Atari SA releasing limited run 2600 cartridges.

[Tempest]

43 minutes ago, Nall3k said:

If this was worked on for awhile, I don't understand why they didn't reach out to @Albert, or Marty, or Howard Scott. In the grand scheme of things, all of these issues can be addressed, but could have been avoided if there had been some collaboration.

I don't think the people running Atari have any clue about AA or Marty.  Curt was always Atari's main interface with the retro-Atari community.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

3 hours ago, toiletunes said:

Plus they act like it's some unreleased sequel they created and own from 1983, which is ignorant.

As clueless as Nutari is, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they (or at least the person who wrote the press release anyway) actually believe it is.

[Nall3k]

I feel the best thing for all parties is to have a "come to Jesus" moment, collaborate with Albert, Marty. Give rightful credit to Curt Vendel, Tempest for the manual, and continue to collaborate with them on future releases.

[desiv]

2 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

The apostrophe is wrong. Should be possessive plural, Yars’ Revenge. The revenge of ALL the Yars, not just one Yar. Atari makes this mistake all the time, many people do. 

To be fair, do we know that the plural of Yar isn't Yar?  
It could be Fish's revenge; for instance if I had fish and they were mad at me for giving them generic fish food and tried to get revenge on my by knocking over the castle; that would be the fish's revenge.  (Yes, I know fishes is also an accepted plural for fish, but so is fish...  And also, that wouldn't be a very good revenge plan, but they are only fish.)

[+neogeo1982]

1 hour ago, Nall3k said:

best thing for all parties

Just don't buy from them. We know who the target audience is. Its all of us. Talk with your money. Support AA, Songbird, everyone else making this community run. By supporting what they're offering you're opening it up for it to continue. What if opens up to Lynx then Jag next by supporting this, that doesn't help any of us.

[mstulir]

3 hours ago, hizzy said:

Who is Raymond Yeung? It seems he programmed Yars' Return. 

 

See post 7

 

 

 

Flashback and Flashback II were manufactured, packaged and shipped by an outfit over in Asia called the Alligator Game Group.  (I am not aware if they are still in business or not.)  When Curt and I were working on both units, we used to have conference calls two or three times per week at 10pm with their development crew.  There were, generally, 7 or 8 guys on the phone from Alligator and only two of them spoke English.  Raymond Yeung was one of them.  The other was a guy name Ben and I have lost his last name to time, unfortunately.  No doubt, the names "Raymond & Ben" were adopted names they used for conducting business with Americans.  Raymond and Ben would take our instructions based on what we were finding in the code & they would translate to the room which would result in an answer back to us as to what it would take to do what we were asking.

 

A story on these calls.....  Alligator got behind on their timelines about 1/2 way through the project for Flashback II.  Our normal calls were resulting in a lot of "we will get back to you" answers and the list was piling up.  We had to have an emergency call with them on a Sunday.  The day we had that call was Curt's daughter's birthday, her 3rd or 4th I think.  Curt had invited me over for the party so we could have this call with Alligator first and then spend the afternoon with his family in the pool.  Well, what should have been a 30 minute call ended up being over two hours.  I was locked away in Curt's office running through the laundry list of issues we had and Curt was splitting time between his daughter's party and joining me on the call.  About a week later, they still were not making satisfactory progress and there was concern that the Wal*Mart deadline could be missed.  Curt was fearful that one of us was going to have to get on a plane and stand on Raymond/Ben until the schedule got back on track.  He had suggested me, but I had no idea how I was going to get dislodged from my "real job" to go away for a week or two.  In any event, they did get caught up and no one had to go overseas to make things happen.       

[Nall3k]

1 hour ago, neogeo1982 said:

Just don't buy from them. We know who the target audience is. Its all of us. Talk with your money. Support AA, Songbird, everyone else making this community run. By supporting what they're offering you're opening it up for it to continue. What if opens up to Lynx then Jag next by supporting this, that doesn't help any of us.

I no longer own a 2600, so it's moot for me. I did support AA when I had one. With that said, I don't hold any animosity toward Atari SA as some in the community have. I've always wanted them to become a respectable publisher and was rooting for them in Gardner/Harrison days.

Everyone is entitled to spend their money how they see fit.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Nall3k
spelling error

[Mockduck]

So for me the big news from this release is Aquaventure, although Saboteur is pretty cool too. Aquaventure always seemed like a "lost" classic in that the game is really good, but it was never released until the Flashback II. Allegedly (according to Atari Protos, about as legit as exists) it was set for 1983 release but just wasn't, and its story is basically unknown. Saboteur at least has a story that is pretty well known, and it got an AA release here. It will make for a nice addition to the collection.

[Tempest]

I forget where I heard it (Maybe from Gary himself?) but my understanding is that Aquaventure just didn't haven enough gameplay and didn't get past the focus group.  Lots of games met their demise in this way.

 

I really wish I knew who owns that earlier version of Aquaventure (185).  I had forgotten all about it until I read it on my page again.

[Retro Rogue]

5 hours ago, DEBRO said:

Hi there,

 

Looking at their site, it appears there was a copy-paste issue. For example, Aquaventure is credited to Howard Scott Warshaw and said it was to be released in 1983 however I believe this game was done by Tod Frye and not in any documented release schedule.

 

Here is my take on Yar's Return (yes..."Yar's" I'll get into that later). Marty may have to add. He has documentation where I'm going off memory.

• Curt Vendel came up with the idea for Yar's Return
  • Curt liked Yars' Revenge and wanted a sequel for the FB2 launch
• Curt worked with a firm in China that hacked Yars' Revenge into Curt's vision for Yar's Return
• The firm took Yars' Revenge and produced an 8K SARA chip hack in Curt's vision for Yar's Return

I may have missed something things. I'm writing this kind of fast.

 

 Hi Dennis, I talked with Curt at length at the time and he's the culprit for the initial coding of that. It had been his first attempt at hacking a ROM but something he really wanted to try and accomplish, which I was surprised because I always knew him as far more of an engineer at that time. He may have leaned on the firm at some point in addition, but he already knew from the mishaps with the Flashback 1 ports that they didn't understand the 2600.

 

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Retro Rogue

[+Kaboomer]

5 hours ago, zzip said:

I think they need a proofreader,  a lot of these errors should have been caught and fixed before they went out.

Given the company's roots, history and such, and trying to profit off same, they actually should employ an "Atari Historian" and/or consult with one!

[john_q_atari]

6 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

 

I guess my first action here would be to write to them indicating you own the copyright and that they do not have your permission to use, and ask for them to immediately cease and desist use of your copyrighted material in any form.

 

I'm not a lawyer, and this Is just my opinion, but I would have a lawyer write it and have them send it certified mail so they know it came from a law firm and know that you mean business.

[+neogeo1982]

2 hours ago, Nall3k said:

Everyone is entitled to spend their money how they see fit.

This is exactly the mentality that has caused the Game Drive to be $550 on ebay. And exactly why they think we all will just pony up for those 3 games and not think twice about it.Yes people will let themselves get ripped off. But informed buyers can make sound purchases with their money. Paying huge amounts for 2600 games is a rip off and surely they know it.

[Nall3k]

14 minutes ago, neogeo1982 said:

This is exactly the mentality that has caused the Game Drive to be $550 on ebay. And exactly why they think we all will just pony up for those 3 games and not think twice about it.Yes people will let themselves get ripped off. But informed buyers can make sound purchases with their money. Paying huge amounts for 2600 games is a rip off and surely they know it.

I agree that the items are pricey, but I don't think it's nefarious by any means. Vote with your wallet and they'll either move on from this endeavor or lower the price.

 

There have been far worse blunders like Anthem, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Cyberpunk, etc. Broken games that don't look close to what was advertised.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Nall3k

[Tempest]

25 minutes ago, john_q_atari said:

I'm not a lawyer, and this Is just my opinion, but I would have a lawyer write it and have them send it certified mail so they know it came from a law firm and know that you mean business.

There's some communication going on (not involving me personally though) so I'm waiting to hear what happens with that.  

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

More information straight from HSW.

 

PLUS, he's actively working on a Yars' Revenge sequel for the 2600!

 

- James

 

 

 

[Tempest]

HSW is a great guy, he would never take credit for someone else's work.  Atari really needs to do some cleanup here.

[Xevious70]

Wow, thanks for this all this information and discussion. I hopped onto this thread simply inquiring about these games, and had no idea how deep it would get. I mean, it's like Mariana Trench deep when I was expecting the depth of a plastic kiddy pool. 

[pesh42]

5 minutes ago, Xevious70 said:

Wow, thanks for this all this information and discussion. I hopped onto this thread simply inquiring about these games, and had no idea how deep it would get. I mean, it's like Mariana Trench deep when I was expecting the depth of a plastic kiddy pool. 

I am in a similar boat and this place never fails to enlighten me on topics I only have surface level knowledge of.

[Flojomojo]

6 hours ago, desiv said:

To be fair, do we know that the plural of Yar isn't Yar?  
It could be Fish's revenge; for instance if I had fish and they were mad at me for giving them generic fish food and tried to get revenge on my by knocking over the castle; that would be the fish's revenge.  (Yes, I know fishes is also an accepted plural for fish, but so is fish...  And also, that wouldn't be a very good revenge plan, but they are only fish.)

Hey man, I'm just looking at my 40-year-old "game program" cartridge, don't shoot the messenger!

 

Besides, turns out I'm mostly wrong anyway, as Dennis explained, the typo went through before anyone caught it. Minus one point for pedantry.

 

Please can you do some "moose" plural jokes now? 

[Special Teams]

So there's still no certainty if the standard release comes with a box?

[Nall3k]

1 minute ago, Special Teams said:

So there's still no certainty if the standard release comes with a box?

It comes in a smaller box, while the limited comes in a bigger based off the site photos.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

3 minutes ago, Nall3k said:

It comes in a smaller box, while the limited comes in a bigger based off the site photos.

But is that actually in writing somewhere that isn't contradicted by something else they have posted?

[Nall3k]

21 minutes ago, KaeruYojimbo said:

But is that actually in writing somewhere that isn't contradicted by something else they have posted?

Someone could use the email form on the site and inquire. Why render a different sized box and show it with the product? No doubt this launch was botched.

[nadir]

I was curious enough about the Yar's Return to go ahead and order the $50 cart and see what comes with and exactly what version it is.  We shall see...