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Alternate Atari History


JJohnson

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On 12/3/2021 at 3:26 PM, zzip said:

ET was about as complicated as "Haunted House":  find 3 pieces of an object and escape while avoiding "spooks".    Sure they could have made some adjustments..  like making the pits less sensitive.

I see this a lot, but I think the fundamental mistake made in this line of thinking is that this game should have been what it was at all. You had glowing fingers, flying bikes, aliens with wigs, Reese's Pieces - why do we have some stupid object and some pits? The game design is the most unimaginative. Atari should have hired some proper people to make a real game, but they weren't about that. Just ask Activision.

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46 minutes ago, Rhomaios said:

I see this a lot, but I think the fundamental mistake made in this line of thinking is that this game should have been what it was at all. You had glowing fingers, flying bikes, aliens with wigs, Reese's Pieces - why do we have some stupid object and some pits? The game design is the most unimaginative. Atari should have hired some proper people to make a real game, but they weren't about that. Just ask Activision.

 

Yeah, I don't know.  You say "flying bikes", and I can already picture a bog standard Barnstorming-type thing.  Maybe they'd even have E.T. throw Reese's Pieces at enemies so they can shoehorn a combat mechanic into the game.  Might have been a good game if they'd done that, but how would it have been anything other than 1 of 1,000 same-game-different-graphics things that always gets blamed for the crash anyway?

 

Activision... I mean, those guys have beaten their chests a lot over the years, but what's MegaMania?  Space Invaders with quirky graphics.  What's Chopper Command other than low-rent Defender?  Love me some Kaboom!, but come on, it's cute Breakout.  Star Master is store brand Star Raiders, which was basically a fancy version of the old mainframe Star Trek game.

 

Seems to me HSW was intentionally trying to not to do that with E.T., and he's been kicked in the danglies for it for 40 years.  People complained then about all the derivative me-too titles and have ever since and still do, but you look back at what everybody praises over the years in each era, and it's always derivative stuff.  You look back on the 2600 years, and almost none of the common favorites are that imaginative or creative.  Who's going ga ga over Space Shuttle, or Krull, or Tax Avoiders?  I suppose those games have their fans, but they're not making many people's Top 10s even though they were unique.

 

Seems like people actually appreciate innovation 1 out of every 100 times it happens, and other than that, they just want refinements of things they already like.  It's almost 2022; I guarantee you there will be 15 games releases that year, that will be well recieved and make money, which are essentially Robotron 2084 with some kind of twist.  

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Alternate Atari History:

 

Shortly after Gauntlet releases to arcades, Atari beats everyone else to the finish line & creates a Gauntlet-themed Kart racing game. Tracks take place in existing Gauntlet levels ported from the main game, lobbers throw hot dogs & beer cans from the stands, & the game includes a variety of spoken dialog, including:

 

"Green Elf needs fuel, badly"

"Red Warrior...NOW has...extra braking power"

"Yellow Wizard...is about to crash"

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30 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

Yeah, I don't know.  You say "flying bikes", and I can already picture a bog standard Barnstorming-type thing.  Maybe they'd even have E.T. throw Reese's Pieces at enemies so they can shoehorn a combat mechanic into the game.  Might have been a good game if they'd done that, but how would it have been anything other than 1 of 1,000 same-game-different-graphics things that always gets blamed for the crash anyway?

 

Activision... I mean, those guys have beaten their chests a lot over the years, but what's MegaMania?  Space Invaders with quirky graphics.  What's Chopper Command other than low-rent Defender?  Love me some Kaboom!, but come on, it's cute Breakout.  Star Master is store brand Star Raiders, which was basically a fancy version of the old mainframe Star Trek game.

 

Seems to me HSW was intentionally trying to not to do that with E.T., and he's been kicked in the danglies for it for 40 years.  People complained then about all the derivative me-too titles and have ever since and still do, but you look back at what everybody praises over the years in each era, and it's always derivative stuff.  You look back on the 2600 years, and almost none of the common favorites are that imaginative or creative.  Who's going ga ga over Space Shuttle, or Krull, or Tax Avoiders?  I suppose those games have their fans, but they're not making many people's Top 10s even though they were unique.

 

Seems like people actually appreciate innovation 1 out of every 100 times it happens, and other than that, they just want refinements of things they already like.  It's almost 2022; I guarantee you there will be 15 games releases that year, that will be well recieved and make money, which are essentially Robotron 2084 with some kind of twist.  

Fair points, especially about HSW doing something different, but different isn't always good. I'm not necessarily laying all the blame on him (he's obviously talented, and Yar's is fantastic), by the way, but rather on the industry behind Atari back then, which stifled creativity and didn't give enough time for a game to be workshopped, storyboarded, fleshed out, and polished. But by 1982, Atari should have known better. I mean, look at the scope of Swordquest!

 

ET could have been something much bigger and better than it was, although perhaps that's my hindsight talking. (This is, after all, an alternate history timeline!)

18 minutes ago, RJ said:

Alternate Atari History:

 

Shortly after Gauntlet releases to arcades, Atari beats everyone else to the finish line & creates a Gauntlet-themed Kart racing game. Tracks take place in existing Gauntlet levels ported from the main game, lobbers throw hot dogs & beer cans from the stands, & the game includes a variety of spoken dialog, including:

 

"Green Elf needs fuel, badly"

"Red Warrior...NOW has...extra braking power"

"Yellow Wizard...is about to crash"

Now this is an alternate history I can get behind!

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14 hours ago, Rhomaios said:

I see this a lot, but I think the fundamental mistake made in this line of thinking is that this game should have been what it was at all. You had glowing fingers, flying bikes, aliens with wigs, Reese's Pieces - why do we have some stupid object and some pits? The game design is the most unimaginative. Atari should have hired some proper people to make a real game, but they weren't about that. Just ask Activision.

A flying bike scene would have been a good addition.   Maybe once you active the call-home device you enter that sequence, and if you escape then ET goes home.    Maybe instead of using all that storage they used on the title screen, they could have used that to recreate the iconic "flying bike against the moon" scene instead.

 

Pits are weird, they could have made you search bushes or rooms in a house instead.    But building the phone-home device was part of the plot, and Reeses Pieces are in the game, so I don't have an issue with those aspects

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13 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Activision... I mean, those guys have beaten their chests a lot over the years, but what's MegaMania?  Space Invaders with quirky graphics.  What's Chopper Command other than low-rent Defender?  Love me some Kaboom!, but come on, it's cute Breakout.  Star Master is store brand Star Raiders, which was basically a fancy version of the old mainframe Star Trek game.

Sometimes I feel like the only person who feels that Activision is a bit overrated for just this reason.   Sure they have awesome gems,  but most of their early games are derivative or extremely basic.   Freeway is Frogger, but worse.  Sky Jinks, Barnstorming, Grand Prix, etc very simple.   They wowed us with their graphics.  We hadn't seen graphics like that on the 2600 before them.    But a lot of times the gameplay doesn't hold up after the wow is gone.

 

12 hours ago, Rhomaios said:

Fair points, especially about HSW doing something different, but different isn't always good. I'm not necessarily laying all the blame on him (he's obviously talented, and Yar's is fantastic), by the way, but rather on the industry behind Atari back then, which stifled creativity and didn't give enough time for a game to be workshopped, storyboarded, fleshed out, and polished. But by 1982, Atari should have known better. I mean, look at the scope of Swordquest!

I believe E.T. predated Swordquest though.   Clearly Atari learned some lessons, but I'd argue the Swordquest games themselves were frustrating and not much fun.

 

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8 minutes ago, zzip said:

Sometimes I feel like the only person who feels that Activision is a bit overrated for just this reason.   Sure they have awesome gems,  but most of their early games are derivative or extremely basic.   Freeway is Frogger, but worse.  Sky Jinks, Barnstorming, Grand Prix, etc very simple.   They wowed us with their graphics.  We hadn't seen graphics like that on the 2600 before them.    But a lot of times the gameplay doesn't hold up after the wow is gone.

 

I believe E.T. predated Swordquest though.   Clearly Atari learned some lessons, but I'd argue the Swordquest games themselves were frustrating and not much fun.

 

I was being a bit flippant, and didn't mean to imply they weren't in the game, but rather that I don't feel they were utilized well. Agreed on the bike riding scene. And yeah, Swordquest were not fun games, but they did try something.

 

Simplicity is a virtue, though. Wasn't that the whole point of Space Age v. Pong?

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On 12/3/2021 at 8:14 PM, MrTrust said:

Certianly the crash still happens 5200 or no 5200, and the 2600 still does respectable sales through the mid 80s (I said respectable, not blockbuster).  Presumably, they could have ridden things out all the way up to, what, 85-86 without a new machine and still have been bringing in money?

We do know that after Tramiel bought the company they continued to sell a ton of 2600s WITHOUT marketing.   The Tramiels were initially all about computers, especially the ST and didn't seem to care much about what happened with consoles.   But when they were seeing unexpectedly strong console sales they saw dollar signs and suddenl started embracing consoles and released the 2600jr, the 7800 and XEGS in short succession. 

 

But while the 2600 was still a viable product during those years,  the other question was could Atari stay relevant?   The Tramiel Atari did not do a good job at staying relevant.   Nintendo and later Sega had the games kids wanted to play.  Atari didn't have the hits,  too often they kept re-releasing older games.   They sat idly by while Nintendo stole the market out from under them.  Perhaps Warner or another owner would have handled the console side differently and worked more aggressively on the software side?   Who knows?

 

On 12/3/2021 at 8:14 PM, MrTrust said:

Sounds a little off to say it about 80s Nintendo, but they consistently survive because they are fundamentally a games company.  They could never make another piece of hardware again and still be profitable.  Could Atari ever have said that?  I don't think so, and I don't see how anyone who can't say that survives in that market until much much later.

No.   Atari didn't have enough "franchise-worthy" hits,  and the few they did have they didn't exploit (Crystal Castle/Bentley Bear was one of the few "mascot games" Atari had that could have potentially taken on Mario/Sonic, but Atari did very little with it).   Missile Command/Centipede/Asteroids/Tempest can only get you so far.   Some popular Atari coin-ops were actually licensed from Namco (Dig-Dug/Pole Position), and others like Gauntlet came after the Atari Corp/Atari Games split.

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On 12/4/2021 at 1:31 PM, Draxxon said:

I remember there being a lot of stinkers of games, and I remember clearance bins with games for $5 bucks and flea markets and yard sales with games for 50 cents to a dollar. During the crash years, kids I knew were buying up all the carts for pennies on the dollar they could find. I know I sure did. That was a great time in my memory.

 

Arcades didn't crash and the Famicom came out in Japan. So, the crash has to be mostly only in the USA. The NES came soon after here. It's crazy to me that we still talk about it like it was a huge thing. Maybe it was to Atari and their sales.

It was only in North America,  it didn't affect the rest of the world because their video game markets developed differently.  

Arcades did crash.   Arcades in high-traffic places like malls survived but in the years 81-83 there was such a video game craze and overproduction of arcade cabinets that arcades started springing up everywhere in strip malls and what not.  Laundromats, Supermarkets, Convenience Stores, Department Stores, Pizza shops started adding arcade games.   Then suddenly these new arcades shut down, and many of the arcade machines disappeared from many of the non-arcade locations.

 

On 12/4/2021 at 1:31 PM, Draxxon said:

I hear that people lost faith in video games at that time and thought they were over and done with. I never heard anyone say that back then. But, understand I was a little kid. Maybe people in the industry were saying it, but regular kids in their living room or at the arcades weren't saying that. People continued to play games until the NES came. It never stopped. The only thing we noticed as players was there were a shit ton a lame 2600 games pumped out. That's all.

I don't remember anyone actively saying it back then either,  but what I saw is two new trends displace gaming for limited TV time.   For kids/teens, it was MTV and for adults it was "home video".   Remember the average family only had a TV or two back then,  and no mobile devices.   So every hour spent watching MTV or VHS tapes was an hour not spent playing games.

 

In school, one semester everyone was talking about Donkey Kong, Pitfall, Defender and the next everyone was talking about Michael Jackson/Duran Duran/Def Leppard/Boy George.  The change was that sudden!  In the meantime as the strip-mall arcades were shutting down, video rental stores were popping up everywhere.   Adults who were into 2600 were suddenly more interested in watching videos, including those "special" tapes we kids weren't supposed to know about :)

 

But of course the novelty of these things wore off too, allowing games to bounce back.

 

On 12/4/2021 at 1:31 PM, Draxxon said:

Much how the ET fiasco get blown out of proportion, I feel the Crash gets the same treatment. It was barely a blip on any young kids radar. I would like to hear the memories of people who experienced it that were much older than I was at the time.

The way I remember it panning out was in 83 suddenly bargain bins appeared with games.   But this was good because we could build up our collections. 

 

Then in 84 there was a shift in focus to computer gaming in the magazines.   There was lots of new innovative games being featured on computers, but these games mostly did not make their way to consoles of the time because they simply couldn't handle them.   The game magazines talked about the crash and began to struggle themselves.  Arcades were disappearing, my peers were noticeably less interested in games.

 

In 85 my favorite game magazines folded completely,  lots of retailers didn't even bother to stock many games anymore,  I remember having to go to Toys R Us or Electronics Boutique to find a decent selection.   Among my teenage peers, games were decidedly uncool.  Those of us still into them didn't really advertise that we were gamers.   This was probably the worst of the crash years in my memory.   Things picked up starting in 86.

 

On 12/4/2021 at 1:31 PM, Draxxon said:

Anyways... I dont think anything Atari could have anything to stay successful. No matter what system or PC followed the 2600. No matter how you shuffle specs or releases of consoles, it wouldn't matter. People were done buying new Atari products

The one way I see is don't split the home and arcade divisions like what happened in 84,  and Atari stays innovative in games.  Tramiels tried to turn Atari into a computer company and was almost embarrassed by the gaming legacy (back then, lots of people saw Atari as a gaming company and therefore not a serious computer company-- unlike now when Microsoft can be both any no one cares)

 

On 12/4/2021 at 1:31 PM, Draxxon said:

People were done buying new Atari products. They shot themselves in the foot letting such lackluster titles come out by the dozens. Something else that never gets mentioned is, 2600, 7800, 5200 graphics all looked the same. I don't think people appreciated that newer systems were better. To the untrained eye all atari stuff looked the same. We didn't have all the experiences with newer consoles every couple years back then like we do now. Not to mention, the average person back then only had a handful of games so even though you had a 7800, you had a bunch of 2600 games and a few 7800 and how much better were the few you happen to get to experience than the older 2600 titles?

It was not an Atari crash, it was an industry-wide crash.   Mattel, Coleco, Vectrex all exited the market, Atari was the only console maker who survived.   So if it was caused by a glut of bad software on the 2600, that should not have impacted Intellivision, Colecovision or the arcades.    So I don't believe that was the real reason for the crash.   I don't even think the 2600 software glut was that bad--   modern systems have far more shovelware in their libraries than the 2600 did.  I don't know anybody who payed full price for games from these "fly-by-night" companies.   Mostly we bought them when we found them in bargain bins, and if it sucked..  "oh well what do you expect for $4.99?"   Plus we could always return them.   A lot of the bargain bin games were pretty good though.

 

Now this may have driven the retailers and publishers crazy-- they weren't expect a flood of games to be discounted,  and publishers/developers would need to work harder to justify charging full price, because face it- many of these bargain games were as good as the new full-priced ones.

 

I think the problem was less about bad third-party games, but rather how disappointing the "good games" were.   I remember the most anticipated 2600 games in 82 were Pac-man and Donkey Kong, and they both sucked.   After those came out major arcade games did home gamers have to look forward to?   There was nothing quite as popular in the pipeline.   In many ways, the center of game innovation shifted from arcades to home computers.   But many people skipped out on the home computer thing.

 

At the time, there was a HUGE difference between 2600 and 5200 graphics.   We all knew our 2600s were weak on graphics.  But when we'd see the 5200 and Colecovision versions of games and they seemed to look just like the arcade versions (or seemed to).   It seemed amazing we could have graphics like that at home.    But for the 7800, I don't think that offered enough of an upgrade over the 5200 to justify its existence, and it was a major step back in other ways.

 

On 12/4/2021 at 4:08 PM, Draxxon said:

I just cant buy that the crash is this short time where video games died. That part isnt true. The physical games didn't disappear, stop working or get confiscated or anything. Most importantly people didnt stop playing them.

No one is claiming they died completely.   Sales cratered,  casual gamers dropped out of playing games.   The dedicated gamers remained,  the publishers who remained in business continued to publish games.   It was a much tougher environment than they had enjoyed from 80-82 (The Pac-Man fever years)

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22 hours ago, MrTrust said:

This is correct.  What happened was there were a few huge boom years around '80-'81, and a bunch of companies got it into their heads that this was just going to continue exponentially on into the future.  They massively over invested for market growth that took much, much longer to happen.

Exactly, it was much like the dot-com bubble of the 90s.   Expectations of exponential growth, too much over investment.  Then the bottom falls out and investors panic,  console games (like dot-coms) become toxic for a few years.   But long term both games and dot com companies were viable

 

22 hours ago, MrTrust said:

And in terms of quality.  I've played some stinkers on the 2600, no doubt, but can anyone browse the Steam store or Google Play today and seriously make the case that the ratio of good to lousy games is not even worse now?

The ratio is much worse now surely, but people don't generally try one bad Steam or Mobile game and give up on the idea of Steam or Mobile games.   Even back then we knew what the good games were by word of mouth.  If you took a chance on a lesser known game, you knew it was a risk. 

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18 hours ago, Draxxon said:

And just to throw my two cents in about the E.T. Bomb.

 

At my house, we didn't notice. No one cared. E.T. was definitely HUGE and everyone was into the merch, but if the game sucked, it didn't hurt the E.T. property as a whole and it didn't stop me and my friends from playing 2600.

 

I've been huge into games my entire life. The E.T. fiasco wasn't even known to me until I read about it years later. Again, I'm sure people at Atari were floored when it didn't sell, but as a kid gamer, no one I knew ever even noticed or ever talked about it. I also don't remember anyone I know anticipating that title. There was no shortage of titles to choose. I mean think about it, how long could they even had promoted E.T. in commercials? a few months before X-mas? Masters of the Universe ruled then, along with G.I. Joe, Star Wars and a million other cool kids properties. No one gave a shit about E.T for very long, let alone for Atari. LMMFAO.

 

Whereas on the flip side, when No Man's Sky came out and was complete shit, or crap like WWE 2K21, everyone talks about it. There were no real outlets for people to tell each other E.T. sucked other than by word of mouth. And in my experience, that word of mouth info never reached me. I'm just saying, for many kids at the time, the video game crash and the E.T. fiasco wasn't a thing, meaning, we didn't even notice it. We DID however bitch about that shitty Pac-Man port, that was very real.

That was my ET experience as well.   I received it Christmas 82.   It wasn't the best 2600 game ever, but it certainly wasn't horrible either.   My friends came over an played it, and none of them freaked out, set their hair on fire and completely swore off gaming :)  

 

It also was not that highly anticipated among my friend group.  I think we were at the age where ET was starting to become too cutesy.  So it may have been more anticipated by younger kids, IDK.    For us, the most anticipated games that year were Donkey Kong and Pitfall.

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6 hours ago, zzip said:

After those came out major arcade games did home gamers have to look forward to?   There was nothing quite as popular in the pipeline.

 

Nothing that would have been feasible at the time, anyway.  Nobody was going to be buying some big laser disc contraption to play Dragon's Lair on Colecovision, for example.  Then again, say the 7800 hits in '84 and Atari goes out and gets Pac-LandTower of Druaga, Space Harrier, and maybe a couple of others coming out of Japan.  Might they have been able to scoop Nintendo on having these new games with scrolling anfmd multiple levels and bosses?  It's not inconceivable.

 

6 hours ago, zzip said:

In many ways, the center of game innovation shifted from arcades to home computers.   But many people skipped out on the home computer thing.

 

This seems like the best bet to me if you're going to imagine Atari "surviving" the 80s.  If they could have beefed up the XL line a bit to be better competition with the C64, maybe that would have worked.  Though IBM compatible format would have killed them off in the home computer market eventually no matter what.

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9 hours ago, zzip said:

At the time, there was a HUGE difference between 2600 and 5200 graphics.   We all knew our 2600s were weak on graphics.  But when we'd see the 5200 and Colecovision versions of games and they seemed to look just like the arcade versions (or seemed to).   It seemed amazing we could have graphics like that at home.    But for the 7800, I don't think that offered enough of an upgrade over the 5200 to justify its existence, and it was a major step back in other ways.

 

It depends on the point of view, sometimes I have a feeling that the 2600 is underestimated, the small 5200 library shares many titles with the 2600 and it is interesting that some versions of these games have quite similar graphics to each other and you might even prefer some 2600 version for the clean style, a more appropriate palette and more colors on screen (e.g. Activision masterpieces).

 

On the other hand, when I design graphics for the 7800, I see that the real potential of MARIA custom chip is quite impressive and original for a home video game console designed in 1983 and it was a shame that there was no proper and conscious use of its graphics modes at the time (with a few exceptions). But, as we know, Atari no longer had enough resources to compete with Nintendo.

 

 

 

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12 hours ago, MrTrust said:

This seems like the best bet to me if you're going to imagine Atari "surviving" the 80s.  If they could have beefed up the XL line a bit to be better competition with the C64, maybe that would have worked.  Though IBM compatible format would have killed them off in the home computer market eventually no matter what.

I think the 8-bit line could have held it's own against the C64.   Both had advantages and disadvantages over each other.  Games designed to take advantage of the Atari capabilities tended to look bad on C64 and vice-versa.   But it was all about the popularity of the platform rather than the tech capabilities.   Virtually every computer game in the 80s came to C64 AND Apple II.   Atari was certainly more capable of a games platform than Apple II, but Apple got the games because it was popular enough.

 

Atari had shot itself in the foot with the 8-bit line in multiple ways.   First was the lowest common denominator problem.   Almost every floppy disk game targeted 48K and 90K disks so that 800 and 810 drive owners could play them.   Next they could not manufacture enough XL computers in the crucial year of 1983 when Commodore gained its sales advantage.  Finally after the Tramiel sale in 84, many publishers withheld Atari versions of their games until they got a clear picture of where the 8-bit line was going.   So that lack of games for a year or so further made it less appealing as a game platform..

 

So if Atari had beefed up the XL more, it would probably still have the LCD problem with most games ignoring the new features in favor of 800 compatibility.

 

I also don't think the IBM PC & clones were a direct threat to 8-bit computers.   The 8-bits lead a long life into the 90s.   The PCs were a much bigger threat to the 16-bit lines of Commodore and Atari.

 

11 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

It depends on the point of view, sometimes I have a feeling that the 2600 is underestimated, the small 5200 library shares many titles with the 2600 and it is interesting that some versions of these games have quite similar graphics to each other and you might even prefer some 2600 version for the clean style, a more appropriate palette and more colors on screen (e.g. Activision masterpieces).

I agree that Activision games on 5200/8-bit line were not a huge jump from the 2600 versions.   But the 2600 versions already sported above-average graphics for 2600.

 

Also the 2600 Frogger you show is the rare Supercharger version.   The Parker Bros Frogger most of us had looked way worse than than the 5200.

 

But I'm thinking more of the various arcade ports that had much better graphics on 5200/Atari 8-bit:

Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Popeye, Defender,  Pole Position, Dig Dug, Crystal Castles,  Joust, Zaxxon, Spy Hunter,  Q*Bert  etc.

 

Now I do agree that some of the games of this era were not making good use of the Atari 5200/8-bit palettes.  I don't know why so many of them chose bland colors and weren't doing DLIs and what-not when 2600 programmers were doing a much better job in this regard.

11 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

On the other hand, when I design graphics for the 7800, I see that the real potential of MARIA custom chip is quite impressive and original for a home video game console designed in 1983 and it was a shame that there was no proper and conscious use of its graphics modes at the time (with a few exceptions). But, as we know, Atari no longer had enough resources to compete with Nintendo.

When the 320 modes are used on the 7800, it looks great,  but unfortunately those modes were rarely used BITD.   The 160 modes didn't look much better than what the 5200/8-bit could produce in many cases.    It's funny,  I recently looked at the write-up in Electronic Games magazine from the 7800 announcement in 1984, it included a bunch of screenshots that looked great,  but when you compare the 1984 screenshots to what the games actually looked like, they didn't look as good.  It was like the resolution got downgraded (or they were faked screenshots in the first place)

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On 12/7/2021 at 4:42 AM, Defender_2600 said:

But for the 7800, I don't think that offered enough of an upgrade over the 5200 to justify its existence, and it was a major step back in other ways.

Do we really have to compare a second generation system (1979 Atari 8-bit) with a third generation system (1984 Atari 7800)? It would be similar to comparing NES with SNES.

 

17 hours ago, zzip said:

When the 320 modes are used on the 7800, it looks great,  but unfortunately those modes were rarely used BITD.   The 160 modes didn't look much better than what the 5200/8-bit could produce in many cases. 

In truth, in many cases the 5200 displays only 4 or 5 colors on the screen, a few and small monochrome sprites (you have to overlap 2 sprites to get the third color), gameplay sometimes not fluid and fast, flickering... hardware that I love and it was absolutely excellent in 1979 but in 1982 it was starting to look dated compared to the technical specifications of the C64 and other contemporary systems...

 

Then, comparing the 5200 to the 7800 is really an unfair comparison, MARIA custom chip is a beast with sprites, the 7800 can handle a high number of *large* multicolored sprites (over 100 sprites on screen simultaneously and up to 30 sprites per scanline ), without flicker and everything moves smoothly and quickly on the screen (soon we will see a 7800 game that even runs at 60fps !!). In 7800 160B mode there are 2 palettes for sprites, and each palette has 12 colors, so a single sprite / tile can have 12 colors (4bpp !!) and, using  both palettes for sprites, you can have 25 colors in the same area, and even surpasses the Sega Master System which has only one palette with 16 colors available for sprites. The 160B mode is 4 bits per pixel therefore it consumes more resources than 160A, consequently not all types of games can be made using *exclusively* the 160B mode, however it can be a tremendous ally when used in conjunction with the 160A.

 

An excellent example of games made in 160A + 160B are Ninja Golf (1989), Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest (its engine can display up to 52 colors on screen !!) and Arkanoid (the head graphics of DOH and Arkanoid Spaceship are made entirely in 160B mode). These games are masterpieces with spectacular graphics and demonstrate that the color depth can be considerable despite of the wide pixel aspect ratio. It is absolutely fantastic to have the possibility to work on graphics when you have such a large number of colors available.

 

In addition, the 7800 320 mode (320 × 240) shows square pixels (pixel aspect ratio: 0.9 NTSC and 1.0 PAL) and can replicate the correct aspect ratio of the arcade graphics. For example, the NES with 256 horizontal pixels by 240 vertical pixels display wide pixels and therefore wide sprites/tiles compared to arcade graphics / 7800 320 mode (same goes for ColecoVision, Sega Master System, CoCo 3, SNES, etc., for these systems the pixel aspect ratio is approximately 1.2 NTSC and 1.4 PAL). Also, when you have only 240 vertical pixels it may be useful to place a extra display (scores, status, etc.) on the right side of the main game but in this case the play field will be compromised if you have only 256 horizontal pixels rather than 320 horizontal pixels.

 

Really, it was a shame that there was no proper and conscious use of 7800 graphics modes at the time (excluding some brilliant exceptions).

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

In truth, in many cases the 5200 displays only 4 or 5 colors on the screen, a few and small monochrome sprites (you have to overlap 2 sprites to get the third color), gameplay sometimes not fluid and fast, flickering... hardware that I love and it was absolutely excellent in 1979 but in 1982 it was starting to look dated compared to the technical specifications of the C64 and other contemporary systems...

I'm well aware of the color placement limits of the 8bit/5200 as well as the techniques to circumvent them.   In truth, every 8-bit system had severe color placement limitations including the C64.   8-bit systems just did not have the memory to allow bit-mapped modes that were both high color and high res, so screen memory was limited to around 8K and tricks to swap palettes in particular regions of the screen were used.   The mark of a great programmer to produce excellent graphics despite these limitations.   I think the 5200 could have been viable until at least 1986.   The released games barely scratched the surface of what it could do, and then showpieces like Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus got cancelled in 84

 

5 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

Then, comparing the 5200 to the 7800 is really an unfair comparison, MARIA custom chip is a beast with sprites, the 7800 can handle a high number of *large* multicolored sprites (over 100 sprites on screen simultaneously and up to 30 sprites per scanline ), without flicker and everything moves smoothly and quickly on the screen (soon we will see a 7800 game that even runs at 60fps !!). In 7800 160B mode there are 2 palettes for sprites, and each palette has 12 colors, so a single sprite / tile can have 12 colors (4bpp !!) and, using  both palettes for sprites, you can have 25 colors in the same area, and even surpasses the Sega Master System which has only one palette with 16 colors available for sprites. The 160B mode is 4 bits per pixel therefore it consumes more resources than 160A, consequently not all types of games can be made using *exclusively* the 160B mode, however it can be a tremendous ally when used in conjunction with the 160A.

 

5 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

In addition, the 7800 320 mode (320 × 240) shows square pixels (pixel aspect ratio: 0.9 NTSC and 1.0 PAL) and can replicate the correct aspect ratio of the arcade graphics. For example, the NES with 256 horizontal pixels by 240 vertical pixels display wide pixels and therefore wide sprites/tiles compared to arcade graphics / 7800 320 mode (same goes for ColecoVision, Sega Master System, CoCo 3, SNES, etc., for these systems the pixel aspect ratio is approximately 1.2 NTSC and 1.4 PAL). Also, when you have only 240 vertical pixels it may be useful to place a extra display (scores, status, etc.) on the right side of the main game but in this case the play field will be compromised if you have only 256 horizontal pixels rather than 320 horizontal pixels.

 

The problem is by the time 7800 actually got released, the 160 modes were looking dated, and they looked bad compared to NES's 256.   320 mode was underutilized and I understand it had color placement restrictions that made 160 preferable to coders?

 

Also sound was horrendous.   I wish Atari had sent GCC back to the drawing board to enhance the 7800 tech further and target a later release of 1986 or so..   Give the 5200 at least a four year market life, then release an enhanced 7800 that really gave NES a run for its money.

 

6 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

Really, it was a shame that there was no proper and conscious use of 7800 graphics modes at the time (excluding some brilliant exceptions).

Agreed.  Some of the released games didn't look much better than the 5200/8-bit versions, and some actually looked worse (Karateka)

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