What's the most advanced 2600 game?

[King Atari]

Least advanced? Video Olympics, maybe?

[Video]

I'm very impressed with the basic cart remos. He'll of a lot more than I ever did with it, lol.

[eegad]

Assuming we don't count recent homebrews I'll go with the likes of jungle hunt, battlezone, vanguard, pitfall (both) , and I was always impressed with spider fighter too

[Keatah]

Least sophisticated? Video Olympics or Basic Math.

[Supergun]

Skeet Shoot was the only 2kb Apollo game btw. And it is challenging. Not easy to get a perfect. So it has replay value.

[eon2k18]

Stargate cart push atari 2600 to its limits.

[atarilovesyou]

Gotta be Solaris. But did it really have a custom chip? Extra RAM? Kinda how the NES overcame limitations? If so, then I would have to change my vote, because you would then need to include modern homebrews...and some are just staggering. Makes Solaris look like Star Ship.

[Keatah]

Star Ship was awesome, and a staple game for us kids back then.

[Nukey Shay]

I see that, but could they have dropped some scanlines when the mushroom is shot? Or shrink it from top bottom?

 

Granted that would probably need extra ram. I don't know though, the game already tracks which shrooms are shot.

 

Both games only track the LAST mushroom shot...if you alternate between two or more of them, you'd be blasting forever.

 

Having them be reduced in vertical size is a two-stage problem:

 

First would be the amount of Ram memory needed to hold the screen pattern. Allowing two shots each means that the ram requirement would be doubled, 3 shots = tripled, etc.

 

Secondly (and most important), you'd need the kernel time to display those extra lines. As-is, the display kernel decides what it is going to display for the next few lines...then spools that info while simultaneously drawing the game sprites. Very few cycles left over. Certainly not enough to decide upon multi-line 'shroom segments.

[classicgamer74]

As far as original games go, Solaris required a custom chip I think. Play value would be for me Pitfall II. As far as beauty goes, I m still keen on Fishing Derby.

 

I couldn't agree with you more. Back in the day when I used to show people Pitfall II they didn't believe it was a 2600 game.

[classicgamer74]

Gotta be Solaris. But did it really have a custom chip? Extra RAM? Kinda how the NES overcame limitations? If so, then I would have to change my vote, because you would then need to include modern homebrews...and some are just staggering. Makes Solaris look like Star Ship.

 

Have you seen that forthcoming homebrew of Mappy? You swear it's the arcade game.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Gotta be Solaris. But did it really have a custom chip? Extra RAM?

Nope. Just 16K ROM (no extra RAM!) and a very skilled programmer. That's all.

 

Stella will tell you all the details. Just press ALT+L and there will be an info e.g. about the bankswitching used (Solaris is F6). Look it up in Stella's docs or 'Game Properties/Cartridge/Type', there all types are listed .

[atarilovesyou]

Star Ship was awesome, and a staple game for us kids back then. leaving.gif

I knew you'd chime in for Star Ship ...man, the only memories I had of that game were ones of shock and laughter...probably in the late 80s, I've told the story before. This is truly a case where you had to be there when it came out on release...but we simply could not find anything redeeming about the game play. I'm glad somebody out there loves this game!...but I...do not

[Army Of 2600]

Pitfall II, Solaris and Space Shuttle.

[stlouisrod]

It's worth noting Defender II/Stargate is a Superchip game that doubles the RAM.

 

I never understood why Centipede and Millipede don't use different graphics or even color to denote the number of times you've shot a particular mushroom. Is this a graphics hardware limitation? Like you cannot display so many different "sprites" on the playfield? IIRC, it's either 3 or 4 shots each one can take.

Hardware limitation. The Atari could only execute a few assembly instructions in the time the TV beam swept sideways on a row. So by the time you loaded the accumulator with the new color value for a mushroom next to it, and moved that value to the color register, you were too far across the screen. If they had limited the number of mushrooms per row to like 8, it would have been possible. But that wouldn't have been Centipede anymore

[almightytodd]

Another delightful thread for me to follow...

[+adamchevy]

It’s a shame this thread slowed down. Most advanced that I have ever some across is Boulder Dash. 10 years of development by some old school programming wizards. I’ve never heard of another 2600 game with that level of development. It was first released on Atari computers from what I gather. Then to the Commodore 64, Colecovision, and NES. Its an amazing achievement bringing it all the way down to the VCS.

[high voltage]

Every 'silver box' range. After the coloured box, the silver box games was 'the next level'.

[eddhell]

On 6/5/2018 at 11:41 AM, BassGuitari said:

 

Pete Rose Baseball is arguably the most advanced of all sports titles for the Atari--it even has a game mode where the CPU plays itself while you place bets! No, but seriously, check this one out, even if you're not really into baseball.

 

LMAO, was this a precursor of things to come?

 

I didn't see anyone mention Moon Patrol (although someone did say "silver label games") which i think had the same parallax scrolling background like Jungle Hunt...not to mention it had the complete checkpoints like the arcade - A through Z....

[keithbk]

For the EARLIEST game that pushed the system to its limit (before a lot of tricks were learned), the original Adventure game is amazing; you have a bat that is operating off screen (he continues to pick up and drop off objects REGARDLESS of where you are, and the same with Dragons who roam about.

 

I think this one aspect makes Adventure incredibly advanced, especially based upon its release date, before many of the tricks were discovered.

[masschamber]

Even though it was unreleased I'd have to go with sweat , I'd say the entire super charger library is really impressive

double dragon, commando, rampage and kung fu master's ambition seems impressive to me

[bluejay]

1 hour ago, masschamber said:

Even though it was unreleased I'd have to go with sweat , I'd say the entire super charger library is really impressive

double dragon, commando, rampage and kung fu master's ambition seems impressive to me

But the Supercharger isn't original hardware. Might as well make a cartridge that give gigabytes of RAM and tons of more graphics capabilities and make a game for it and call it the most advanced.

 

Anyways, I think Space Shuttle is pretty advanced, IMO. It isn't easy to make a simulator that realistic and complicated(in Atari 2600 standards).

[chewy]

when i think of 'adavanced' i think about different preprogramed before/after gameplay sequences like on nintendo and for that, xenophobe (1990) would take the cake

[WolfAmongWolves]

In the early 80s, I think the Imagic games were the most advanced. At the time many of their games just went a step beyond other publishers in terms of visual and aural details. Demon Attack is a prime example. The way the demons appeared, the pieces flying in from the left and right of the screen to form the complete creature accompanied by that scary whooshing noise just blew me away as a kid. Then, as you progressively shot the demons, the pitch of the music became higher and higher, adding a sense of urgency to the game. Compared to other shooters at the time it definitely stood out.

 

I also remember playing Laser Gates for the first time. Those epic explosions when you shot down the enemies in the tunnel, with glowing sparks flying in all directions and then fading, was unlike anything I'd seen up to that point. Each obstacle also had its own distinctive sound, so even with your eyes closed you could tell whether you were fighting a Byte Bat or a Homing Missile, or what type of force field you were coming up against. 

 

And finally Cosmic Ark: that huge scintillating spaceship descending from the top of the screen accompanied by that awesome warbling sound, the beasties that changed every two levels, and that escape shuttle that zipped away at the end of the game. 

[Keatah]

As a kid I was always impressed by VideoChess. All those complex rules and stuff! It was like artificial intelligence.

 

I wonder why a new and improved version hasn't been done yet?