Is there a game you would buy the hardware for to play it? (Atari 8 bit)

[Mr Robot]

Rick Dangerous

 

Rick Dangerous for A8 is making me seriously consider a VBXE and it's not even been released!

[Mclaneinc]

 

I rate new games on old machines against the best of the system's library; new and old. I don't really think at all about retro-style games on modern systems when I'm dealing with old systems. My mind has high conceptual walls between them. This is probably why I have not found a modern, retro-style game that I really enjoy. If I want retro, I have all I can handle on actual retro machines and emulators.

 

The only retro type game I've loved recently was Owlboy, its just sublime....I purchased on the Switch but got stuck later on and sneaked in a PC version which was out ages before so I could use Cheat Engine on it...

 

Once I realised I was making a fool of myself and it was easier than it seemed I went back to the Switch version...Its seriously a solid mega playable game but it can get tough with some bosses while the odd one is dead easy....Great story and hand drawn art, hand drawn art always impresses me, makes me think of In the Hunt, Metal Slug and numerous Japanese shooters on various old machines, just gorgeous when its done by the right person..Beats most sprite / poly games hands down for me..

[Mclaneinc]

Yes, Rick D just has a place in my gaming cupboard, I love the C64 but my faves were the Amiga version, silly, sweet and tough as old boots...

[+Stephen]

I am a sucker for all shiny things lLamasoft. After seeing Colourspace probably in 86, I bought (in this order) a:

• Jaguar for Tempest 2000
• Jaguar CD for VLM
• Nuon for Tempest 3000 and VLM2
• XBox 360 for Space Giraffe (yes, a $500 colsone for a $5 game) and it also had Nuon
• Gamecube for Unity (sadly did not come out - I sold the Gamecube)
• ST to revisit ColourSpace2 and Trip-A-Tron
• PS4 for Polybius (many other games I love on it, but I bought the PS4Pro+VR for release day of Polybius. I was one of a dozen people to get Tempest 4000 a few months early too)

Add my Atari Video Music to that, and I have one hell of a light synth collection!

[Keatah]

With emulation refined as it is, I can't imagine any software today that'd make me spend money on real physical hardware. Back in the day I always bought a machine first and then discovered what software it had to offer.

 

In the spirit of the thread, games like Star Raiders, Defender, Buried Bucks, Centipede, Shamus, Miner 2049'er, Ball Blazer, and Pole Position helped encourage me to fine-tune and properly configure my emulator setups to perfection. Even if those games don't "cover" all aspects of the emulator or don't use all the features directly - like multiple drives or large memory configurations - they were psychologically instrumental in moving forward.

 

 

I just wondered if there would be some 'killer apps' that would still turn the head enough to cause a hardware purchase now the machine is classed as 'retro'....

 

No. Very likely I'm done with new/other vintage platforms and hardware, except for the odd-bits and pieces for maintenance/replacement parts.

 

 

I'm also interested in how people look at new games on the old machine, do they mentally compare them with the old must have games and judge them that way or do they tend to get a little side tracked with what is on other systems as budget titles in a retro vein. An example, there's a brand new retro platformer 'inspired' by Ghosts and Goblins etc called Battle Princess Madelyn, its very old skool in style with old arcadey style graphics, from the video its quite smart but at the same time basic in look. DO people see these retro styled item and compare the basics of them with the new games...Hopefully not..

 

An example of how I handle that using the new Time Pilot. I consider it its own free-standing effort and a continuation and evolution of 8-bit programming. I would also say the same of a totally brand new "modern-day" game programmed for the 8-bitters.

 

 

[Lost Dragon]

I've owned an 800XL twice in my life now, 1st during it's commercial lifespan and much later when i did that whole disposable income/midlife crisis thing of wanting to recapture my childhood :-))

 

Picked up a 600XL with the second 800 as well.

 

Wished i had held onto them the second time around.

 

Space Harrier..running on the A8?

 

You bet your ass this would be a killer App..but i only have a 4K TV and money isn't as disposable as it once was, so i have to limit myself to appreciaion in huge measures, as a mere onlooker.

 

But man does it still impress each time i see it.

[zylon]

So I'm guessing you prefer A8 version to Vic since you say it over-powers the Vic version, but do you prefer the A8 version or the faster-paced C64 version?

 

Those 2 play quite different, in that C64 is an endurance blaster (takes going through complete game 3x to roll it), while A8/Vic has a more challenging play. I'm actually starting to prefer the A8 port because of that factor. Been finding that a lot with "shared titles" over the last 10yrs.

[oracle_jedi]

I wish I could say Star Raiders too, but in my case, BITD, I relied on magazine screen shots to decide what games looked the best, and for all its technical brilliance, Star Raiders actually doesn't screen-shot particularly well.

For me, in the summer of 1984, it was the glossy full page ads for Solo Flight, Zaxxon and Beach Head that made me want the Atari. I read Jack Schofield's "Top 10 Games" in Practical Computing and drooled over the screen shots of Flight Simulator II and Way Out. Solo Flight ended up being a huge disappointment, but 1984/85/86 brought so many amazing Atari games like Boulderdash II, Dropzone, Rescue on Fractalus, Ballblazer, Elektraglide and Mercenary. Any one of those games would be enough to buy the hardware to play them.

Later in life my determination to play the unreleased Submarine Commander on a TI99/4A drove me to get a Peripheral Expansion Box with 32K RAM and a disk drive plus a Semi-Virtual Disk (SVD), which was a precursor to the Gotek/HxC floppy disk emulator so I could transfer the TI disk image to the real TI. That ended up being an expensive adventure, but I do love that game.

[Rybags]

In the early 80s the games like Star Raiders and most from Synapse and Lucasfilm were a big part of the motivation to get the Atari computer to begin with.

 

In the modern day, well, I have an assortment and my 800XL with Ultimate 1 Meg, IDE +2 and VBXE among other modern day addons has almost all the bases covered.

 

I can't name a single modern release that would motivate me to buy the computer if I didn't have one but with the likes of Time Pilot, Scramble and Bosconian as well as less recent ones like Yoomp, Ridiculous Reality, Marbled and probably 20+ others there's not much reason not to own the computer. Emulation fair enough but nothing beats the true authentic experience.

[kiwilove]

Good topic, what were the killer apps for the Atari 8-bit computers? In particular as when it comes to suggestions about games to implement, many people tend to focus on the biggest, most popular titles which already exist on every other format except for the Atari, often in very good versions which would give an Atari implementation a run for its money. Personally when it comes to porting, I am more for finding unknown gems, pieces of software that may only exist on one obscure system, but the game itself has so much potential that it ought to be ported to more popular formats and may even appear like modern killer apps - reasons to actually buy an Atari 8-bit computer, since the original version is even harder to get.

 

I'm not sure I have an example of a such killer app, though it is true that I bought my first 800XL + 1050 in 2007-08 just in order to play the copy of M.U.L.E. I had picked up the year before. Yet I had years of experience playing the C64 version so it wasn't Atari or nothing. Many of the other games I have encountered in the High Score Club and on my own are nice, but none that I previously had read or heard about that would drive me to include the system in my collection for its sake.

 

Each person has their own particular taste - as to what is a killer app for them. Also what other systems/games you have seen/played etc. It's easier for me to point out 'sleepers' or missed games on other systems - like Snoopy's Concert, Tetris Battle Gaiden for SNES - and Super Tempo for the Saturn - than games on the Atari 8-bit.

The most obvious ones would have been - Star Raiders, Necromancer, Blue Max, Dropzone.

There's only a few games you have to actually play to appreciate it more - like Tetris, Thrust comes to mind - another perhaps is Bristles?

A couple of other games - that showed potential - but didn't quite deliver (needed a bit more done to them) - would be the likes of Star Sentry and Wyzle!? Still not in the killer app - but more like a sleeper game.

 

Harvey

Edited December 8, 2018 by kiwilove

[Keatah]

I can't name a single modern release that would motivate me to buy the computer if I didn't have one but with the likes of Time Pilot, Scramble and Bosconian as well as less recent ones like Yoomp, Ridiculous Reality, Marbled and probably 20+ others there's not much reason not to own the computer. Emulation fair enough but nothing beats the true authentic experience.

 

Sometime in the mid-late 80's is when I had gotten rid of (not by choice) my Atari 800 console. It wasn't till mid-90's that I'd experience emulation for the first time. A good 10 years. And another 10 after that to experience it properly.

 

10-20 years is a long time, and a gap like that (to me) meant I was almost experiencing it for the first time all over again.

 

There was the complete novelty of playing Star Raiders and other fav games on a PC/Workstation class system. Today that novelty is standard take-it-for-granted faire. It's always fun to vicariously relive the excitement through others discovering emulation for the first time though.

[zylon]

The new Bosconian port is awesome and blows away the original era one on C64 by miles. I'd wonder if 1942 couldn't be run on XE/XL

[high voltage]

Since Star Raiders on Atari 8-bit was the first (official) computer game killer-app back in 79, I'd go for Star Raiders II, by Aric Wilmunder, awesome second part.

[gorgh]

I actually bought some time ago Spectravideo 738 (MSX standard) just to play "Invasion of the Zombie Monsters"

[shoestring]

The new Bosconian port is awesome and blows away the original era one on C64 by miles. I'd wonder if 1942 couldn't be run on XE/XL

A lot of love went into it and it shows. I actually prefer the Atari version over the arcade.

[Mclaneinc]

Its really nice to hear much love for the new stuff, I worried that people might have got to the stage where they expected great games to appear as if the Atari had suddenly been updated. I can't say enough how utterly thrilled I am with what new authors who have taken the exact same hardware (in most cases) and made some stuff that looks light years ahead of thew old stuff. Things like SPace Harrier need extra hardware BUT the core Atari is actually doing all the work which just stuns me, just a demo of it running on standard 130XE would blow my mind let alone the whole thing, speech and all..

 

In fact its when I saw that back in what was it, 2011? that I wanted new hardware again, just the notion I could see it running with cart etc on a stock system just made me want to see it on the real thing..

 

Of course Altirra has one extra trick, the frame blending to lose the flicker but having played it on my 130XE on the AVG I don't mind the flicker at all...

[emkay]

I remember the experience of playing Encounter! the 1st time, or Rescue on Fractalus. Doom on the PC did a better impression there. Even Wayout! (not CTF) did a great part there.

 

So, it must be a game , sort of likely those, that could trigger something

[Jetboot Jack]

Not many, but...

 

The Konami SCC carts made me buy an MSX (Particularly F-1 Spirit: The Way To Formula-1)

 

Wave Race made me buy an N64

 

Lugi's Mansion forced my hand on the Game Cube

 

Breath of the Wild pushed me into Switch ownership

 

sTeVE

[HiassofT]

I have to say, Thimbleweed Park was a retro style game that I really enjoyed on modern hardware

Yes, Thinbleweed Park is great (if you like point-and-click adventures), I also enjoyed it a lot.

 

I also liked VVVVVV a lot - a very fast paced, rather hard (but not frustrating / unfair) "jump"-and-run game with very nice soundtrack.

 

Coming back to the original question(s): I'm well equipped with Atari upgrades and don't have any plans to buy any more for some specific program/game. I don't have a VBXE (no space for an RGB monitor on my desk) or some CPU upgrade like rapidus etc - personally I'm not interested in such things.

 

I'm not much of a gamer and actually don't care much about the platform it runs on - I've been playing on Atari 8bit, (Linux) PCs, Android and a few emulators (mainly MAME) and the only thing that matters to me is good gameplay and that they are fun to play.

 

so long,

 

Hias

[gozar]

Hydro Thunder was the reason I got a Dreamcast.

[sargie]

After moving from the UK to the US I got a PAL 800xl so I could play Dropzone properly again.

[adam242]

Lugi's Mansion forced my hand on the Game Cube

 

 

For me, it was Super Mario Sunshine.

 

Bought my 99/4a primarily for Parsec and Microsurgeon.

[a8isa1]

I'm not sure a game alone would draw me to buy real hardware but I love these combinations of game and controller.

 

- Super Breakout and Atari's paddle controller.

 

- Missile Command+ and an old converted Logitech bus mouse. (I don't know the resolution of the mouse. Guessing 100 DPI).

 

The combinations are perfect!

 

-a8isa1

[high voltage]

 

If we mention other hardware....

 

The inflatable chair made me pre-order the Game Cube (only available for pre-orders)….

 

And yes, Pac-Man made me buy an Atari 2600.

 

The huge amount of UK software made me buy a C64

Edited December 13, 2018 by high voltage

[Mclaneinc]

Ha ha...So many reason to buy machines...

 

I had one of the gamecube bags, someone gave me one from somewhere, gave it to my daughter...

 

Is the lovely lady in the picture the Suzana you have at the bottom of the post?

 

A content look on your face...Nice...

 

Paul..

Edited December 13, 2018 by Mclaneinc