New games on an old system

[Ze_ro]

Has anyone here every sat down and thought about what ports of todays games to the VCS would look/play like? Sometimes it's funny to think of games like Final Fantasy 7 (Yes, I've seen the mock screen shots) or Soul Calibur, simply because the amount of stuff in the game... and other times you think "Hey, you could actually DO that game on the VCS!" even if you sacrificed a lot of the graphics, you could keep a lot of the gameplay and fun (For example, my plans for Crazy Taxi).

 

To get the discussion rolling... can you imagine Jeff Minter doing a port of Tempest 2000? Particle effects on a VCS! Maybe he could hack a Supercharger into a Virtual Light Machine

 

--Zero

[Parcel]

I thought Crazy Taxi was a tremendous idea actually. Im a big fan of that game(and Sega in general) due to its originality. I also think 18 Wheeler would be pretty cool, tho it is really just a racing game more or less. There is also an Ambulance game similar to Crazy Taxi, I have never played it tho.

[moycon]

Yeah I saw that ambulance game... Pretty hiliarious/gruesome depending on how you look at it....You see a pic of the person your transporting with a heart monitor attached to him. Everytime you hit something...He moans and the heart monitor gets a little worse. Sick.

 

Anyways to the topic. Id like to see a port of Turok the Dinosaur Hunter to the 2600. That would be cool also wouldnt mind to see Dragons Lair.... Can someone whip up a ld player compatible with the Atari 2600? Thanks

[Nateo]

I've always wondered how the Super Mario Bros. series of games would look like on the 2600. One of my friends wondered how games like Tomb Raider or Resident Evil would look like on the VCS.

[King Atari]

I've always wanted to see "Super Mario Bros" on the 2600, They could have probably pulled it off back then, at least the first one. (I remember seeing a version on a Commodore 64 at a computer convention once). If I had to pick a more modern game, I'd want to see "Duke Nukem 3D", that would be too cool.

[StanJr]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nateo:

One of my friends wondered how games like Tomb Raider

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Its on my list of things to do. And that Super Mario Bros. has potential too. I'm working on mastering 6502 and porting new games to the 2600 is my main agenda.

 

I'll take a 2600 version of War Craft.

[The Night Phantom]

When I want a laugh, I think of a 2600 port of Myst. It would look like Adventure, I suppose. Since the original's graphics and sound are an integral part of the experience, an appropriate name for a 2600 version might be Myssyng.

[atari70s]

im working on a game called MAD ATARIAN which is based on atari collecting in general . it will be a desent game but i dont think it will be as impressive as i hope it will be

[Jun Kazama]

quote:

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Anyways to the topic. Id like to see a port of Turok the Dinosaur Hunter to the 2600. That would be cool also wouldnt mind to see Dragons Lair.... Can someone whip up a ld player compatible with the Atari 2600? Thanks[/QB]

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Yeah im a big fan of turok i would love to see it on the 2600 that would be really cool

[Nostalgic]

Strangely enough, some newer games might actually be more suitable for the 2600 than ones from years past.

 

There's a "virtual air hockey" game - I can't recall the name, but I think "Beat" or "Beats" is in it - in which you use five buttons to push forth beams of lights to deflect other lights down five tubes at your opponent. You'd lose out on the techno soundtrack, but the graphics could be very simple.

 

The Dance Dance Revolution series might also be doable. All it would require is some icons on the screen and a keyboard controller - or maybe a Joyboard!

 

Namco's Mr. Driller could be a candidate. It's a puzzle game, a vertical scroller with colored cubes that you drill through to reach the bottom of the level.

[Mindfield]

Actually, Crazy Taxi isn't all that new an idea. A similar game came out in the early 90s for the PC called Quarantine. Though it took place in a Mad Max-like post-holocaustic environment, you nevertheless played a taxi driver, and the goal was to get your passengers where they wanted to go by any means necessary -- taking out any opposition along the way and picking up various powerups as you went. As you made money you could upgrade your car with new weapons, armour, etc. It was pretty fun and had a biting sense of humour to it.

 

As for games I'd like to see ported -- well, there's this rather dry but strangely addictive puzzle game I played on the Atari ST years back. I can't recall its name, and have never found its duplicate, but the idea was thus:

 

You started off with a blank grid and four randomly coloured square tiles in the center. There was also a cache of enough 1x2, 2x2, 3x2, and other shaped objects (similar to Tetris) which you'd place on the board in an attempt to try and fill as much of the board up as possible. Points were awarded for large contiguous blocks of the same colour; the larger a contiguous area of the same colour you were able to piece together, the more that area was worth. The real trick to the game was to create two separate contiguous areas of one specific colour, then join them up. That scored exponentially larger than simply creating one large congiguous area. It became rather challenging, as there were four colours to work with, and trying to fit together adjoining areas of contiguous colour such that you had kind of cordoned off portions of the grid to be dedicated to a specific colour became very challenging.

 

I think something like that could be doable on the VCS.

[Albert]

quote:

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Originally posted by Nostalgic:

The Dance Dance Revolution series might also be doable. All it would require is some icons on the screen and a keyboard controller - or maybe a Joyboard!

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Heh, I think the big problem with this is that you would really want to "dance" to the blips and beeps the Atari 2600 is capable of dishing out? I suppose if the music could be produced with the same quality as in Pitfall II then that might be sufficient (hey, it is the 2600 we're talking about), but then the big problem would be storage of the songs themselves. You'd need a lot of memory to have even a small number of songs. Maybe someone could modify a Dance Dance Revolution controller to operate as a keypad, which would give you enough inputs for the game.

 

..Al

[woodyi76]

Jet grind Radio would be a good idea. The controls are simple yet cool.

[Inky]

And people laughed at me when I suggested Desert Strike......

[Spector]

I know it's not particularly new, but Out Run would be a doddle.

[Genki]

What I'd like to see is an online multiplayer games like Phantays Star Online, Ultima Online, or Everquest for 2600. It might be what's needed to bring us Atarian closer together. Anyone got a chematic of the Gameline modem? if so that's a start.

[Ze_ro]

quote:

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Originally posted by Mindfield:

Actually, Crazy Taxi isn't all that new an idea. A similar game came out in the early 90s for the PC called Quarantine. Though it took place in a Mad Max-like post-holocaustic environment, you nevertheless played a taxi driver, and the goal was to get your passengers where they wanted to go by any means necessary -- taking out any opposition along the way and picking up various powerups as you went. As you made money you could upgrade your car with new weapons, armour, etc. It was pretty fun and had a biting sense of humour to it.

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Strangely enough, I actually have this game. Though I could never get into it somehow. It doesn't have the simple cheap thrills that Crazy Taxi has I think. It's not quite as care-free either, what with Crazy Taxi having no real plot or purpose to the game. Strange how sometimes the simplest of games are the most pleasing (it's as true in the 00's as it was in the 80's!)

 

--Zero