Lord Thag Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 Interesting. I had no idea that there was a bad rom. It's a common cart, so I rarely load it of SD card and just pop the original cart in. And I agree, this is an excellent game. One of the best Daefender ports of the era, in point of fact. Cranked up to hard, it's on par difficulty wise as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 The only mystery remaining is... how did the person who cracked the game and introduced the bug not *notice* the bug? It's pretty noticeable if you finish level 1 without losing any humanoids: they get displayed in a row which is obviously not centered and has room for 2 more. Maybe that's just hindsight speaking? I guess there's one more mystery: who the cracker was. Probably the answer to that is lost to the ages... Thanks for the interesting read! I also never noticed this... but then again, I always thought this game was way too hard for me anyway. How could the cracker not notice the bug? easy.. when you're trying to "be the first" to crack it and get the credit with your friends, or BBS distribution network as quick as possible. If it boots and doesn't crash after trying for the Nth time to get it to actually bring up the game? great, send it out! What I find impressive in the historical sense, is how prevalent that particular crack is. It's a testament to how 'connected' everyone was in one way or another, passing physical disks, mailing, BBSing, that it was distributed quick enough that apparently noone else felt the need to try their own hand at cracking it. Also, those who only had the cracked copy may not have ever had the 'original cart' to compare and notice... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 Interesting. I had no idea that there was a bad rom. It's a common cart, so I rarely load it of SD card and just pop the original cart in. And I agree, this is an excellent game. One of the best Daefender ports of the era, in point of fact. Cranked up to hard, it's on par difficulty wise as well. Between it and Dropzone, Defender is covered nicely, Repton was good but a tad clunky. I used to play my brother at Defender bitd, he thought he was the bee's knee's but the 9yr gap in age (me younger) seemed to seal the reflexes deal Sadly not these days Was so impressed when I saw Defender running, it was for my eye's just like the arcade and of course that was impossible Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 (edited) Between it and Dropzone, Defender is covered nicely, Repton was good but a tad clunky. I used to play my brother at Defender bitd, he thought he was the bee's knee's but the 9yr gap in age (me younger) seemed to seal the reflexes deal Sadly not these days Was so impressed when I saw Defender running, it was for my eye's just like the arcade and of course that was impossible Yeah, this was one of the games that made the Atari line my go to arcade gaming platform. This and Donkey Kong. There are quite a few ports of Defender, but few capture the frantic nature of the arcade, which the 8-bit port does very well. Very impressive how much stuff they had moving on screen at one time. Dropzone was less of a thing over here, due to the PAL coding making it super fast and hard in NTSC land. I've revisited the NTSC 'fixed' port as an adult, and come to love it in it's own right. My pipe dream is that someone will fix the slowdown in the Stargate proto someday. The sequel is so close to being great. Edited May 31, 2019 by Lord Thag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awch Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 Between it and Dropzone, Defender is covered nicely, Repton was good but a tad clunky. I always enjoyed Aquatron as a Defender alternative. Going under water seemed like a cool feature at the time. Fun game! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwiliteZoner Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 File this under you learn something new every day. Thanks for the history lesson gentlemen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Thag Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 I always enjoyed Aquatron as a Defender alternative. Going under water seemed like a cool feature at the time. Fun game! I always forget about that one. It is very good, kinda reminds me of Imagic's Nova Blast. I'll have to fire it up again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 Yeah, this was one of the games that made the Atari line my go to arcade gaming platform. This and Donkey Kong. There are quite a few ports of Defender, but few capture the frantic nature of the arcade, which the 8-bit port does very well. Very impressive how much stuff they had moving on screen at one time. Dropzone was less of a thing over here, due to the PAL coding making it super fast and hard in NTSC land. I've revisited the NTSC 'fixed' port as an adult, and come to love it in it's own right. My pipe dream is that someone will fix the slowdown in the Stargate proto someday. The sequel is so close to being great. 2 things, both emulation based...If that isn't a thing for you read off.. Altirra using its own OS may help with Stargates issue, Adding the floating point may also help but if its compatible then Rapidus emulation should fix that..Should be smooth and fluid... Maybe one of the boys (girls) will look at the actual code like Phaeron did with Star Raiders and fix some of the possible slowdown....We can hoipe... As for Dropzone, good old Archer said to us that if you can play it on the C64 and master it then you are just about ready for the superior Atari version...True story....And he's not wrong.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted May 31, 2019 Share Posted May 31, 2019 I always forget about that one. It is very good, kinda reminds me of Imagic's Nova Blast. I'll have to fire it up again. Argh...More idea's of stuff to play again...Just had a marathon (painful) session on Shadow of the Tomb Raider...I don't think my neck will take it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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