Joust

[phuzzed]

Why does the ATari 2600 port of Joust suck? Why do the eggs never land on the platform. This makes nothing like the arcade game.

 

But, the 5200 and 7800 versions are just fine. What gives?

[NovaXpress]

I'm sure that the technical wizards around here will have a rational answer. I assume that it was too difficult to work out the falling/bouncing physics.

 

As far as gameplay goes, I like the twist of floating eggs. Part of the 2600 charm is the way its programmers provided revolutionary solutions to cover the technical shortcomings.

[phuzzed]

True. Some of the arcade ports are nothing like the real version, but nevertheless, still fun to play.

 

I have this vision of an Atari 2600 programmer working on Joust. It's Friday, and it's due. He hasn't figured out how to work out the physics on making the eggs land. So, he turns it in anyways. Kind of the equivalent of turning in your homework incomplete.

 

I think they could have made the eggs "land" on the necessary platforms. After all, Defender II (Stargate) was an excellent port, (In my opinion). I think it's lazy programming.

[+atari2600land]

Have you tried JoustPong (aka FlapPing)?

[StanJr]

nah, Joust is fine. A little easy, but overall I think it is a pretty solid game. The landing eggs is no real big deal in my world, and besides they never last long enough to land anyway.

[godzillajoe]

Wow, I never considered Joust to be a horrible port. I didn't even THINK about the stupid eggs not landing on the platforms, didn't seem that big of a deal.

[phuzzed]

I guess it's really not THAT bad of a port, considering the 2600's limitations. The two things that really irritate me about the game are:

 

1. The eggs don't land. When you hear one about to hatch, you really don't have any idea which egg it is.

2. You have to flap like hell to get up in the air, and you descent as if you have a 300 pound fat man on the back of your bird.

 

Overall, I guess the game is fair. I Atari could have given us a better port.

[godzillajoe]

Yeah but the three hundred pound fat man descent is straight from the arcade game

 

Th egg thing is weird, I hadn't really noticed it before now and I don't think it ruins the game or anything.

[Rik]

Why does the ATari 2600 port of Joust suck? Why do the eggs never land on the platform. This makes nothing like the arcade game.

 

But, the 5200 and 7800 versions are just fine. What gives?

Considering the limitations of the 2600,I think they did a pretty damn good job of programming Joust for it,thats just my opinion,it could've been worse,look at pac-man!

[NovaXpress]

If 2600 Joust isn't good enough for you, then you don't get the point of the 2600.

 

Oh, it's not as arcade-accurate as the 5200 and 7800? No shit.

[Lord Helmet]

I love Joust, even on the 2600. The eggs flying must be due to some technical limitation, probably to avoid flicker. It would be interesting to see if one of the talented homebrewers could do better. They follow the same flight paths as the birds do.

[NE146]

Wow, I never considered Joust to be a horrible port. I didn't even THINK about the stupid eggs not landing on the platforms, didn't seem that big of a deal.

 

Then you my friend were obviously a native 2600 Joust player

 

I'm with Nova.. personally I didnt have to deal with it since by the time Joust was released I had a 5200 and could enjoy it's own bad-ass Joust. However that being said, the 2600 Joust is up there as far as fun factor. I know lots of people who love it. I thought the floating eggs thing was weird, but what can ya do?

[godzillajoe]

a native joust player? i don't get it.....

[NE146]

a native joust player? i don't get it.....

 

Native 2600 Joust player is what I said.

 

Just saying you obviously got acquainted with the 2600 version first.. or probably didn't care or pay much attention to the original Not that there's anything wrong with that.. just saying it as an observation

 

I mean the reality is the floating eggs are one of the most glaring differences and anyone who was into the arcade game... well, the non-falling eggs are obvious right off the bat.

[128bytes]

I remember reading somewhere that the eggs float because, to save resources, the enemy bird movement routines were still used after the birds were lanced into eggs. I will try to find the link.

 

BTW, as someone who couldn't afford a 5200 as a kid, I found Joust VERY impressive on the 2600. After seeing so many of the Atari 2600 arcade ports become one player only games, (like Phoenix, Ms. Pac Man, Galaxian, etc), it was great to see Joust and Mario Bros. come out with all their 2 player simultaneous goodness.

[godzillajoe]

No, I loved the arcade game, I guess I just never cared.

[NE146]

No, I loved the arcade game, I guess I just never cared.

 

Yeah it's fine dude. not that many of us really care either one way or the other either.

 

I think 2600 Joust ROCKS and is an extremely impressive port with all the gameplay goodness. But the floating eggs were indeed too obvious not too notice for any Joust arcade player. I'm not saying they were "bad" or "good"... just obvious right off the bat as different gameplay.

 

And I'll bet most here would agree

[godzillajoe]

Fair enough. And yeah I sucked at the arcade version so maybe the thrill of being able to survive more than 3 waves at home blanked out the floaty egg thing.

[Rik]

I think JOUST is AWESOME on the 2600,i found DIG-DUG for the 2600 a couple days ago,and it surprised me how good it is!alot better than i thought!,from what i heard,the 2600 was THE hardest console to program,my hats off to whoever programmed those two!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[phuzzed]

Wow, I didn't realize there were so many Atari 2600 Joust Fans.

 

I remember when I first got Joust for my 2600. I thought it was broken, or faulty when the eggs never would land!

 

I guess the floating eggs to give it a new twist. I guess It was a little harsh of me to say the game totally sucks, because it's really not THAT bad (Look at me going back on my words here..hehe).

 

I grew up on Atari, and loved just about every game I had for the system. So, don't think I hate the 2600 or anything. It's my most prized possession!

[+kisrael]

phuzzed:

yeah, not to sound like a freak, but I was almost offended by your "Friday at the office, time to close it down" comment (which might be closer to truth for Pac-Man and/or ET)... having studied Joust a little in depth to see how it handled the physics and the sound, I am very impressed with it, and in many ways it puts my own JoustPong/FlapPing to shame.

 

So the basics of Atari programming are that you have 2, count 'em, 2 sprites to play with. Everything else is just blocks. To get as many objects on screen as a good 2-player version of Joust demands, you have to combine both of the main tricks: flicker (one frame it's the player, another frame it's the enemy) as well as careful positioning (making sure that objects sharing the same sprite don't appear on the same horizontal line) (JoustPong actually used a brilliant idea by Paul Slocum that used the 2600's ability to duplicate players by shoving the sprite to the far right side so that its duplicate appeared on the far left... taking advantage of the fact the players are on opposite sides of the screen and don't move horizontally)

 

So anyway, probably a "bigger" problem w/ 2600 Joust is that the enemies are kind of on "rails".... they don't have as much flapping freedom as the players, and the game makes up for it by shoving them around and speeding 'em up and some other little gimmicks.

 

Realistic Eggs could probably fall anywhere, so all the careful work in arranging all these elements with a minimum of flicker would get blown up.

 

But overall all, this is one of the kickest assest arcade ports on the 2600, right up there w/ Battlezone and Pole Position. It's one of the best 2 player games on the 2600... very few other games get the same idea of co-op OR competitive play.

[Dino]

I really like the floating egg - it makes it challenging to chase them around and its a nice twist on the arcade and other ports

[+doctorclu]

I'm a HUGE Joust fan, and would love to see it on the Atari Jaguar one day. (that would be the game I would love learning for on the Jag.)

 

Sayyy... speaking of which, anyone know a way to decompile the code any of the versions of Joust, (2600, 7800, ST, 8-bit, Lynx, non-Atari versions) would be nice to see that to get some ideas.

 

Ok as for the 2600 version, I thought it was fairly basic when I first saw it, and it does flicker a lot, but it is in my "Multiplayer" cart holder case along with "Video Olympics", Chess, Warlords, and a few others. (I think Wizard of Wor is in that collection too.) It is another chance to play a friend at the same time and have some good fun.

 

So all and all I like it.

[jpfalcon2003]

in my opinion, I think Joust is one of the better 2600 games. It ranks high among alot of the rest.

[pocketmego]

I just picked up a copy of Joust for the first time since I was a kid. Its still GREAT. The sprites are nice and clean and for once they give a solid impression of their arcade counter parts. You can easily tell who and what everything is. The physics are great. Most importantly it plays correctly and VERY accurately to the arcade (sans that whole Egg drop thing).

 

It's also one of those RARE 2600 games that OBLITERATES its Commodore 64 counterpart. The C64 version of oust is TRULY horrific and I recomend you give that one a run and come back to the 2600 version. You'll fall in love with Atari's version, I promise.

 

-Ray