A night with my Atari 7800

[JonnyBritish]

As vacation draws to a close I wanted to spend a few hours blasting through my 7800 / 2600 collection. So many quality titles so doing this in alphabetical order. This could take some time :-)

 

As always when I decide to do stuff like this its always latish so this started at just after 10pm

 

Asteroids Deluxe reprogrammed by PacManPlus

Oh dear, I was expecting to just play this for 10 minutes but its a PacManPlus game so 20 minutes later..

final score - 22590

• Overall high quality with great simulated vectors etc.
• Collision detection appears literally pixel perfect with more than one instance of an asteroid flying by the nose of my spacecraft and not causing a collision
• The game is frenetic and has you constantly rotating to zap asteroids
• I saw the large saucer a few times but on last game the smaller one appeared and zapped me.
• I have yet to try the additional modes but wow what a great package and start to the review!!
• would have liked more animation frames on asteroids but minor point
• Sounds close to the arcade machine

Astro Blaster - PacManPlus

Wow I was not expecting speech!!!

final score 7080

• Highlights - docking with the mothership - great to see this huge graphic coming down the screen
• wave of ships coming across screen diagonally
• large variety of waves
• plays like a great arcade port by Bob
• colors look dull on my tv / monitor but true to actual arcade game of i remember it correctly

b*nQ - Ken Siders

Please create more games Ken!!

Final score 5000

• Ken has gone overboard in creating all the screens / title screens / high score screens
• The Qbert experience is all there complete with sound and animation.
• Even with the euro joypad hitting diagonals was not an issue

Ball Blazer - LucasFilm

Final score - Ball Blazer droid 9 kicked my butt :-)

 

• For me this was never a game I could play for ages
• Execution was great just like the Atari 800 - high speed graphics
• Still appeared to have the same fractal music as the 800 version
• Had me wishing for 7800 Rescue on Fractalus
• Could be more fun with 2 players

Beef Drop VE - Ken Siders

Final score - 6000

who would have thought being chased in a game by a fried egg could be so much fun

Ken has executed within the confines of the 7800 technology a great arcade conversion

Like B*nq Ken clearly puts out a quality product, wish he would do more

Highly recommended

 

Centipede - Atari Corp

final score 16346

• although this game has simplistic graphics its speed more than makes up for it
• game keeps you on your toes as it speeds up
• overall good conversion with great replay especially with two players

Choplifter - Broderbund / Atari

Final score - did not even care

• This is a game that does not show the 7800 at its best
• very clunky looking graphics - average game play

 

Commando - Data East

Final score -26000?

 

• lots of action but game the game pad a workout
• uses both fire buttons for guns and grenades
• music grated after a while - need the Yamaha sound chip

Crazy Brix - PacManPlus

Final score - 8110

• A nice simple breakout clone by PacManPlus
• Difficult to control with gamepad at first but gets easier
• I liked the sounds played when you hit the bricks
• definitely need a full arkanoid clone!

Desert Falcon - Atari Corp

Final Score - 2350

• Zaxxon set in Egypt!!!
• great unusual game and will return to it
• shows that a red baron game could be done on the 7800
• cool music with Egyptian theme

Donkey Kong XM - TEP392

Final score 1200

• Silent as it waits for the XM
• plays well just like the arcade
• just like the arcade i suck at it
• Looking forward to this authors future releases

Dungeon - David Weavel

• yes its a 2600 game but hey that's the coolness of the 7800 - you can play the 2600 library
• The fun in this game is that you can only see a small amount of the dungeon around you which makes it challenging to navigate
• the author has made great use of colorful blocky graphics and yes when i got the first key i though YES down a level I go
• this would have been a huge hit had it launched with the original 2600

Failsafe - PacManPlus

 

• New style of game for Bob - race your tank to the finish and beat the clock
• large scrolling map and terrain effects ie you will slow down going over certain terrain
• Need to revisit to learn and play this more

Food Fight - Atari Corp

 

• One of those unusual games that you have to play
• Robotron with bananas and ice creams and crazy chefs
• Burger time / food fight / any more food like games beyond cooking momma that could be done on the 7800?

 

Frenzy - PacManPlus

• Wow another speech game
• like the robot graphics
• like how your guy phases out if he touches a robot
• great effect when entire level slides of screen when you exit
• will return to play more

 

Galaga - Namco

Solid conversion

 

Joust - Atari

• You either like joust or you don't - i sit in the middle but will spin it up for a game every now and again
• plays very quickly and smoothly

 

Karateka - Broderbund

• they should have saved the ET carts and buried this one instead :-)
• control is horrible

 

Kung Fu Master - Irem

• Thank goodness this one does not suck :-)
• great graphics, fun to play, good sound

 

 

Juno First - Atari 2600, Chris Walton

• Wow - top quality game on the 2600
• great way to end the night

 

 

Robotron - Atari

• Great port of an arcade classic
• you fire in the direction you move but this works well

 

A great night on the Atari 7800, only let down was the colors on the lcd monitor i use. Seriously thinking about picking up a 14 inch sony CRT just to play these consoles. If someone launched a project to build an FPGA Atari 7800 with perfect video output and Yamaha sound + cartridge ports i would be in the queue.

 

This night certainly showed me the range of games on the 7800.

 

Looking forward to what 2015 will bring the 7800

 

now back to Food fight :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+save2600]

Enjoyed reading your mini write-ups! Miss my 7800 at times. Sold my entire collection right before Bob started going ape with all his awesome conversions.

[JonnyBritish]

Yeah i have made this mistake in the past...sold my entire N64 collection as i had lost interest then of course got re interested 6 months later.

 

Yep the 7800 continues to impress...just finished a game of Moon Cresta on the 7800 - awesome work by Bob

[MAC-42]

Robotron - Atari

• Great port of an arcade classic
• you fire in the direction you move but this works well

Great write-ups. Thanks for posting these. Always nice to see others enjoying the 7800.

 

If you plug a second controller into the 7800, you'll have Robotron at its best. The controller in the right port will allow you to shoot in different directions. I missed this detail when I was younger, so I really missed out on the real fun of this port until I was an adult.

[mmervine]

Sounds like you had a blast!

[JonnyBritish]

Totally forgot about the ability to plug in a second joystick to give two handed control for robotron - must try that soon.

Also last night the inlaws and I got out to this arcade where I played the real arcade Juno First game. Suprisingly i preferred the horizontal lines on the 2600 version over the dots on the arcade game.

 

Even my none gamer brother in law noticed that and said he preferred the 2600 version over the arcade :-)

 

7800 is awesome - must get to playing with BASIC on it this year

 

thanks all for reading

[swlovinist]

The 7800 really is my favorite classic console. It has all the benefits of playing some true Atari classics, as well as backwards compatible with nearly all the 2600 games. I too, enjoyed reading the mini reviews and made my night.

[ruimtemuis]

Very enjoyable article and a pleasure to read.

 

I definitely need to get several of these 7800 homebrews; I basically only have all the original Atari releases.

[+Random Terrain]

A night with my Atari 7800

 

 

I thought I was going to read something disturbing that went against nature or maybe there would be shocking photos or a scandalous video.

 

[+Stephen]

I thought I was going to read something disturbing that went against nature or maybe there would be shocking photos or a scandalous video.

Maybe the 7800 didn't have the expansion port