Games which rule/suck.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 2:04 am

Raiders of the Lost Ark for the 2600 blew my brother and I away as well. I daresay that's as close as one can come to making a "real" adventure game for the 2600. My cousin somehow figured out how to mostly solve it, and he came over when we were little and showed us what needed to be done to win it. Don't get me wrong, you really needed telepathy to read the designer's mind, but once you developed that it kind of made sense in its own moon-logicked way.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed Oct 16, 2002 12:55 am

When I was really young, I used to love 'riddle of the sphynx' for the Atari 2600. You walked around washing or kissing people's feet or something and avoided snakes and what not. To me, there seemed to be something more to it beneath the surface, and it was pretty much that game that showed me how great it is to fool the player into thinking there's more, something that is extremely applicable to IF.

I'm sure this game would not be very exciting right now, though.

by **bruce** » Thu Oct 10, 2002 6:50 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:My first experience with Defender was the Atari 2600 version. It's much, much easier than the arcade version. Overall they did a pretty good job with Defender on the 2600, though -- a lot of games for that system have only a passing resemblance to what they were based on. That one came out pretty well.

Defender II/Stargate for the 2600 is much, much more faithful, however.

Bruce

by **Ben** » Thu Oct 10, 2002 1:48 pm

At least on Stargate, you can get a pretty respectable score almost instantly by doing the SUPER AWESOME WARP-AHEAD trick. Try it, warp ahead, then smart bomb a screenful of pods. Instant 25,000, with a couple extra ships. BLAMMO!

At some point I'll also have to do a compare/contrast analysis of Defender and Stargate, except that where I am great at Asteroids and Deluxe, I totally suck ass at Defender and Stargate.

I remember being decent at Stargate when it was in the arcade. But now I think maybe I just got good scores by doing the trick described above.

Anyway, last night I played Ripoff. That's a weird little game right there. Unlimited lives! In 1979! Took Id Software about 20 more years to rediscover that concept.

by **Roody_Yogurt** » Thu Oct 10, 2002 1:20 pm

Back in the day, I put a lot of time into a C64 game called 'The Captive!' released by Mastertronic. You wander around collecting parts of scrolls; once you put one together, you get a power (at some point, you get the ability to fly to an island to the north).

I was pretty close to beating the game and despite its random nature and simplicity, I was hooked. Then my disk went bad or I lost it or something.

Sometime in the last couple years, I downloaded it from the net and played it on an emulator. Truly not so good, of course, but I still keep it around just in case one day I'll somehow have the motivation to get back into the thing.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Oct 10, 2002 3:55 am

My first experience with Defender was the Atari 2600 version. It's much, much easier than the arcade version. Overall they did a pretty good job with Defender on the 2600, though -- a lot of games for that system have only a passing resemblance to what they were based on. That one came out pretty well.

I didn't like the arcade version because the thing just seemed overtly satanic and evil. There can be 256 colors on the screen at once, if I remember right, but I recall it being dominated by red. Oh, and considering I could get a good 5 or 6 minutes out of Pac-Man on a quarter and all of ten seconds in Defender, I didn't play it enough to get decent at it.

I always felt bad for the humans in the thing. I mean, hell -- feeling bad for human beings -- truly, Defender had something going for it.

by **Ben** » Thu Oct 10, 2002 2:54 am

Goddamn. Is Defender like, a lot harder than it used to be when it first came out? Seems like after the first two waves, if a human gets abducted, you have approximately 0.3 seconds before that dude gets mutated. Then you're screwed totally. Damn!

And how the hell come nobody is continuing this exciting conversation about games of yesteryear (which, based on the previous three hours I've spent downloading the old favorites, are still the best video games ever made.)

by **bEN** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 6:53 pm

Now I remember the other thing which I ended up disliking about Asteroids Deluxe, which is that it makes you LAZY. The shield is so reliable, and so easy to use, that you often stop even worrying about the random asteroid flying out of nowhere, or an alien ship shooting you -- hey, I'll just use the shield! No problemo!

Combine that with the fact that the ship accelerates so much quicker in Deluxe, and you've got the makings for a potentially very lazy Asteroids player.

Go ahead, get nice and comfortable with the Deluxe, and then try going back to the original Asteroids and not losing all three ships within about 10 seconds.

by **bEN** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 6:51 pm

aSTEROIDS dELUXE: 45000

by **Ben** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 2:24 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:
Ben wrote: Me too. 35,000.

Jesus.
Wait wait wait, is that the GOOD Jesus or the BAD Jesus?

No, it sounds fine
It sounds FINE? How can it sound FINE? I demand that you fire up Sound Recorder or some shit to prove to me that your Asteroids sounds "fine". Mine doesn't sound "fine", mine sounds like SUPER GAY MARIO "BROTHERS".

I should mention that I have an ISA AWE64.
I should mention I just filmed a bukkake scene with your mother.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 2:20 am

Ben wrote: Me too. 35,000.

Jesus.

Well, hold up. Does rev 1 not have GAYED UP sounds? I hate this crap. I can't play Asteroids with these sounds. Email me rev 1, maybe it's different.

No, it sounds fine. I should mention that I have an ISA AWE64. I'm going to guess that you either have a PCI sound card or are using your motherboard's on-board sound option. For this, the testicles in your sac ought to be ground into a fine powder and sprinkled over carrot cake. You deserve white noise for that insult to PC gaming.

On the off chance that you do have an ISA sound card, no harm no foul on your jewels, narmean.

The sound seemed "okay"? What does the thrust sound like to you? Does it sound correct? Because on my end, is sounds like this: "CHCHHHCSHSHHSHH!!!!!!" Pure, blaring white noise. Horrific.

No, it's not white noise. Thrust? I am 95% certain it's fine. One sec...

..Yeah, the thrust sounds like white noise. Bug, G.

Here are my ROMs:

http://www.joltcountry.com/downloads/astdelu1.zip
http://www.joltcountry.com/downloads/astdelux.zip
http://www.joltcountry.com/downloads/asteroid.zip
http://www.joltcountry.com/downloads/asteroi1.zip

by **Ben** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 2:03 am

I already had them installed. I just played a round of AD.

Me too. 35,000.

Ah! I was playing rev 1. I will go back and play rev 2 now.

Well, hold up. Does rev 1 not have GAYED UP sounds? I hate this crap. I can't play Asteroids with these sounds. Email me rev 1, maybe it's different.

And in BOTH games
Fuck.

No, I mean in both A and AD.

OK, that I didn't notice. The sound seemed OK.

The sound seemed "okay"? What does the thrust sound like to you? Does it sound correct? Because on my end, is sounds like this: "CHCHHHCSHSHHSHH!!!!!!" Pure, blaring white noise. Horrific.

>> mode if you hit "Control" three times quickly?

Bahahah. If I hit Control twice, it switches to the other computer. Yes, you really do need to configure your keys properly.

Also, does anyone else do this

Doubtful.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 2:01 am

Hi-score after 3 games: 6,370.

You got to 70,000? Oh, boy. Ohhhh boy. Something's wrong here. Something does not compute.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 1:54 am

Ben wrote:Say, I just reinstalled MAME and redownloaded the Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe ROMs.

I already had them installed. I just played a round of AD.

Tell me something, is the sound all GAYED UP on your copies too? Asteroids (rev 2) has the most GAYED UP sounds of all time. The fire button, rather than carrying that satisfying, piercing whine with it, sounds like a Pop-Up Video, and the alien ships sound nothing like their coin-op counterparts.

Ah! I was playing rev 1. I will go back and play rev 2 now.

And in BOTH games

Fuck.

The thrust sounds like you unhooked the cable on your TV and tuned it to channel 92, rather than the rich, deep rumble which we know from the arcade version.
WHAT IS UP???

OK, that I didn't notice. The sound seemed OK. I did notice this:

The default keys to the game have you pressing "Control" to fire. Did you know that my 4-port hub will go into diagnostic mode if you hit "Control" three times quickly? Yeah, it does. Dammatron, etc. So I didn't last very long. Gotta go change the keyboard setup.

Also, does anyone else do this -- when you go to start a new MAME game, you put like 3 or 4 quarters in the thing instead of just one? Being brought up as a kid where the quarter was semi-precious, I can't help but put a large number of them in the game everytime I start a MAME session.

by **Ben** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 1:44 am

Say, I just reinstalled MAME and redownloaded the Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe ROMs.

Tell me something, is the sound all GAYED UP on your copies too? Asteroids (rev 2) has the most GAYED UP sounds of all time. The fire button, rather than carrying that satisfying, piercing whine with it, sounds like a Pop-Up Video, and the alien ships sound nothing like their coin-op counterparts.

And in BOTH games, the thrust sounds like you unhooked the cable on your TV and tuned it to channel 92, rather than the rich, deep rumble which we know from the arcade version.

WHAT IS UP???

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 1:24 am

bruce wrote: and Thomas Jentzsch has just done a trackball version of Missile Command

!!!

I didn't know that. Wait, there's a trakball for the 2600?? I knew there was one for the 8-bits, but I had no idea the 2600 supported one.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 1:22 am

Oh, OK, sounds good. I will use that scheme then.

(17-18 times a minute now.)

by **Ben** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 1:22 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Annnnnnnnd: What control scheme do you use to play Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe in MAME?

I try to simulate the arcade setup (which is identical for both games):

Left: Z
Right: X
Thrust: ,
Fire: .
Hyperspace/sheild: Space

This is really the only acceptable way to play these games.

by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 1:22 am

Ben wrote:Hold up, was that just the wildest coincidence of all time or are you all out there hitting refresh fifteen times a minute?

15-16 times a minute, yeah.

by **Ben** » Wed Oct 09, 2002 1:20 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Do you mind if I put that on the main site? I can't think of anything to write about for this week.

Gee, stop, I'm blushing.

Games which rule/suck.

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