Atari Games on the Spectrum

[pocketmego]

This topic is largely for the INFLUX of WOS guys that hit the board recently, but by all means anyone chime in.

 

I am wondering how good the Atari ports were to the Spectrum? I'm thinking of games like Asteroids, Battlezone, Stun Runner, etc.

 

Although, I guess you can throw in the 8 Bit versions of 2600 games, such as the stuff from Imagic like Atlantis and Demon Attack.

 

Thoughts?

 

-Ray

[The_Laird]

Some were great: Pacman, Battlezone, Badlands, Klax, Hard Drivin', Peter Pack Rat and Robot Monsters spring to mind.

 

But there were some stinkers like Paperboy, STUN Runner, Cyberball and Pit-Fighter (the 128k music was ace though!)

 

Activision released alot of Spectrum games which were all of good quality; Space Shuttle, Zenji, Enduro and Pitfall 2 are a few I have.

[Malc74]

Most of them were okay, I suppose. Pacman is terrible - it was originally an unlicensed clone called "Z Man" by a company called DJL until Atari called in the lawyers and took it from them. They changed a few things here and there (like the title, obviously) but it looks to all intents and purposes like it was written in BASIC, then compiled. Ms Pacman moves a bit more smoothly, but it's still more of a "Pacman-style" game than an accurate conversion.

 

Most of their later stuff (released through the Tengen/Domark collaboration) is okay. STUN Runner, however, is legendarily bad - one of the worst Speccy games ever, in fact. Gauntlet is, of course, pure class - and to be honest I actually prefer most of the home computer versions of Gauntlet to the arcade original.

 

You should really download an emulator and look for yourself Ray. Just stay away from STUN Runner - ugh!

[Spector]

Paperboy was quite a decent conversion; it played better than the other computer versions at the time. Hard Drivin' was very slow, but Gauntlet was good. Pole Position had nothing to recommend it apart from its unusual (for the Spectrum) use of colour.

 

The Activision games, such as River Raid and Enduro, prove that for all its supposed technical superiority, the Spectrum is a totally inappropriate machine for converting 2600 titles. All the good things are lost and all the bad things are enhanced. Overall with the Spectrum, it's a mixed bag.

[WOS Sard]

Yeah Paperboy and even more so Gauntlet played very nice on the spectrum. Many of the rest though were outdone by non offical versions by other software houses (eg Battlezone and Pole Position) And hard driving is one of those games that if you speed up the emulator to say X3 ( as you can on most ) sudenly it turns into a bit of good game.

As spector said... a mixed bag indeed

[pocketmego]

Most of them were okay, I suppose. Pacman is terrible - it was originally an unlicensed clone called "Z Man" by a company called DJL until Atari called in the lawyers and took it from them. They changed a few things here and there (like the title, obviously) but it looks to all intents and purposes like it was written in BASIC, then compiled. Ms Pacman moves a bit more smoothly, but it's still more of a "Pacman-style" game than an accurate conversion.

 

Most of their later stuff (released through the Tengen/Domark collaboration) is okay. STUN Runner, however, is legendarily bad - one of the worst Speccy games ever, in fact. Gauntlet is, of course, pure class - and to be honest I actually prefer most of the home computer versions of Gauntlet to the arcade original.

 

You should really download an emulator and look for yourself Ray. Just stay away from STUN Runner - ugh!

 

Here is my problem. My attempts at finding Speccy Emulators from the WOZ site have lead me to some real stinkers. I got the one that is a trial version that takes foreve rto load and then goes bananas after a few plays, because the guy wants to you to buy the full version. It also doesn't play all formats.

 

The other one I haven't gotten working at all. Plus, I never owned a spectrum. So unlike my commodore emulator, I haven't the fogiest how to use a Speccy Emulator that doesn't autoload games. Plus, i can't use my joystick on any of the Speccy Emulators I've found.

 

Believe me, I like the way Speccy does some games. I actually like the look and sound of Speccy's Bruce Lee quite a bit more than the C64 one. I certainly think games like Head over Heals and Rasputin are better on Speccy than anywhere else. Finally, if you are not playing Jet Set Willy on a Spectrum then you're not really playing Jet Set Willy.

 

I will never understand my love for this machine, having never properly been exposed to it. There is just something funkadelicly cool about the rubber keays, the kitchy sound, the garish colors, and the tape deck that make this machine such a cool bit of retro funk.

 

So, if you guys can recomend a decent emulator and some usage tips for a deprived yank, I'm all about it, yo.

 

-Ray

[Matt_B]

I don't think there's one single Spectrum emulator with all the features I'd like out there, so I tend to use a mixture of various ones.

 

Spin is the one I use the most. However, it's a bit rough around the edges; amongst other issues, it lacks an installer and runs very slowly on most systems without some tweaking to the settings. The version linked to directly on WOS is rather out of date. However, you can get the latest here:

 

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/paul.dunn4/SPIN_Test12d.zip

 

Some others worth a look are:

Spectaculator - Easy to use and well featured, but you need to register to use full version so not really for casual users.

EightyOne - Nice if you've got a high powered machine. Also emulates the ZX81 and replicates TV-style graphics.

ZX32 - Was the best emulator about 5 years ago, but hasn't been developed for ages.

RealSpectrum - Great for accuracy, but really designed to run under DOS.

ZZSpectrum - Java Emulator. Good enough for playing games online and can directly be linked to from the WOS entry for each game.

 

As for programs taking ages to load, most games on WOS are stored using the TZX file format which replicates the original loading process, rather than Z80 or SNA snapshots that load instantly. Most emulators will speed this up for you, but some don't and some of the quirkier loaders need to be emulated in real time even on those. The best thing to do with these is just take a snapshot once they've finished loading, then you don't have to go through the process again.

Edited August 25, 2006 by Matt_B