Junior and the Late 1980's

[pocketmego]

When Tramiel brought the Atari Jr. out in the late 80's as a budget system i was always very suprised by the game choices that were made for the admittedly underpowered system. The very idea of putting games like Rampage and Double Dragon on the 2600 was just ludicrous.

 

So, I got to thinking about a more accessible approach that would have worked better for the 2600 capapbilities in that era. What i think they should have done and what might have been more successful was not take these advanced arcade games and port them to the 2600 (although even I admit Xenophobe was an incredible translation), but instead go with the Commodore 64 and other 8 bit games that had never been converted for the 2600.

 

Right off the top of my head, I can envision a whole list of very workable games from those machines onto the Atari's limited memory capacity.

 

Cauldren 1 and 2

Forbidden Forest

Batman the Movie

Impossible Mission

Barbarians (possibly)

Aztec Challenge (Of course Simon has already proven this can look even better than the C64 version)

Atomic Robo Kid

etc

 

The commodore used the exact same Joystick interface as the 2600, so no changes would have to be made to gameplay (save for exces stuff using the C-64's keyboard ala Ghostbusters).

 

This direction, i think, would have given Junior a much longer lifespan.

 

-Ray

[D.Yancey]

The Junior still lives at my house! )

[pocketmego]

LOL

 

Ok, I meant original lifespan. In truth I wouldn't mind getting my hands on Jr. As well, I like its sleeker look.

 

-Ray

[ATARIPITBULL]

I love all the 2600 systems out, but I always loved the Juniors size and ease of taking it with you to other places and even to this day, every time I look at, or think about the Atari Junior, I hear that commercial were they say sing " Its under 50 bucks, 50 bucks, Oh isn't that nice!"

 

[Lemmi]

GamePro's first issue 1989

[AussieAtari]

The junior is a very handy 2600, it's the one that comes out in our living room due to it's size. It's like they are the forgotten 2600 (or maybe just too new) as they are almost given away. I got mine as a "throw in" with a ProLine controller!

 

Would there be enough memory for Impossible Mission?

[ATARIPITBULL]

GamePro's first issue 1989

 

I love seeing old ads like that.

 

[supercat]

Forbidden Forest

Impossible Mission

 

Forbidden Forest is most notable for the multi-parallax scrolling. There's not really any way the 2600 could have pulled that off. Impossible Mission might be doable on a 2600 with something like a 4A50 cart, but in the 1980's there wasn't anywhere near enough RAM to make such a game work.

[carpecarne]

Forbidden Forest is most notable for the multi-parallax scrolling. There's not really any way the 2600 could have pulled that off.

 

Jungle Hunt did parallax scrolling.

[pocketmego]

Forbidden Forest is most notable for the multi-parallax scrolling. There's not really any way the 2600 could have pulled that off.

 

Jungle Hunt did parallax scrolling.

 

I was just about to say the same thing.

 

I also hope that a homebrewer picks up on my Cauldron idea, because both of those games were classics on the C64 and are dying for conversion to the 2600 and would look great. I would gladly do it myself if I had the ability.

 

 

Oh and I love that Under 50 bucks commercial. I think of it everytime I hear or read the word Atari.

 

-Ray

Edited July 26, 2006 by pocketmego

[A.J. Franzman]

Forbidden Forest is most notable for the multi-parallax scrolling. There's not really any way the 2600 could have pulled that off.

Jungle Hunt did parallax scrolling.

See also:

Moon Patrol

Road Runner

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

[pocketmego]

So having determined that Forbidden Forest is at least partially possible, it would look decent too, as the original was considered a bit chunky by the later graphics standards of the C-64.

 

In fact the lead character really looked quite a bit like he came from the 2600, or at least 5200.

 

-Ray