2 deceptive & misleading titles for Atari 8-bit.

[Kr0tki]

And then there's the actual mouse trap, more popular than all of these games, combined.

[bfollowell]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

I downloaded a game called "Gauntlet" for my 8-bit back in the day, and to my shock and horror,  it was public domain 2D space shoot-em-up,  nothing like the arcade Gauntlet game.   What remedy can the AtariAge lawyers get me?

 

I was thinking the exact same thing. I remember downloading this from Compuserve at 300 baud back in the day and thinking I was really getting something, then finding out it was some crappy PD shoot-em-up.

 

[+MrFish]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

I downloaded a game called "Gauntlet" for my 8-bit back in the day, and to my shock and horror,  it was public domain 2D space shoot-em-up,  nothing like the arcade Gauntlet game.   What remedy can the AtariAge lawyers get me?

 

Unfortunately, the game you speak of was released before the arcade game Gauntlet. The name was later changed to Gauntletak when it was finally released commercially. So, not much can be done there; and the 8-bit release of Gauntlet by Mindscape is no consolation for anyone...

 

[zzip]

3 minutes ago, MrFish said:

The name was later changed to Gauntletak when it was finally released commercially

They released that game commercially?!? ?

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, Cafeman said:

There is the board game Mouse Trap. More popular than that arcade / CV game .

 

I had this game as a kid, in the late 70's. I don't remember much about it now, except that it was based around a neat Rube Goldberg device.

 

[+MrFish]

7 minutes ago, zzip said:

They released that game commercially?!? ?

 

It was independently published by the author. The author himself made an appearance here on the forums some year back, with some discussions on the game. I never played it much myself, but a lot of folks were somewhat fascinated by its physics and AI. It's fairly highly rated on Atarimania.

 

[Edit]

Here's the thread about it: Gauntlet by Donald R. Lebeau 1984

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by MrFish

[Faicuai]

19 hours ago, BIGHMW said:

but they are not..... not even close

Don't even need to go to the SW.

 

The most deceptive, surreal and fictitious  of all, by FAR, are every single illustration on those 1st-gen beefy, large boxes of carts, cassettes, etc. that Atari marketing team managed to crank-out with an astonishing level of quality and detail, to such extent that even DaVinci would feel proud of, today...

 

Mesmerizing to look at... but nowhere near close to their on-screen content... LOVE'em all !!! ????

[zzip]

1 minute ago, MrFish said:

It was independently published by the author. The author himself made an appearance here on the forums some year back, with some discussions on the game. I never played it much myself, but a lot of folks were somewhat fascinated by its physics and AI. It's fairly highly rated on Atarimania.

Indie release makes sense,  By the time I played it, it felt too dated and unpolished for one of the bigger names to publish it

 

 

[+MrFish]

4 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Don't even need to go to the SW.

 

The most deceptive, surreal and fictitious  of all, by FAR, are every single illustration on those 1st-gen beefy, large boxes of carts, cassettes, etc. that Atari marketing team managed to crank-out with an astonishing level of quality and detail, to such extent that even DaVinci would feel proud of, today...

 

Mesmerizing to look at... but nowhere near close to their on-screen content... LOVE'EM all !!! ????

 

Somewhat of a joke (or complaint) back in the day; but pretty amazing and interesting in retrospect.

 

[+MrFish]

6 minutes ago, zzip said:

Indie release makes sense,  By the time I played it, it felt too dated and unpolished for one of the bigger names to publish it

 

Yeah, it would have been a more interesting release in 1982 or so.

 

[+Stephen]

5 hours ago, zzip said:

I downloaded a game called "Gauntlet" for my 8-bit back in the day, and to my shock and horror,  it was public domain 2D space shoot-em-up,  nothing like the arcade Gauntlet game.   What remedy can the AtariAge lawyers get me?

That game was WAY better than the Gauntlet you wanted though!  Interestingly enough, the original author showed up here years ago, and released the full version Gauntletek (I think that is spelled properly) as well as a great discussion on how the game was coded.

[BIGHMW]

On 6/4/2021 at 11:06 AM, Cafeman said:

There is the board game Mouse Trap. More popular than that arcade / CV game .

From Ideal.

 

Anybody remember Ideal, they were the same ones who introduced us to the Rubik's Cube back in 1980 and also came out with other great puzzles like The Missing Link.

[zzip]

18 hours ago, BIGHMW said:

From Ideal.

 

Anybody remember Ideal, they were the same ones who introduced us to the Rubik's Cube back in 1980 and also came out with other great puzzles like The Missing Link.

Yeah, they put out a lot of toys in the 70s, I rememeber seeing their commercials on TV,   including the TCR racetracks, which were "slotless" slot racers, that allowed you to change lanes.   It was a cool concept, but unfortunately it never worked as well as it did in the commercials

[Mclaneinc]

 

We had a lad who worked as a saturday boy as well as beeing a customer, Jim was a very bright youngster and designed an electronic puzzle toy (looked a bit like a Rubiks Cube), sorry can't remeber its name but I think it was launched in Hamleys toy store here in the UK, his mother put her house up as collateral. Sadly he stopped working for me because of the toy and I never found out if it all went well (I hope so for his parents sake).

[SectorWars]

On 6/4/2021 at 3:23 PM, CharlieChaplin said:

Hmmmmmm,

 

1) A8 games similar to Mouse Trap / Lady Bug (Pacman-like, shifting doors/gates):

 

- Bilbo (AMC, Pacman-like, shifting doors)

- 1040 Terminator (Antic, shifting doors)

- Preppie II (Adv.Int., shifting doors)

- Drelbs (Synapse, shifting doors)

- Roll'em (Preppie II clone, shifting doors)

and others

 

2) A8 games similar to Astro Blaster:

 

- Hyperblast (ESC)

- Megamania! (Activision)

- AE (Broderbund)

- Alien Ambush (Dana)

- Attack of the mutant pidgeons (J.Croudy)

- Demon Attack (Imagic)

- Falcon (W.Mueller)

- Sector Wars (V.Thorn)

- Space Eggs (Sirius Software)

- Space Hawks of Avabanana 4 (hack of Falcon)

- Space Wars (Byte Back)

- Threshold (Sierra-Online)

and several others

 

Afair, the original version of Pinball Construction Set already contained several pinball examples that could be played and one of them was "Astro Blaster"...?!? (Maybe a pinball inspired by the shoot-em-up game?)

 

 

 

As a side note, when I started programming Sector Wars in the mid-80s my favourite arcade games at the time were Astro Blaster, Phoenix, Gorf, and Galaxian.  I actually came up with the title of Sector Wars from the line spoken in Astro Blaster 'Fighter Pilots needed in Sector Wars, play Astro Blaster'.

 

Astro Blaster to this day is still my all-time favourite arcade game and I still play it from time to time in the MAME arcade cabinet.  The experience was better in the arcade though as the cabinet used to shake from the vibrations of the engine roar.  That sound effect is also something I tried to rip off from the arcade game, and put into Sector Wars although it was difficult as the nearest arcade that had an Astro Blaster cabinet was on the sea front in Southend-on-Sea which was 30+ miles from where I lived. 

Vic

Edited August 15, 2021 by SectorWars

[Gunstar]

I had the physical version of Mouse Trap I bought from either Best E. or B&C back in the early 90's and I quite enjoyed the game aside from some of the software spites having trouble not splitting in half during animation looking like they'd been sliced in half by a sword. Cute artwork and a really fun screen-to-screen platformer. I certainly liked it a LOT more than the arcade Mouse Trap.

[atari-passion]

 

there is also the airwolf game which is a real scam

 

look at the pictures in the box and compare with the game screen. in fact airwolf has never been released on atari, it is another game which is instead an besides very bad   ( blue thunder  )

 

 

here is the cover of the cassette version with a nice picture of the game screen.

 

 

the real picture of the game 

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by atari-passion

[VinsCool]

Funnily enough the Amstrad version of Airwolf has a game breaking bug making it impossible to finish too, the game crashes during the last level screen.