 chart... It made the game look old in 1980 already.

Starraiders 2 / The Last Starfighter is clearly the better game, and the solution of being a Space-action-shooter with some (simple) tactical features, made it "wow" for it's time and even years later.

[Rybags]

I think the presentation was fine... in a way it was made out to look like a cockpit.

 

Of course, the "proper" way might have been to do it like Firefox or RoF, but we are talking about a game that had came out before Asteroids, Pacman, Galaxian etc. so there weren't really many precedents to follow.

[potatohead]

I really like the slowdowns. When it gets intense, they happen at good times and give the feel of lots of things happening.

[Rybags]

I think it's a game that could really benefit from some enhancement and code optimising... unrolled loops, table-lookups to speed it up.

 

I've got a 160x200 mode version here that ClausB was working on.

 

Who knows... how about a hires interlaced version, maybe?

[emkay]

I think it's a game that could really benefit from some enhancement and code optimising... unrolled loops, table-lookups to speed it up.

 

I've got a 160x200 mode version here that ClausB was working on.

 

Who knows... how about a hires interlaced version, maybe?

 

The "3D scene" doesn't need to be enhanced, if there only was some better HUD .

 

I'm also not sure, whether the game take any benefit by using unrolled code or not. It looks to me like Antic B plus some player missiles on the screen, leaving not much to unroll there.

The game suffers by the common (?) programming skills of that time, causing the "not so good" presentation and the unnecessary slowdowns. The coder didn't even know about movent in the outer space looks, making the stars appearing like a fixed positioned warp 20 (oxymoron ) ship looks through a fish's eye