7800 games that should have existed?

[Andromeda Stardust]

That is true on the coleco side, but not on the Atari side when it comes to Nintendo. Intellivision and colecovision homebrew scenes didn't get the coverage from the gaming media like the Atari 2600 is capable of in terms of the internet.

 

The Atariage store received a C&D for Princess Rescue last year from Nintendo. Princess Rescue had Mario characters, music from Super Mario Bros. and levels similar to Super Mario Bros.

 

Princess Rescue got a lot of coverage from the internet last year including youtube and Ign as examples. Nintendo found out about Princess Rescue as a result and only allowed the rom to be downloaded for free.

Nothing is really safe. Namco could pull the plug on all those Pacman ports in the AA store if they wanted. Some companies either don't care, don't know, or turn a blind eye to the homebrew scene.

[supercat]

Well they made a very good and mostly arcade accurate Tempest port to the 5200. The 7800 hardware is much more powerful than 5200 on the graphics side and can handle a boatload more sprites so I don't see why the same would be any more difficult on the 7800. I think joystick control could be handled well enough to make the game playable, with built in support for for the rarely utilized 2600 trackball controller.

The 7800 hardware is good for showing many non-scaled sprites at 160-dot resolution and tolerable for showing tiled backgrounds. I haven't seen the Atari 5200 version of Tempest, but I would guess it probably uses a 160x200 four-color bitmap screen. On either the 5200 or 7800, such a screen would require about 8K of RAM. Not a particular problem on a system which has 16K (like the 5200), but a bit difficult on a system with only 4K (like the 7800). Although 8Kx8 static RAM chips had become available late in the 7800's reign, they were pricey. The Atari 5200, if it was typical of its era, would have used eight 16Kx1 dynamic RAM chips along with some controller logic. Those were dirt cheap (all eight chips in the 5200 probably cost less than the two 2Kx8 chips in the 7800), but required complex controller logic that the 7800 lacked. Further, getting eight RAM chips to fit into a cartridge might have been difficult.

[CPUWIZ]

What? Summer and Winter Games have 16K (8bit) RAM chips in them. Jinks has 8K of RAM.

[Jinks]

What? Summer and Winter Games have 16K (8bit) RAM chips in them. Jinks has 8K of RAM.

Nope. It never happened. Its all a dream.

[Lynxpro]

What? Summer and Winter Games have 16K (8bit) RAM chips in them. Jinks has 8K of RAM.

But that wasn't back in 1983 when the 7800 was being designed.

[Prosystemsearch]

Again, Vindicators should have been given a full 7800 port like Tengen did for the NES.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Again, Vindicators should have been given a full 7800 port like Tengen did for the NES.

Yes, and Tetris, Gauntlet, Toobin', Klax, Alien Syndrome, Indiana Jones, and a crapton of other Tengen games that got ported to NES. And yes, before I forget, Klax had a prototype for 7800, but bear in mind it was only a prototype. No actual production run.

[mos6507]

I am catching up with this thread but I would have loved to see Rastan for the 7800 as it was my favorite arcade machine at the time. I think the 7800 would have had a very difficult time pulling it off, though, with the parallax scrolling, etc... Even the Rastan Saga game for the Genesis was pretty lame compared to the original coinop. The sprite animation in the coinop is silky-smooth. I have a copy of the SMS Rastan for collector's purposes but have never owned a Master System so I don't know how well it really plays but based on the youtube video, it was pretty awesome considering the coinop was 16-bit and the SMS 8.

[Trebor]

I am catching up with this thread but I would have loved to see Rastan for the 7800 as it was my favorite arcade machine at the time. I think the 7800 would have had a very difficult time pulling it off, though, with the parallax scrolling, etc...

 

Although the 7800 does handle parallax scrolling well without needing any additional hardware assistance (See Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest), what needs to be kept in mind concerns the core CPU for Rastan being a 16-bit 68000 @ 8MHz, as well as it contains a YM2151 and ADPCM chips for sound in conjunction with a Z80 sound processor @ 4MHz. Any 8-bit console will struggle greatly. If it was ever ported to the 7800, it would be overwhelmingly likely worse than the SMS port, and would need to be stripped down heavily.

 

As mentioned with the previous notion of another 16-bit Arcade game (Altered Beast), you need a 16-bit (graphics) console to really handle it decently. Not stating any Arcade game running on 16-bit hardware cannot be done justly on an 8-bit system though.

 

For example, on similar hardware as Rastan, there is Operation Wolf (See Alien Brigade) and Rainbow Islands – those could be ported pretty well. Along the same hardware lines as Altered Beast, there’s Quartet (2) and Wonder Boy III – which could be handled well too.

[Lost Dragon]

@mos6507:

I too would have loved to have seen more home conversions of RASTAN (personal fav.of mine) gutted Ocean's recently re-discovered ST Code never made it to completition.

The 8 bit Home Micro's had conversions, i'm no tech head but assume the Commodore 64 version might make for a 'reasonable' basis to compare how a 7800 version might have turned out like?.Assuming this is the case....

Hopefully it'd of fared better, as the stunning SID music aside (Galway great as ever), sprites were messy, Rastan himself looked puffy, orange etc and conversion never seemed to have had a lot of care and attention paid to it.Pity....

Never tried other home versions, so cannot add anything more.

[Trebor]

The 8 bit Home Micro's had conversions, i'm no tech head but assume the Commodore 64 version might make for a 'reasonable' basis to compare how a 7800 version might have turned out like?.Assuming this is the case....

 

The C64's limited 16-color palette including a white, black and two shades of grey (making up 25% of the entire palette), really struggled with this game.

 

Graphically, think it would be better than the C64...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhCosdjvSdk

 

...But worse than the SMS...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPcEtluIWPY

 

...respecting a 7800 port.

 

However, as always, much depends on the skill and resources available to the developer.

 

Regardless, on any 8-bit platform, it is (would be) considerably stripped down from the original 16-bit Arcade:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq0FX_w7huk

 

 

Even the Rastan Saga game for the Genesis was pretty lame compared to the original coinop.

The Sega MegaDrive/Genesis game "Rastan Saga II" is a port of the Arcade game with the same name.

 

This Arcade (sequel) game...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G27r6F3EPUs

 

...is overall not as good as the original/first Rastan game.

 

Nonetheless, IMHO, the MegaDrive/Genesis captured it quite well...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDkKbyl_MzE

[supercat]

What? Summer and Winter Games have 16K (8bit) RAM chips in them. Jinks has 8K of RAM.

Hmm.... I know 8Kx8 chips existed, but I'd thought they were too expensive to be used in cartridges. Atari certainly seemed to think they were too expensive to go in the 7800 itself (the 7800 is laid out so it could use an 8K chip rather than two 2K chips, but it of course doesn't contain one).

 

Given 16K of RAM, I would guess then 7800 could probably do a somewhat decent-looking version of tempest using one of the 320 modes along with aliasing, though the MARIA would gobble up a lot of cycles. The screen bitmap layout would need to be a little goofy, but probably no worse than the Apple II.

[Shawn]

 

Given 16K of RAM, I would guess then 7800 could probably do a somewhat decent-looking version of tempest using one of the 320 modes along with aliasing, though the MARIA would gobble up a lot of cycles. The screen bitmap layout would need to be a little goofy, but probably no worse than the Apple II.

 

Might just as well bump it up to 32k sram as it is able to be used also.

[+wongojack]

 

The C64's limited 16-color palette including a white, black and two shades of grey (making up 25% of the entire palette), really struggled with this game.

 

Graphically, think it would be better than the C64...

 

 

 

...But worse than the SMS...

 

 

 

...respecting a 7800 port.

 

However, as always, much depends on the skill and resources available to the developer.

 

Regardless, on any 8-bit platform, it is (would be) considerably stripped down from the original 16-bit Arcade:

 

 

 

 

The Sega MegaDrive/Genesis game "Rastan Saga II" is a port of the Arcade game with the same name.

 

This Arcade (sequel) game...

 

 

 

...is overall not as good as the original/first Rastan game.

 

Nonetheless, IMHO, the MegaDrive/Genesis captured it quite well...

 

 

 

Very informative side by side comparison Trebor. Thanks for the detailed post.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Hmm.... I know 8Kx8 chips existed, but I'd thought they were too expensive to be used in cartridges. Atari certainly seemed to think they were too expensive to go in the 7800 itself (the 7800 is laid out so it could use an 8K chip rather than two 2K chips, but it of course doesn't contain one).

 

Given 16K of RAM, I would guess then 7800 could probably do a somewhat decent-looking version of tempest using one of the 320 modes along with aliasing, though the MARIA would gobble up a lot of cycles. The screen bitmap layout would need to be a little goofy, but probably no worse than the Apple II.

Well if 320 mode is used, this could potentially cause problems if the sprites have to be opaque like the 320 Pacmans. if the ship and enemies all had black boxes around them, IMO it would completely ruin the vectorized look of the game display.

[AlecRob]

Tempest

Gauntlet

Missile command

Final fantasy

R-type

Rainbow islands

Contra

Prince of Persia

Elite

[Shaggy the Atarian]

In regards to "should have had", I know most 7800 fans want it to be have practically every 80s arcade game ported to it, which I'm not in the camp of. Some ports it was natural to have being Atari and we did get several great games from the arcade. But as it has been debated, I fall on the side that in 1986 it needed to build up on a few previous efforts while giving us some well-designed originality. IMHO games like these would have boosted interest:

 

Adventure 2 - After you play it on the 5200 you just wish someone would have had the vision to do this on the 7800 BITD. I'm sure it would have been shouted as Atari's answer to Zelda although really Zelda takes several pages from 2600 Adventure to begin with. Otherwise moving development of 5200 Meebzork to the 7800 and making that a launch title would have been cool.

 

Combat - We did get the Combat 1990 homebrew but had Atari released a Combat game on the 7800 not just with updated graphics but some additional combat scenarios (submarines, as you had with their arcade title from the 70s, Subs; soldiers in an area sort of like Venture or Castle Wolfenstein; helicopters), this could have captured interest and led the way for it to be a franchise, say Combat 2000 for the Jaguar and so on.

 

Star Raiders / The Last Starfighter / FP-Space-Shooter - Atari had a lot of space games in its past so I think it would be interesting to see how the 7800 would have handled this genre, perhaps with more detail. To go really crazy a hybrid Space FPS with a sidescrolling platformer when you land at a base. That could have made for an interesting answer to popular NES games like Metroid.

 

Pitfall 3 - In a perfect world, something like Pitfall 2 that could take advantage of the 7800's hardware but given the horror that was Super Pitfall on the NES, it may have dodged a bullet. But more platformers were needed - 7800 fans were very envious of SMB at the time and while the NES got a bit of a platformer overload, the 7800 needed more games in the vein before 1990 & Scrapyard Dog.

 

More of the XE games - Crime Busters, Into The Eagles Nest, Deflektor, David's Midnight Magic - I know that the two systems shared many games already but it wouldn't have hurt to have some of these mentioned titles also done on the 7800 where it could do them better. I'd also throw in a chip for Alley Cat although that was a few years old already. Rescue on Fractalus should have been completed and something like The Eidolon wouldn't have hurt either (in the hindsight game, while I like my XEGS, the resources would have been better spent on getting the other planned hardware for the 7800 out like the XM and Keyboard. Then you could have had text adventure and other "computer" level games like the 7800 commercials bragged about)

 

Scrolling shooters like River Raid, Plutos, Sirius - Whether you had arcade ports or just original creations, given that the genre was at its peak in the late 80s like platformer, more scrolling shooters should have been on the system.

 

Save Mary, Solaris, Secret Quest, Radar Lock and other late era 2600 titles - I understand why these got 2600 releases since the system still sold a ton in the Tramiel era, but had these been 7800 exclusives it would have went a long way. (Yes I know Save Mary wasn't released until the Flashback 2 and that it only would work on 7800s for a while, despite being a 2600 game)

[Lost Dragon]

@ Shaggy the Atarian:I love your idea for a 7800 Star Raiders type game, but with added bonus of side scrolling sections, features like thjis i feel would really of helped 7800 titles stand out from what the NES etc were offering.

 

Also great to see Crime Busters mentioned, often over-looked on A8 range.

 

Now, would something like C64 Project Firestart of been 'do-able' on 7800 cartridge? if not, i'd have settled for a 7800 conversion of Electric Dreams Aliens game, if the C16 could handle it, would assume 7800 could do it justice?.

[+wongojack]

Combat

 

 

Yes to everything you said, but I think the name "Combat" probably would not have excited people. It was old and a relic of another gaming era that really pre-dated the 2600. I look at Countermeasure as a sort of single player successor to Combat with a new name. Thankfully Bob gave us Failsafe which is fun, but I somehow doubt it would have really taken attention away from similar NES arcade ports like Commando, Ikari Warriors, or 1942. I know 2 of those are on the 7800, but they didn't get much praise either.

 

Combat of course has the 2 player competitive aspect which would have offered some variety in the gaming landscape. That may have actually stood out. A Combat game that played more like the computer game Beach Head could have also been very interesting.

[Lost Dragon]

I put the question of 7800/A8 support (or lack of..) to Andrew Hewson as part of a community based interview a while back:

 

 

Q) I See the Atari 7800 listed among supported formats, but you never did any Atari 8-bit Micro games did you? (I only discovered your works when I moved from the 800XL to the C64) did you never consider the Atari 8 Bit range a worthy market? Not even for your budget range? If not, why?

 

A) Andrew Hewson:Dunno, it never really crossed my mind to get involved. Atari seemed a step backwards to me.

[+Defender_2600]

Well if 320 mode is used, this could potentially cause problems if the sprites have to be opaque like the 320 Pacmans. if the ship and enemies all had black boxes around them, IMO it would completely ruin the vectorized look of the game display.

 

Asteroids Deluxe, AstroBlaster, CrazyBrix, Frenzy/Berzerk, Froggie, Moon Cresta, One on One Basketball, Rip-Off, Scramble, Space Invaders: these 7800 games are all made in 320 mode and all of them have transparency.

 

About Pac-Man 320 / Ms. Pac-Man 320 (I love them ), all in all I think the little black box around the sprites is really a minor imperfection (not easily visible, especially on traditional CRT TV).

[Prosystemsearch]

Saturn, the 1983 arcade game should have been on the 7800, as well as Ghostbusters and Space dungeon.

[Trebor]

Let's really pull the strings of the imagination...

 

The Atari 7800 gets released for it, not just Road Runner, but has the LaserDisc add-on for use via the Expansion Interface, and Road Runner: 'The LaserDisc Edition' (An Arcade prototype) is made available:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1BL_nkq64w

 

 

Yes folks, this can go on forever...

[supercat]

Well if 320 mode is used, this could potentially cause problems if the sprites have to be opaque like the 320 Pacmans. if the ship and enemies all had black boxes around them, IMO it would completely ruin the vectorized look of the game display.

I would expect that the game wouldn't bother with sprites. With the proper "color" selection, it should be possible to use a 4-color 320-mode bitmap to achieve 16 colors using artifacting in a fashion similar to the Apple //e double-hi-res mode (simply have the CPU draw everything onto the bitmap).

Edited August 18, 2014 by supercat

[Trebor]

Given 16K of RAM, I would guess then 7800 could probably do a somewhat decent-looking version of tempest using one of the 320 modes along with aliasing, though the MARIA would gobble up a lot of cycles. The screen bitmap layout would need to be a little goofy, but probably no worse than the Apple II.

 

Well if 320 mode is used, this could potentially cause problems if the sprites have to be opaque like the 320 Pacmans. if the ship and enemies all had black boxes around them, IMO it would completely ruin the vectorized look of the game display.

 

I would expect that the game wouldn't bother with sprites. With the proper "color" selection, it should be possible to use a 4-color 320-mode bitmap to achieve 16 colors using artifacting in a fashion similar to the Apple //e double-hi-res mode (simply have the CPU draw everything onto the bitmap).

 

For the curious, a developer did (start) one possible version/port of Tempest a while ago.