Omega-TI Posted April 26, 2015 Share Posted April 26, 2015 People can have problems narrowing down to 'just one' favorite game of all time, so this thread is a bit of a cop-out... you can narrow it down to TWO instead! So, after all these years, which two TRS-80 Model I or III games do you think were the best? You can break it down even further into sub categories if you have a hard time pinning it down to even two overall programs. For shooters, I'm thinking Robot Attack and Meteor Mission 2. For a BASIC text based game I liked Hammurabi. Agree? Disagree? What do you think? Maybe you'll change our minds? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 Meteor Mission 2 is great, bought that one new back in the day. I just started playing Donkey Kong and it's by far the best port I've ever played from that generation. Of course it lacks in graphics but I would have never thought my Model III was capable of that kind of gameplay. The programmer(s) really caught the essence of the original down to the smallest details. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 Was there a different program called Donkey Kong, or are you referring to Killer Gorilla shown below? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 Hard to say, I don't really have a clear frontrunner. All things being equal, probably Sea Dragon or Meteor Mission II. Or maybe Adventureland and Star Trek III, which are completely different genres.For first-party games I like Flying Saucer and Paddle Pinball, which both come from the mid/late '70s school of arcade game design, which I like. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 Nope, Donkey Kong. From what I read, it never made it to market but was eventually released to the public domain. First barrel lights the oil drum on fire and produces a fireball, you can fall to your death, barrels are thrown every so often, fireballs climb ladders, all bonus items are there, animation after the rivet level, springs in the elevator level, etc. It also gets very challenging, I've yet to find out if it has the mud pie factory. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 I've always liked Star Trek III because it was one of the first games I played on the Model I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 27, 2015 Author Share Posted April 27, 2015 Nope, Donkey Kong. I'd like to stumble onto an image of that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 Anyone ever play Volcano Hunter? Definitely worth considering. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo-Torch Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 (edited) Same guys who made the incredible version of Zaxxon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgKGZwfPma4 Edited April 27, 2015 by Turbo-Torch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sm3 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Boy, it's hard to remember that far back, but I believe my first game on the TRS-80 Model 1 was Cosmic Fighter (on tape) by BigFive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 28, 2015 Author Share Posted April 28, 2015 Boy, it's hard to remember that far back, but I believe my first game on the TRS-80 Model 1 was Cosmic Fighter (on tape) by BigFive. Why oh why did you have to remind me of THIS game program! I'm not going to get ANYTHING done today! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sm3 Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Yep, that's it! Those games were simplistic, but still fun. I didn't really play too many games on them back then because it was a school computer. They were primarily used to learn BASIC (along with the Atari 400). We did manage to sneak a game in now and then though while the teacher was busy. I think maybe Stellar Escort was another game, along with Galaxy Invasion and Super Nova. Those Big Five games were the only games I knew about on the TRS-80. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Anyone ever play Volcano Hunter? Definitely worth considering. https://www.facebook.com/VolcanoHunter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Rampage and Thexder for me, yup. Rampage is freaking awesome, colorful, and huge. Thexder is a blast to play and has a transforming robot space-jet!! (honorable mentions go to Super Pitfall and Downland..) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 Rampage and Thexder for me, yup. Rampage is freaking awesome, colorful, and huge. Thexder is a blast to play and has a transforming robot space-jet!! (honorable mentions go to Super Pitfall and Downland..) Model I and III? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 Model I and III? CoCo guy I guess.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papa Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 (edited) OR!! Like what you dig out of the earth!! Edited April 29, 2015 by Papa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrospect Posted April 30, 2015 Share Posted April 30, 2015 For me, it's Robot Attack and Attack Force. Both by Big Five Software. Attack Force was a great Targ clone and I loved the visual effect it did between levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tcdev Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 Anyone ever play Volcano Hunter? Definitely worth considering. Yes! I produced a map of the entire game and printed it on my Epson MX80 - from memory it was about 6-8 sheets wide at its widest. I think I made a BMP file of it on the PC about 2 decades ago... I think I still have the printout but not sure where the BMP is?!? AFAIK you could never finish the game. Not sure if that was the result of the 'crack' or just how the game went. Hey just found it has a Facebook Page by the author! I found his Volcano Hunter web page years ago and emailed him about it but never got a response... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tcdev Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 I think maybe Stellar Escort was another game, along with Galaxy Invasion and Super Nova. Those Big Five games were the only games I knew about on the TRS-80. Stellar Escort was the first Big Five Software game not programmed by Jeff or Bill and boy, did it show! Nowhere near the level of their earlier games... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tcdev Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 There's absolutely no way I could choose two Model I/III games; I used a TRS-80 every single day for 10 years and there's a ton of great games. Starting with a Level I, 4K system I played Flying Saucers, Tandy Invaders and Time Trek to death! Of course every Big Five Software title written by Bill & Jeff was top notch! Computer Shack/Michtron rarely put a foot wrong either, even if 3 of their later games were essentially the same game. Time Bandit was a stand-out from them. Ditto for Adventure International; Eliminator and Donkey Kong examples from them. I especially liked Penetrator, it was an amazing Scramble clone given the capabilities of the machine. Funsoft had Apple Panic. Fun Division had Donut Dilemma. Acorn had several... there's dozens I can't recall now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sm3 Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 There's absolutely no way I could choose two Model I/III games; I used a TRS-80 every single day for 10 years and there's a ton of great games. Starting with a Level I, 4K system I played Flying Saucers, Tandy Invaders and Time Trek to death! Of course every Big Five Software title written by Bill & Jeff was top notch! Computer Shack/Michtron rarely put a foot wrong either, even if 3 of their later games were essentially the same game. Time Bandit was a stand-out from them. Ditto for Adventure International; Eliminator and Donkey Kong examples from them. I especially liked Penetrator, it was an amazing Scramble clone given the capabilities of the machine. Funsoft had Apple Panic. Fun Division had Donut Dilemma. Acorn had several... there's dozens I can't recall now... Cool, I didn't know about "Penetrator" until now. It looks pretty nice! I'll have to download it for my real TRS-80. My time with the TRS-80 was mostly about BASIC programming and had very little exposure to games on it. If I remember correctly, we only had "Cosmic Fighter" on tape in my school. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tcdev Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 Cool, I didn't know about "Penetrator" until now. It looks pretty nice! I'll have to download it for my real TRS-80. My time with the TRS-80 was mostly about BASIC programming and had very little exposure to games on it. If I remember correctly, we only had "Cosmic Fighter" on tape in my school. The fire control in Penetrator was ground-breaking; takes a little to get used to it but when you do, it's the perfect mechanism to allow fire & bomb with the arrow key layout on the Model I. You could do a lot worse than Cosmic Fighter being your only game too! For those that don't realise, it's a clone of the arcade game Astro Blaster with the usual Big Five Software twist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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