+save2600 Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 Thanks Tempest! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 (edited) Just like those dark ages where they burned books and astrology was rampant. The more things change the more they stay the same. Edited July 19, 2015 by Keatah 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianC Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 On the bright side, Namco let Ed Fries use "Rally-X" for his 2600 conversion of that game and "Atari" had official collections that included prototypes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2600 Forever Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 It is exactly these proto scenarios that annoy me the most. When your dealing with an uncooperative individual, it can be frustrating & it requires more time & work, but rest assured, it is at least a tangible situation. Eventually, money talks and bullshit walks. But when your dealing with a conglomerate, or a bureaucratic fool, your hands are tied. There is almost no chance of ever obtaining the data cooperatively. Personally, I don't see how the present day incarnation of Namco, much less the distant bastard child of what once was related to Atari, has absolutely anything in common with their 1983/84 counterparts. IMHO they have as much claim to that data as Tod Frye does. Not to mention the fact that regardless of that, the data has zero value to either company anyhow. They couldn't do anything with it; marketing wise. 0.0000001% of the population on planet earth gives a crap about the data on that cartridge, and 99.9% of that population is right here in this site. It's all such stupidity. On the part of both the person who donated the item because they donated it to the wrong place, but more so on the part of the entity who received the item for following the proper procedures & treating 8kb of obsolete 1984 data from a long since out of business company (Atari) the same way as some brand new 8GB game from a multi billion dollar company (Microsoft) The funniest part about the whole thing is that we already have the data, and had it before they did for that matter! And eventually, it will become shareware one way or the other, and so they really have no control or power over it whatsoever! It's just the principle of the whole thing, that's all. Absolute stupidity. What was the reason again for sitting on the protos, that you are sitting on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 (edited) On the bright side, Namco let Ed Fries use "Rally-X" for his 2600 conversion of that game and "Atari" had official collections that included prototypes. And yet Namco and "Atari" haven't been able to come to a reasonable monetary agreement within the past 11-plus years in order to license the pre-existing 2600 ports of their arcade games in order to be included with the Atari Flashback series of retro consoles. Edited July 20, 2015 by Lynxpro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianC Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 (edited) And yet Namco and "Atari" haven't been able to come to a reasonable monetary agreement within the past 11-plus years in order to license the pre-existing 2600 ports of their arcade games in order to be included with the Atari Flashback series of retro consoles. That's true too, but I rather wait and see. Not sure that money is involved since they are just asking companies for permission to dump a prototype. Edited July 20, 2015 by BrianC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtengaGames Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 This is super cool. Probably would have been like river raid. Anybody know if a rom is online yet? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 (edited) This is super cool. Probably would have been like river raid. Anybody know if a rom is online yet? River Raid is a common Activision game. Pretty sure it's been dumped. Check the usual repositories. Google is your friend. Also regarding the OP, I love how the Katuku article describes it as "ancient" like it's some type of Egyptian artifact. The audio seems lifted directly from the 7800 port. Edited July 20, 2015 by stardust4ever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Look what I found lying in the street. Must have fallen off the back of a truck or something. The first one is the original rom from the prototype, complete with bugs. The second one is fixed to remove all the bugs. XevRom-11884.bin Xevious (Fix v0.03).bin 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 River Raid is a common Activision game. Pretty sure it's been dumped. Check the usual repositories. Google is your friend. Also regarding the OP, I love how the Katuku article describes it as "ancient" like it's some type of Egyptian artifact. The audio seems lifted directly from the 7800 port. I hear major differences. It seems Tod Frye and GCC weren't collaborating with their separate versions. That's not surprising since Tod and Jerry Jessop built their own prototype systems to compete with and derail GCC's 7800 project but the Warner brass didn't bite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Look what I found lying in the street. Must have fallen off the back of a truck or something. The first one is the original rom from the prototype, complete with bugs. The second one is fixed to remove all the bugs. But isn't the ROM that's now in possession of the Digital Game Museum different than these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 But isn't the ROM that's now in possession of the Digital Game Museum different than these? It's the same one unless they made their own alterations to it. My rom came from the same anonymous source. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxsolo2000 Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 On a seperate note does anyone know what became of that Tank Blitz proto that turned up last year and promptly fell off the radar? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodrigo Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Tempest, you are the man! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 On a seperate note does anyone know what became of that Tank Blitz proto that turned up last year and promptly fell off the radar? We only guessed it was Tank Blitz, no way of knowing for sure. Haven't heard a thing about it or that Bear Game proto that surfaced a while back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Thank you very much for releasing the "final" version of Xevious Matt! Very good game for what it is and the system it's on! Love the background music. Curious why your ship is still drawn the way it is though? Still looks like a flickering magnet. ha. Thought that might have changed by this release... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 We only guessed it was Tank Blitz, no way of knowing for sure. It will be released on cart, this year. Jose just asked me about getting this thing out. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nutsy Doodleheimer Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Tempest! You are the man!! I downloaded it on my android 2600.emu emulator and it is excellent!! Scored about 40,000. The music was done great and enjoyed it nonetheless. Thanks again!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Make sure you at it with the fast scrolling on (change with the difficulty switch). It makes it much more fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Very good game for what it is and the system it's on! Love the background music. Curious why your ship is still drawn the way it is though? Still looks like a flickering magnet. ha. Thought that might have changed by this release... Quoting the article on atariprotos.com: In fact the only thing that flickers in the entire game is your ship which is actually made up of two missile graphics to keep more sprites free (hence the funny shape and flickering). This odd design also makes your ship almost twice as large as it was in the arcade (making it harder to dodge enemy shots). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Yeah, I read that - just figured since they bothered to continue to update the rest of the game, why the ship was ignored all that time. (not really bitching of course - just curious) ...and the flickering ship is understandable. Talking about why it was shaped and looks the way it is. lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
108 Stars Posted July 20, 2015 Share Posted July 20, 2015 Well, seeing that the game is a small technical miracle for the time as it is they did not want to risk the enemies to flicker, so they instead chose to sacrifice the ship. Tough choice, for me it is also the one element I would focus most on... I would bet the ship looking nothing like a ship is what leads to people finding the game akward looking. For gameplay it makes sense of course to sacrifice the ship and have everything else flickerless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 (edited) I know that VCS can never ever live up to the greatness of today's smartphone games. We all know that. To think otherwise would be foolish. What with the mobile platform gaining tens of thousands of new users and hundreds of developers every day.. How can anything compete with that? But, look!! 40 years later there's new VCS material to try out. And that's impressive! As soon as it starts raining tonight I'm going to play Xevious on both the VCS and then MAME - to simulate going to the arcade and then coming home and playing more videogames. ADDED: Thanks for posting the rom! Edited July 21, 2015 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianC Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Thanks Tempest!!!!! This is good stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted July 21, 2015 Share Posted July 21, 2015 Thanks for posting the rom, Tempest! I just fired it up on my Harmony Cart using a real CRT - the flickering isn't totally eliminated with real phosphors, but it's not really bad at all. And the game is actually quite a bit of fun. Color me surprise - and impressed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.