snicklin Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 For you, which game do you find most unplayable on the Atari? I'm looking for games which may (or may not) technically be brilliant, but the gameplay just lets it down completely. My vote has to go to "Ace of Aces" because the frame rate is so slow, it never fires at what you want to. And also, it was on cassette and had to be reloaded after one game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olavese@online.no Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 House of Usher and the first Jet Set Willy ... Awful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloopy Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 AutoDuel, the premise and most of the game are decent, but the actual principal game play isnt what it should be... this didnt stop be from playing it... alot... sloopy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 I have to include A8 Arkanoid, and it's a shame because it's one of my favorite games of all times. While it graphically compares to the Commodore 64 version, the Atari version is super slow and the framerate inconsistent. Shame, because the C64 version is smooth and fast, comparatively. Arkanoid is one of those games that needs "fixing" by modern programmers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsten Günther Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Racing Destruction Set - still wondering how they managed to implement choppy scrolling like that on a machine that has hardware scroll registers for all directions... Oh, and The Last V8 - incredibly hard due to the small vertically visible area, and stupidly short if you ever watched the Youtube video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doomguy Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Mirax Force and Thunderfox. The finicky controls and the difficult to discern walls that blend into the background. Black Lamp is gorgeous, but ridiculously difficult. Fred is also great looking, but the framerate is unplayably slow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Thrust is a fabulous game but the controls in the original game are too hard IMHO ... There is a hack to play the game with the joystick which is better... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 I think it was Haunted Hill had a big playability problem. It checked for specific joystick values for left/right, so if you inadvertantly did diagonal instead, nothing happened. Elektraglide - OK, technical masterpiece, but the steering envelopes were ridiculous. the momentum of steering took too long to bleed off on the faster ones and the slower one was useless. Plus the difficulty was a bit too high overall. Can't think of many right now. When a game was not well playable I usually didn't bother much with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Racing Destruction Set - still wondering how they managed to implement choppy scrolling like that on a machine that has hardware scroll registers for all directions... It's called "conversion in an afternoon." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 (edited) For you, which game do you find most unplayable on the Atari? I'm looking for games which may (or may not) technically be brilliant, but the gameplay just lets it down completely. My vote has to go to "Ace of Aces" because the frame rate is so slow, it never fires at what you want to. And also, it was on cassette and had to be reloaded after one game. For me it was any game with disk swapping. Lots of games now seem unplayable due to slowing reflexes and my no longer having the patience to put in practice time. However, I always considered Dropzone and Attack of the Mutant Camels unplayable, too hard to control speed. Super Zaxxon is tough because without the good ship shadows that the arcade version has it's too hard to determine if the ship is at the correct altitude to pass through openings in walls and force barriers. Qbert I could never play well. 95% of the time I'm fine but at critical moments I got disorientated and jumped in the wrong direction. It's the joystick being up, down, left, right but the jumps being on the diagonals. Caverns of Mars is extremely difficult but it seemed impossible with CX40 joysticks. It's still a game I love even though my games are now very short Berzerk isn't unplayable but somebody please tell me how to survive levels with the fast, white robots! It's probably just me but in Kangaroo I can never jump the rolling apples at critical times. When I think I'm timing the jump just right the kangaroo doesn't jump at all. There are many other games but my being bad at them isn't sufficient reason to call them unplayable. They are merely unenjoyable. Edited June 10, 2012 by a8isa1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr SQL Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 I have to include A8 Arkanoid, and it's a shame because it's one of my favorite games of all times. While it graphically compares to the Commodore 64 version, the Atari version is super slow and the framerate inconsistent. Shame, because the C64 version is smooth and fast, comparatively. Arkanoid is one of those games that needs "fixing" by modern programmers. See how you like the Atari 2600 version Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snicklin Posted June 10, 2012 Author Share Posted June 10, 2012 Mirax Force, Elektraglide and the original A8 Arkanoid I have to agree with so much!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 [Qbert I could never play well. 95% of the time I'm fine but at critical moments I got disorientated and jumped in the wrong direction. It's the joystick being up, down, left, right but the jumps being on the diagonals. It helps me to rotate the joystick 45 degrees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NRV Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Fight Night? I believe that it ""streamed"" some moves or animations from disk.. Last V8, but in NTSC! I have to include A8 Arkanoid, and it's a shame because it's one of my favorite games of all times. While it graphically compares to the Commodore 64 version, the Atari version is super slow and the framerate inconsistent. Shame, because the C64 version is smooth and fast, comparatively. Arkanoid is one of those games that needs "fixing" by modern programmers. Then go for this: http://www.atariage....ost__p__2431105 Find the last (available) version in this post: http://www.atariage....25#entry2449002 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 (edited) Well, for me: Elektraglide, Amauroute (even the update is much too hard and unplayable for me), The Last V8, Red Max, Robin Hood, Castle Top, Frenesis (this is the top of the flops), Sidewinder 2, Gunlaw and last not least Piekielko: http://www.atarimani...piekielko_2.gif in Piekielko you get 255 lives and in less than a minute you lost them all (in the screen you see above). Nice additions of brand-new programs, with more or less good gfx, but extremely bad controls: Dino, Fester`s Quest (a -10 for controls!), Luki Lak. Hopefully the programmer will ask someone someday who can code good/better controls for his games... Edit: Ooops, I forgot, you asked for games that are technically briliant, so forget about Robin Hood, Castle Top, Frenesis and Piekielko, they are pure crap. Maybe I should add "Starball" by Jakub Husak then, in which the gameplay is so hard and frustrating, you will learn to love & hate it at the same time... -Andreas Koch. Edited June 10, 2012 by CharlieChaplin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Koronis Rift. Technically superb, graphically brilliant... gameplay bugwasted... Well, it really IS buggy in the gameplay, and has controlflaws. Which made the aimed "best game for the A8" some OK game to mention about the nice graphics. And, well Amaurote, still... the update makes it far better, but it doesn't help with the "overall mismatch". Play the Speccy version for 10 minutes and you know how things had to go. Zybex. You can play through it, but you cannot collect all items due to game design flaws. So it is "unplayable" at that point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devwebcl Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Caverns of Mars is extremely difficult but it seemed impossible with CX40 joysticks. It's still a game I love even though my games are now very short I totally disagree. Caverns of Mars is very playable and kind of easy with CX-40. I was a very good playing it, in my 400 with CX-40. As usual for games from the 80s the trick was to memorize where appear the objects (very common, in particular at arcades). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snicklin Posted June 11, 2012 Author Share Posted June 11, 2012 (edited) Nice additions of brand-new programs, with more or less good gfx, but extremely bad controls: Dino, Fester`s Quest (a -10 for controls!), Luki Lak. Hopefully the programmer will ask someone someday who can code good/better controls for his games... I very much agree here, especially with Fester's Quest. There is a game that is technically superb and quite original too. And then it is ruined by it's controls. I can't seem to make sense of them and try for so long that I end up giving up. My request for these games is that a version 2 is made available for all of them, with sensible controls. Edited June 11, 2012 by snicklin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Airball and Congo bongo are games that I find impossible to play Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 (edited) Spelunker nigh on drove me insane, the times I fell off ladders, I tried every stick in the book.. I loved it tho....Only ever finished it on a cheat... Also, any tempest type game, any time I had to go to the top of the screen and come back down I lost what way I had to push etc etc... Edited June 11, 2012 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Caverns of Khafka was pretty neat for an "economy" title. It sucked how it would blast you through walls for no reason at all, tho. I had high expectations for Archon II (since the first one was so innovative). Too bad the computer opponent picks armageddon if you even THINK of making any progress in the sequel, tho. Whatta letdown. Racing Destruction Set blows on every level. Too crappy and slow for plain racing...and not enough options for a smash'em up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Some of the racing games were utterly destroyed by the mere fact you have to press forward rather than using the button to accelerate. Sad that just little things like that potentially ruined what could have been otherwise decent games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 I love Spelunker... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesmond Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 Yep, Jet Set Willy was very hard - and I don't find the ported version very easy either! Last V8 I found the controls very unintuitive... but I actually got quite used to Elektraglide after a while and complete it most times now. The original version of Amaurote was pretty tough - I haven't had a good try with the recent optimised version, which runs at a much more arcade-like pace, so the slightly silly bouncing bombs are easier to time. Crumble's Crisis I found annoying in that the first level was fairly tame, but the second level was "quite a step up!". I think there were 5 levels, but I could only last about 5 seconds on level 2, and then hard to restart from level 1 again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wesmond Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 PS - I think it's pretty harsh to mention Zybex in a list of unplayable games... Sometimes the power-ups landed awkwardly, but I never had a problem getting the critical tokens. I'd say that's got to be one of the most playable games ever - especially 2-player simultaneous... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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