Games for C64 not available for A8?

[Sikor]

The best C64 game: Creatures

Look at Wloczykij - it's compilations Creatures and Dizzy in one game on Atari

[Mclaneinc]

Sort of......Colours used are a bit ugh...

 

Not that I could write anything better..

[rdefabri]

This has been a topic near and dear to my heart since the glory days.  I was always aware of the (relative) limitations of PMG vs. C64 sprites, but I struggle to see any technical reasons a title like Defender of the Crown couldn't have been made.  Of course, from a business perspective, I get it - but still frustrated me and still does.

 

Seeing some of the great games of yesterday like Koronis Rift or International Karate to the modern work such as Prince of Persia or Space Harrier.  Even the modern POKEY work has just been incredible, clearly the Atari had "more to give".

 

I know there are a few A8 games not on C64, including Star Raiders, Alley Cat, Eastern Front etc., but I always had that hint of jealousy for those C64 games.  Still do.

Edited July 21, 2022 by rdefabri

[Serguei2]

I think there's no Carmen Santiego games on Atari 8bit.

[Irgendwer]

You mean "Where on the A8 is Carmen Santiego"?

 

[Wilheim]

One game I think could be done is Toy Bizarre, from Activision.

[Atari8guy]

I'd be more curious about looking at that top 100 C64 list and figuring out what would be not possible on our A8's or at least prohibitively difficult (understanding that might be subjective)... I'd love an A8 version of Pirates! and Defender of the Crown.

[Serguei2]

Doesn't a8 have 64k likes c64?

[BIGHMW]

4 hours ago, Serguei2 said:

Doesn't a8 have 64k likes c64?

The "A8" (a.k.a. the Atari 800) only had a maximum capacity of 48K, if you wanted 64K at that time you would've either needed to get a 1200XL, or nowadays you can also get either an 800XL or a 65XE (or XEGS) for your 64K, if you wanted more RAM you could always either

 

1) get a 130XE (128K of RAM)

 

or

 

2) upgrade your 65XE or XEGS or 130XE with an Ultimate U1MB and/or a VBXE upgrade as well, that would give you a (then) whopping 1MB of RAM.

[BIGHMW]

4 hours ago, Atari8guy said:

I'd be more curious about looking at that top 100 C64 list and figuring out what would be not possible on our A8's or at least prohibitively difficult (understanding that might be subjective)... I'd love an A8 version of Pirates! and Defender of the Crown.

I myself would've loved to have seen an A8 port of a C64 classic Eagle Empire, in which is basically the arcade hit Phoenix under a different namesake, especially after @DearHorse's version of Phoenix got lost as he was going to build one himself.

[emkay]

I'm not jealous of most of that games missing on the A8. 

But some great adventure games like "Day of the Tentacle" would fill a gap of a missing genre. 

Ok. OK. Monkey Island, too

[Mclaneinc]

The trouble with wanting a lot of these C64 titles is that what you see on the C64 may not translate as nicely to the Atari, the whole sprite system is different / better on the C64, if you look at Sams's Journey on the C64 you have to understand that you won't get a port of that anytime soon, it's simply too much for our lovely machine. There are still things the Atari can do that the C64 cannot but there's a release time difference where they upped the game.

 

This is in now way an attempt to inflame rivalry, it's just being fair and factual. What our little machine dies is amazing but it's older than the C64 and in certain area's it shows a little.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Mclaneinc

[youxia]

Sam's Journey is a modern game, written with the advantage of nearly 3 decades of experience in squeezing the last bit of ooomph out of C64 and utilizing all its advantages so, yeah, probably mission impossible.  But I'm sure porting some of the older games would be a much easier task (though still not that easy of course). The likes of Pirates! or DotC should be possible, the former was on CPC and the latter on Spectrum after all.

 

Though personally I'm that keen on ports and would much rather see some original efforts - even if they might be objectively worse than the ones to be ported.

[Mazzspeed]

10 hours ago, Serguei2 said:

Doesn't a8 have 64k likes c64?

The C64 has very versatile memory management. You can bank almost the whole 64k free with a tiny amount of space left for I/O, and the low level DOS is stored in the disk drive itself. Due to the fact most games were coded in assembly, it made the C64 a very capable machine - Especially considering it's sprite hardware and color memory.

 

I'm a bit of a Mayhem In Monsterland fan myself.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Mazzspeed

[rdefabri]

1 hour ago, Mclaneinc said:

The trouble with wanting a lot of these C64 titles is that what you see on the C64 may not translate as nicely to the Atari, the whole sprite system is different / better on the C64, if you look at Sams's Journey on the C64 you have to understand that you won't get a port of that anytime soon, it's simply too much for our lovely machine. There are still things the Atari can do that the C64 cannot but there's a release time difference where they upped the game.

 

This is in now way an attempt to inflame rivalry, it's just being fair and factual. What our little machine dies is amazing but it's older than the C64 and in certain area's it shows a little.

No doubt, that is true.  Look at Commando, for example.  It's better on the C64.  However, I don't think it's a terrible effort on the A8.

 

I'd be happy short of the mark to have the title.  For every Uridium or Sam's Journey on the C64, there's a Mirax Force or Crownland on the Atari.  Are they as "good" - probably not, but the effort is solid and appreciated.

 

I think I commented a few months back about Wizard of Wor.  It's really awesome looking on the C64, not so much on the A8.  And although I've complained, I know full well with all the things going on that the PMG engine wasn't going to be up to par.  It's still a decent title and I'm happy with it enough to play it.

[Mclaneinc]

I'm with youxia on this, new games rather than old ports. I used Sam's as an extreme example of what the C64 can do because of the fact it's new thinking, decades off coding finds and improvements. The point was if both machines get pushed with all the new knowledge and coding skills, they can produce fantastic games, I use Prince of Persia as a shining example of a truly amazing Atari port and excellent skills shown all around. Are all C64 games better, not at all, some of the Atari to C64 ports are beyond awful and at times some of the C64 to Atari are much better than the C64 version, but it was all a bit of a lottery, was it just meant to be a straight port or were they going to use the machine to its full potential. A lot of the time it was an exercise in getting the software out asap, a shame as there always was potential.

 

The bottom line, just enjoy the software created for you on whatever machine floats your boat, or play loads of machines

 

I know I used an Atari port as an example but at the same time it's new to the Atari, more new games are always welcome whatever they may be..

Edited July 22, 2022 by Mclaneinc

[zzip]

I think A8 could handle Defender of the Crown.     The game is high on graphics, but relatively low on action so I think the A8 could use all sorts of CPU-intensive high-color techniques to make the game look really good on the 8-bit

[+wongojack]

9 hours ago, emkay said:

I'm not jealous of most of that games missing on the A8. 

But some great adventure games like "Day of the Tentacle" would fill a gap of a missing genre. 

Ok. OK. Monkey Island, too

I get your point here, but neither "Day of the Tentacle" nor any of the "Monkey Island" series were available on the C64.  C64 owners could however play "Maniac Mansion" and  "Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders."

[+CharlieChaplin]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

I think A8 could handle Defender of the Crown.     The game is high on graphics, but relatively low on action so I think the A8 could use all sorts of CPU-intensive high-color techniques to make the game look really good on the 8-bit

 

For Defender of the Crown, there are already two tries on the A8:

 

- Adalmar, by Futurvision and Condorsoft (Germany), written in Atari Basic and then compiled with the TB XL compiler. Gfx are mediocre, action games are absolutely awful!

 

- Wladca (?) by Mirage Software (?), good gfx and most-likely gameplay, but all in polish language...

 

[zzip]

8 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

 

For Defender of the Crown, there are already two tries on the A8:

 

- Adalmar, by Futurvision and Condorsoft (Germany), written in Atari Basic and then compiled with the TB XL compiler. Gfx are mediocre, action games are absolutely awful!

 

- Wladca (?) by Mirage Software (?), good gfx and most-likely gameplay, but all in polish language...

 

Someone's done many of the game's screens in Rastaconvert and it looks fantastic.   Since the scenes in this slideshow are mostly static anyway, you could get away with using something CPU intensive for them like the Rasta display algorithnm.

 

 

[+Philsan]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Someone's done many of the game's screens in Rastaconvert and it looks fantastic.   Since the scenes in this slideshow are mostly static anyway, you could get away with using something CPU intensive for them like the Rasta display algorithnm.

 

 

Images converted by @StaxX28.

 

And you could use Atarimax 8Mbit cartridge format (multicarts support it too).

[shanti77]

There are also games that are for Atari and not for C64.

[rdefabri]

32 minutes ago, zzip said:

Someone's done many of the game's screens in Rastaconvert and it looks fantastic.   Since the scenes in this slideshow are mostly static anyway, you could get away with using something CPU intensive for them like the Rasta display algorithnm.

 

 

Very cool!

 

[sargie]

There are far too many to list. Especially European developed titles from the late 80’s. 
 

Here are 5 of my favorites.

 

impossible Mission.

Paradroid.

The Sentinel.

Wizball.

Armalyte.

[rensoup]

On 7/22/2022 at 12:57 PM, Mclaneinc said:

The trouble with wanting a lot of these C64 titles is that what you see on the C64 may not translate as nicely to the Atari, the whole sprite system is different / better on the C64, if you look at Sams's Journey on the C64 you have to understand that you won't get a port of that anytime soon, it's simply too much for our lovely machine. There are still things the Atari can do that the C64 cannot but there's a release time difference where they upped the game.

 

On 7/22/2022 at 1:17 PM, youxia said:

Sam's Journey is a modern game, written with the advantage of nearly 3 decades of experience in squeezing the last bit of ooomph out of C64 and utilizing all its advantages so, yeah, probably mission impossible

I wouldn't say SJ is that impressive... it just has a lot of colors but I guess that's not difficult on the C64 (limit of 4 colors per 4*8 tile and that's it) ? There's very little moving ?