Justin
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Posts posted by Justin
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I was really excited about the Polymega way back when it was announced as the RetroBlox. I thought the blend of FPGA and Emulation and modular design would be a perfect way to enjoy original cartridges and discs in HD, and even be able to save them to the hard drive. I've lost some interest along the way, I hope they do well though. Part of it was FPGA and the whole Coleco Chameleon thing just turned me off. Also my "tastes" for collecting have gone in the direction of just collecting real hardware, original games, and not worrying too much over new Flashbacks and Minis or Retrons. It's a cool idea though, and I love that the product design is reminiscent of the TurboGrafx-16, one of my all time favorite video game systems. Here's an early photo of the "RetroBlox":
- socrates63 and Sabertooth
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On 8/19/2020 at 10:55 PM, LeeJ07 said:
Yes, I have. A member of this site (name escapes me at the moment) sent me a box with 40 or so 2600 games and a new 2600 Jr., too.
That was very nice of them @LeeJ07 ☺️ We have very generous Members here. If you can remember who sent you this nice Atari 2600 Jr. setup and games please let us know so they can be acknowledged for their kindness
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33 minutes ago, HDN said:
I've heard about Atari Day from @nosweargamer's videos. I've been saving my Atari shirt for a while now. From what I've read it's all about spreading the word and magic of Atari.
That's great to hear!! A huge THANK YOU to @nosweargamer for always getting the word out about Atari I/O and our events!
For our new members, here's a little more info to familiarize yourself with #Atar Day:
- socrates63 and HDN
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I love that Sega Genesis Arcade Stick. I've been wanting to get one to use on the 7800 with the Edladdin Seagull 78 Adapter, or rewire it entirely. What I like even better than the Genesis Arcade Stick is the original Neo•Geo Gold Arcade Stick. For the longest time I've been tempted to get one and rewire it with a Happ or Sanwa joystick and buttons wired into a 7800 cable. That would be a real dream.
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34 minutes ago, RickR said:
Commodore would do things like put cardboard RF shields in the 64 that Atari would not stoop to doing. Cheap, cheap, cheap ruined the 8-bit computer generation.
That's a huge bugaboo of @Video 61. Atari liked to build things solidly.
- socrates63 and nosweargamer
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Very cool! Great memories. I always love hearing about people's first video game, and the first game they had for each system. Usually the first game is always something special, a big reason they bought the system to begin with.
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2 hours ago, socrates63 said:
I'm probably not alone in this, but I like boxes on the shelf and usually collect CIB games if I can.
You're not alone
- Sabertooth and socrates63
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12 hours ago, nosweargamer said:
Also, outside of California Games, can you think of any other 7800 titles announced, but never came out and never had a prototype that surfaced?
Thanks!
On 8/18/2020 at 3:15 PM, Video 61 said:the Froggo guy called me one time to let me know that my orders for Pyromania and Night of the Ninja for the Atari 7800 were about to be filled. two weeks later i called when they did not arrive, the phone was disconnected.
From what @Video 61 says, it sounds like Froggo had announced Pyromania and Night of the Ninja for the Atari 7800 and were taking orders for them from vendors. I'm willing to bet development began on these games and progressed enough for them to start taking orders.
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I'm hearing pretty good things about this Netflix show. People are saying it's pretty cool!
- socrates63 and Sabertooth
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1 hour ago, Video 61 said:
hi justin,
true, they were. but, a small operation did them. so what was jacks excuse? also, i completely sold out of the froggo 7800 games repeatedly. they sold as well as double dragon and rampage for me.
lance
www.atarisales.com
That's interesting. All the more proof there was pent up demand for new Atari 7800 games during the Lynx era. Super Asteroids & Missile Command would've made a cool 7800 cartridge. Chip's Challenge, Road Blasters, so many others. At least they gave us Scrapyard Dog. Thanks for the history Lance!
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2 minutes ago, MaliciousCarp said:
Holy Carp - I finally finished the race! For me switching to a gamepad made a big difference. I no longer was accidentally down shifting when things got tense and I feel like I had a little better response time.
Current score: 67,200
CONGRATULATIONS @MaliciousCarp‼️
Way to go! Keep going, you can tell when you start to get the feel down.
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Here are a few Pro-Tips for breaking 70,000 Points on Seaside in Pole Position II:
Qualify By Getting The Pole Position First
The difference between Qualifying in 2nd and Qualifying with the Pole Position is starting the race with an extra 2,000 Points. That makes all the difference at the end when you're trying to squeeze every last point you can out of the game.
Passing Cars Is How You Rack Up Extra Points
Get to the end as quickly as you can (banking time gives you bonus points for every second left on the clock!) and pass as many cars as you can on the way. At the end of the game you receive a bonus of 50 Passing Points for ever car you pass. Those points really add up.
Driving On The Grass Is Okay
Sometimes there's no choice. You quickly approach two or three cars that are blocking your path. You can either squeeze through, crash, slow down, drive on the grass to pass them. Driving on the slows you down, but if you only do it for a second to get around a cluster of cars it's not that bad.
Upshift at 100 mph
Shift it into Hi Gear when you hit 100 mph for the optimal shift. This really needs to happen at 120 mph, but you accelerate so fast that the hand/eye coordination time it takes to hit 100 mph and press the d-pad or joystick to upshift times it perfectly. Doing this will give you smooth, orchestral acceleration for optimal shifting and better time.
Watch Out For Signs
Signs are conveniently placed at the outer bend of the trickiest curves. Memorize where the signs are, drive into the curves and let off the gas for a sec so you don't slide into them. And if you drive on the grass, look out for signs! They'll end your great run quickly.
You Might Have To Crash To Reach 70,000 Points
This is the most intriguing thing about reaching 70,000 Points on Seaside. I raced five times last night, and did really well each time. The first four tries were near-perfect runs. I Qualified with the Pole Position and started the race with 14,000 Points already racked up. I drove swiftly through the course. I passed a ton of cars. And I never crashed. It was on my fifth and final run that I rubbed tires with another car and crashed out. "I still have plenty of time banked on the clock, I might be able to finish this!" I thought. So I kept going. I drove through the next two laps and got to the end with time to spare. When the bonus points were added up at the end, it looked like I had passed a few more cars than on my previous runs. Is this because I crashed? Is there something in the game that gives you more cars to pass as you're getting back up to speed after a crash? 🤔
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1 hour ago, RickR said:
It looks @Justin didn't even finish the race on that 70k run! So close, though.
I finished 🙂 The picture you're seeing is at the beginning of the screen in "Attract Mode". I waited for all of the time bonus points and passing bonus points to be tallied up into the final score, then the screen says "Game Over" for like 3 seconds and then goes into Attract Mode. Which is fine, because it still displays your score in attract mode. That's what you're seeing the picture, the start of an Attract Mode race, not the end of mine.
1 hour ago, RickR said:The best I've done on the initial qualifying is 3rd (and I usually get 4th). Maybe getting the pole position is the key to getting 70k?
I don't know that it's "the key" but it's definitely necessary in my experience. I think the key might be crashing and recovering, but I'll get to that in a min.
1 hour ago, nosweargamer said:However I won the pole and finished the race, but still needed 1500 to break 70k. Maybe there's some randomness to how many cars you'll have a chance to pass?
Same here. I think you're on to something.
- RickR and Sabertooth
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9 minutes ago, nosweargamer said:
Sometimes you just let Jordan be Jordan, and accept that you're Isaiah Thomas 😁
Hey man I'm from Detroit, I LOVE Isaiah! BAD BOYS BAD BOYS!! 🏀
- socrates63 and nosweargamer
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5 hours ago, nosweargamer said:
Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars, guys. I want to see you enter the Seaside 70,000 Points Club! This would be my second win in a row and I never want to win my own events. I'm just here to challenge you guys like a 2nd Player. We still have a week to go! Good luck everyone!
- MaliciousCarp and Sabertooth
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1 hour ago, RickR said:
Also, "Family", which should be considered "Best of Both Worlds Part 3" IMO. It's also pretty great.
I agree with that thinking. That will forever be in my head canon.
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4 minutes ago, Atari 5200 Guy said:
Of course they did. But not just those. They also had to worry about Castlevania, Mega Man, Blaster Master, all of which are top-notch games on the NES. I'm surprised to see Atari made any games for the NES considering the games being made.
You see what I'm saying. If you want me to list every decent game release for the NES I can. The Atari 7800 and initial lineup of games was absolutely incredible in 1984.
This perception that the 7800 began in 1986 is a fallacy. Never should've happened. By 1987 they were 4-5 years deep into the 7800 and still releasing only a handful of games that appeared dated and most paled in comparison to what was popular on the NES. PC Engine was being released that year in Japan and Genesis followed soon after. By that point the market potential for the 7800 had been pissed into the wind and it's a shame because it's a capable system, especially with RAM on the cartridge.
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One day people will feel at ease discussing the outright sabotage that went on in dark rooms at Atari. Too many people with agendas. It's been long enough.
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30 minutes ago, HDN said:
@Justin I would argue that the 7800s own time was in 1986, not 1984.
The technology and games were two years old by 1986 and that was never intended. The technology and first wave of games were developed in 1983-1984 for a 1984 release. Atari 7800 systems and games made it out the door and were sold in the summer of 1984. The Atari 7800 was the Neo•Geo of 1984, and then they sat in a warehouse frozen in time for two years. I can't think of any other million-selling video game system with wide release that was held back for two years like that and not supported.
Even by 1986 any serious game developer would be looking at Nintendo and going toe-to-toe with Metroid, Super Mario Bros, Zelda.
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That being said, E.T. was not the worst game ever, and E.T. did not cause the video game market to crash. It attempted to do too much with too little and set expectations high with the E.T. name. HSW attempted to do something on the 2600 that was very close to The Legend of Zelda on the NES in concept. HSW tried to tell a story and allow the player to live out the E.T. adventure on screen. You can't do that without two fire buttons, start and select, and text on screen. Text went into the manual which nobody read.
By the start of 1983 a world class company like Atari should have had a new system ready to release that was on par or greater than the Famicom / NES. They did not. So this great little adventure game got stuffed into the 2600, because that's how Atari looked at their customers.
2 hours ago, RickR said:Listen guys, I get it. I understand those games are fun. But I think I should explain the timing of those games. The Colecovision was coming. It had graphics that LOOKED great. The 5200 was coming. It could play a much better version of Defender or Pac Man. The Atari 8-bit computer had much better versions of those games already.
2 hours ago, RickR said:Pac-Man, Defender, ET, Raiders. These were the games that told you it was time to move on from your beloved 2600 to something new and better. And most kids did.
55 minutes ago, socrates63 said:It really showed that time was up on the 2600, and I moved on to the 800.
35 minutes ago, RickR said:Like you, I moved on to the Commodore VIC-20 (which had an amazing port of Defender and a mediocre Pac Man) and then got an Atari 800XL in 1984.
All these first hand accounts of our Atari I/O friends moving on from the Atari 2600 by 1982 to the ColecoVision, Commodore and Atari computers, and others. This buoys my argument that there should've been plenty of other platforms for the industry to move onto by 1983, and having a couple bad games on the 2600 in its waning years weren't single handedly responsible for the collapse of the industry as a whole.
- socrates63, RickR and Sabertooth
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23 minutes ago, socrates63 said:
there were a lot of 2600 games that we perceived at the time as disappointing. Activision showed what was possible on the 2600 -- games with great mechanics and attractive colorful flicker-free graphics -- and games like Pitfall! raised my expectations. Atari had a lot of great licenses but released many clunky ports on the 2600.
Really makes you think what Atari was doing in 1982 / 1983. For all the romanced history we hear about co-ed hot tub meetings and joint sessions up on the roof, Activision were the most talented guys in the room who walked out the door to do their own thing, and they did top quality work. Atari let this happen. What was left of the 2600 games group gave us SwordQuest etc. Meanwhile some genius MIT students at GCC were delivering the most quality 2600 / 5200 games in 1983, and Atari engineers talk like they were surprised when the 7800 showed up on their doorstep one day. Totally off the rails.
- RickR and socrates63
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1 hour ago, HDN said:
No, but what on the 7800 was? Maybe Commando? Ikari Warriors? Poor system. A great little machine in retrospect, but it never stood a chance in its own time.
Not Froggo games.
1 hour ago, HDN said:Maybe Commando? Ikari Warriors?
Bingo. 1990.
1 hour ago, HDN said:it never stood a chance in its own time.
It's own time was 1984. Continued development ceased beyond that point. Keyboard, Track-Ball, High Score Cartridge and other peripherals canceled. No advanced audio developed for cartridges. No extra RAM, no new coprocessors or graphics chips for more advanced games to come later in the system's lifespan the way Nintendo did with the NES to continue its life. Monochrome cartridge labels. No music. Nickel-and-diming all the coolness out of every cartridge just to save a few pennies. Atari XEGS released in 1987 to compete against the Atari 7800 and sell off warehouses worth of Atari 8-Bit overstock. Jack Tramiel didn't care about the 7800.
Additionally I would argue that Froggo 7800 games for 1990 were sub-par compared to other 7800 games for 1984.
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2 hours ago, Atari 5200 Guy said:
Didn't finish, ran out of time. But I'm on the board at least. 43,150.
Using real hardware with my favorite 7800 controller.
@Atari 5200 Guy That's my favorite Atari 7800 controller too. Looks like you're a "Thumb Stick Off" kinda guy. What are your thoughts on the 7800 Control Pad, and with the thumb stick in particular?
Way to go! Keep going, you can tell when you start to get the feel down.
My New Gaming Setup
in Video Game Room Tours
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That's great Lee. Lots of really cool generous people here.