Games that you wish used alternate controls

[Csonicgo]

Here's an interesting one...

My dad was watching me play some of the Atari 2600 games I had cleaned up (Mostly the Activision ones) I was playing Spider Fighter at the time. And he said, "can't you use the paddle?"

I said, "Yeah, that would be a pretty cool idea."

 

Since that game moves so fast, a paddle would really fit for it, especially in maneuvering around the spiders.

 

Which games do you wish used the paddle or other controls? Or are you content with joystick controllers?

[Rex Dart]

Naturally, paddle controller support would be great for any game where your movement's restricted to a single dimension.

[sqoon]

Excellent paddle controller games would be

 

Demon Attack

Crackpots

Spider Fighter

Space Invaders

Galaxian

Phoenix

Enduro

[Matthew]

River Raid

[shadow460]

Sprintmaster needed to use the Driving Controller from the git go. It's been hacked.

 

Obvious choices are proper trak ball support in games that used it, particularly Centipede, Millipede, and Reactor.

[Skud]

Has anyone hacked any of these games to use paddles? I imagine it would make a few of them too easy but would be really neat

[godzillajoe]

Any of the two joystick / console switch games (Raiders, Stargate, Space Shuttle, Starmaster etc) should have used the keypad. Start hacking you genius bastards!

[AtariLeaf]

River Raid

 

I don't think that would work. You need to move the joystick up and down to control speed. Without this you'd crash early and often.

[jhd]

Any of the two joystick / console switch games (Raiders, Stargate, Space Shuttle, Starmaster etc) should have used the keypad. Start hacking you genius bastards!

 

Agreed -- I find Stargate/Defender II unplayable because of the need for a second joystick. It would be much easer if had it used the keypad.

 

I can understand third-party games not making use of it, but Atari never did very much with it either (the CTW games notwithstanding).

[AtariMagic!]

H.E.R.O.

 

how i wanted a second button for the bombs...

[Atarian7]

I agree with Space Invaders

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Has anyone hacked any of these games to use paddles? I imagine it would make a few of them too easy but would be really neat

Won't happen.

 

Each game is usually build around the display kernel and the paddle has to be read during that kernel too. So you would have to rewrite the kernel to be able to read the paddle. And then you have to adapt everything to the new kernel. Effectively you are not hacking the existing game but almost completely rewriting it.