astrocade Solar Conqueror for Bally Astrocade

[boxpressed]

I've just started playing this game on my Astrocade and was wondering if any others like it as much as I do. I was going to make a video of it, but it turns out there's a good review of it on Youtube already:

 

http://youtu.be/SVBSv0FO6zc

 

The reviewer gets it right when he says that it is a combo of Asteroids, Yar's Revenge, Geometry Wars (haven't played that one), with a little Robotron mixed in. This game looks and feels like a Williams game from BITD.

 

There's another Youtube video that shows it on an emulator, but the game doesn't look as impressive. It plays great with the short-throw Bally joystick.

 

Anyway, it is a scarce title but well worth acquiring.

[CatPix]

The more I see games for the Astrocade... the more I want one >.< I can't believe nobody cared to make an Astrocade II... with jsut the Hi-red mod od the Astrocade avalable, and more RAM.

It would have kicked the Colecovision's butt.

[boxpressed]

Yes, while there aren't a lot of cartridge games for the Astrocade, the best ones are more fun to me than the best games for other systems of its generation. I like fast action, twitch games with colorful graphics and great sound, so games like The Incredible Wizard, Solar Conquerer, Cosmic Raiders, Space Fortress, Galactic Invasion (Galaxian), and War (homebrew) are a blast.

 

If the Astrocade were less expensive and even somewhat reliable (like a ColecoVision), it would have a much bigger retro fanbase.

[BassGuitari]

I love Solar Conqueror. It kicks the pants off Yars' Revenge in every conceivable way. And yet, people fawn over Yars' for reasons that continue to elude me.

 

It's one of the great tragedies of gaming that the Astrocade was/is such a flimsy piece of hardware. It was so innovative and powerful for its time, and had games that hold up even against the likes of the Atari 5200 and Intellivision. I've had three or four Astrocades come and go (read: die for no reason), and this has unfortunately made me apprehensive about ever shelling out for another one. I miss Incredible Wizard and Gunfight.

 

My only gripe with Astrocade games is that they tend not to scale difficulty very well. Usually you input a predetermined skill level, and then the game is fixed at that; it never gets harder. If you select something like Skill Level 9, the game starts out that hard without building up to it. The trick seems to be to find a difficulty setting that you can hang with but still get your ass kicked.

[boxpressed]

It's one of the great tragedies of gaming that the Astrocade was/is such a flimsy piece of hardware. It was so innovative and powerful for its time, and had games that hold up even against the likes of the Atari 5200 and Intellivision. I've had three or four Astrocades come and go (read: die for no reason), and this has unfortunately made me apprehensive about ever shelling out for another one. I miss Incredible Wizard and Gunfight.

 

I know. It was a delicate flower even while it was in production. I wish that someone could reverse engineer the Custom Data IC and turn out a few hundred of them. I suspect that at least half of all malfunctioning Astrocades have a problem with this IC only.

[mckafka99]

I dont quite understand what this is but it looks interesting - http://www.fpgaarcade.com/bally_main.htm

[darthkur]

Solar Conqueror is definitely one of my favorite games for the Bally console. It has a lot more depth to it than most of the others. It really is a shame that it's one of the more difficult to acquire titles.