7800 Pro Gamer

It's a homebrew that Propane13 announced in 2012 and can be found here https://atariage.com/forums/topic/200199-get-lost/. I wrote it off for a while but it's actually a pretty expansive adventure with some great ideas. Every time I thought I saw everything, I would find another path to a new area. You venture from the ground, to the clouds and castle, to caves and underwater collecting gems. The graphics are definitely the weakest part of this game but don't let that prevent you from trying it. It's an impressively large 7800 game that comes from the time just before the homebrew boom of the 7800.

Sorry for the many typos. I wrote this while I was still drinking my coffee lol.

Right now the 7800 is getting a lot of support and it's great to see. Lots of developers have been busy bringing their projects to life on the Prosystem and use Atari kids are reaping the benefits. But the truth is, us Atari kids are getting up there in age. It won't be long before we are filling the nursing homes and eating supper at 3 o clock so we can be in bed by 7. That being said I talked to my kids about my Atari collection and how interested they are in playing it when I'm gone. And the answer is they aren't. Aside from the few games we play together it's all getting dumped when I'm gone, and that doesn't big me. But what does bug me are the many awesome games that we want to play that might not get finished or released. There is no point on holding onto these dumps or projects! Let's support developers so we can experience these games while there is still an audience for them! Here's a few that I'm worried we won't get full finished versions of: Toki - I heard that the NTSC conversion is done. There's a ton of rumors but this one just needs to be released already! GET LOST! - This homebrew project from the early 2010s is a fantastic idea and works better than it looks. The project was rolling until a big derailed the project. We need a final version ASAP and I'd you haven't tried it you should! PETSCII Robots - My worry about this one is how many ports are actively being worked on. I could see the 7800 version getting overlooked easily and that would be a shame. Let The 8 Bit Guy know we want it! Are there anymore you can think of? Let's discuss!

It made little sense indeed. I could see selling boxed copies in PAL but for the US it makes no sense. Of course today I'm not complaining because the box looks uniform on my shelf but I do wish they would've included a boxed copy with the console. As stated before I don't think it's fair to compare smb and pp2 so I won't. 1984 and 1986 were very different in terms of video games but i still think pole position 2 has it's place on the Prosystem.

You are correct, I guess I'm thinking in context of the US because that's my personal experience. I personally play a lot more Asteroids than Pole Position 2 today, but being a young gamer in the late 80s I seemed to naturally gravitate towards pole position 2. So I'm not sure if I could call one definitely better or not. It's all subjective I suppose.

That's a good point, there is some variety in the tracks and by extension a variety of difficulty. It seems like we all agree that it wasn't a bad pack in but is there anybody out there that wants to argue that it was a bad pack in?

At the time, and again I was a very young child, but I was not disappointed with it being the pack in. But today people point to it as being a poor choice. There was definitely better games that could've been packed in but I just don't think it was a mistake especially at the time.

I got the newest Atari 7800 release in the mail today! It's a text adventure and a sequel to the original Journey of Snail! Contact FrankoDragon if you want your copy! Let's discuss the game here if anybody is interested!

I'm working on a review of Pole Position 2 and while I played these games as a kid when they were new or relevant, I was too young to understand the landscape of the industry or anything else. I want to address Pole Position 2 being the pack in and my research shows that it was a popular arcade game, so much so that it was in RePlay magazines top 6 cabinets three years straight, being first in 1984, top 5 in 85 and 6th in 86. Was it a popular arcade game by anybody's recollection and did it have a wow factor or popularity in the local arcades of the time? Any first hand accounts of it's reputation in the arcades or as an arcade game? I ask because I want to get an understanding of the decision as a pack in and arcade popularity would make sense. I also have a few other thoughts that I'm saving for the review. I thought the only port was the 7800 but it appears to of had a commodore 64 release too. Was their any other releases outside of namco collection that I'm missing? And of course I want input and opinions and any thoughts regarding the 7800 game, the arcade, or it being he pack in. It would be a great help to my writing. Thanks everybody!

Lol it's definitely a practical pick up. Depends if it's retro or not right?

Allied record exchange, a store that I primarily go to for records, not video games, had a bunch of Jaguar carts for some reason. The prices weren't bad at all either. I think it's the first time I saw Jaguar stuff in the wild in at least 5 years, probably more. I have most of what I want but they also had Zool 2, Bubsy, Theme Park, Club Drive, and Kasumi Ninja. They'll be a nice find for another local collector I hope.

Recent pickups from the last two days. I gave away most of my 7800 retrogameboyz pads with the 7800s I gave for Christmas gifts. So I got another, picked up operation wolf for a few dollars and got a good deal on 2 Jaguar games I've been wanting for a few years. Feeling good.

Speaking of homebrew the journey of snail 2 the new world was announced on Facebook via the 7800 homebrew group last night. Right now the only way to obtain a copy is to message FrankoDragon on atariage and it runs 35 before shipping. Also in the comment section it was asked if the first journey of snail was going to be available and I guess a limited special release is coming soon. Don't miss out once these sell they don't usually make more.

I would be willing to try it in the future. I don't usually have much to sell, I don't have much in my own collection I want to get rid of. I was considering a complete Jaguar collection but thought better of it and sold off some of those and I sold a few back up consoles. Sometimes I find good deals and I pick them up and usually end up selling them but I've stopped doing that lately because I couldn't sell them as easily as I said. I'll try it next time I have something.

I want to start off by saying I love GOSUB on the 7800! It was a fantastic experience, simple to pick up and a lot of fun to learn. It's a solid play for an evening or afternoon, and it's a bit cheaper than other games I've purchased off of other websites. I got it from 2600connection, but I couldn't find it listed anywhere on his Facebook or Website. I had to send him an email and ask him if he had any left, PayPal him the money, and it came pretty quick. It's hard to track down unless you really want to find it, and he has a lot of other games and versions of GOSUB for other platforms. Yes, I love GOSUB for the 7800, but should you go to the trouble of tracking it down for yourself? Maybe not actually... The graphics are very simple. You have the blue background that represents water, along with the deadly seaweed outline that traps your yellow submarine and makes traveling difficult. Then there's an octopus that will track you relentlessly, and later there are even larger enemies and tiny sharks that are surprisingly detailed! Each level had a simple key and treasure chest and the last few levels have portals that look just as simple. Everything in the game looks uniform with the rest of the game and the coloring is all fine. Honestly, it's a boring game graphically. The title screen looks okay, the ending screen looks okay, and the game over screens look... you guessed it... okay. Overall the graphics may be a bit too simple really, but they work for this game. Please Excuse The Screenshots, their not uniform yet. If you sit at the title screen you will hear the sonar of your submarine beep every few seconds. It made my wife ask "what is that beeping, it's driving me crazy". So don't let it sit at the title while you write a review. But other than that the song that plays is nice and catchy and the sound effects are fine too. Again, these things are simple and on their own I don't think their anything impressive at all, similar to the graphics. But when you add them to the gameplay of this game you get something fantastic. So, although it might be cliche, GOSUB is greater than the sum of it's parts. Easily. And the gameplay is really the main thing to talk about here. It's a maze game where you must push a direction to make your sub move. It will continue in that direction until you push another direction and it will start to move that way. So once you start moving, you will always be moving. It can be difficult not to touch the sides of the seaweed maze sometimes, but the octopus that will chase you relentlessly is what really adds to the challenge. You can only fire in the direction your moving in and you can only have one bullet on the screen at a time. So if you shoot at an octopus that's coming at you and miss, then you need to have room to evade until your next shot is ready. It actually can get pretty intense and fun! You also have 2 lives per level which is nice for progression. If you use all your lives on level 5 for instance, than you don't have to worry about having no lives for level 6. You'll automatically start out with 2 more lives for your attempts of that level. Later levels you'll encounter an invincible shark that will move randomly and you most avoid, and portals that allow you to get to other ends of the maze. Not to mention the mid and final boss that requires quite a few shots to get past. You don't technically kill him, but you do chase him off. At the end of each maze you'll find a treasure chest that may or may not require a key and that's essentially the game. Screenshot from WIP It all plays and works well together, but I do have a complaint. This game is SHORT! Too short. I was able to beat it in about 2 hours of playing. When I first turned GOSUB on it was too easy because I didn't see any octopus enemies, but the difficulty switches fix that. So there is a "kids" mode I would say, or one without enemies. But the 21 levels left me wanting so much more. I was satisfied with the game, but I don't see myself pulling it down again anytime soon. The want to replay the same levels just isn't there for me. I don't think I would get anything more from repeated playthroughs of the game I guess. I would buy another cart if he doubled the levels though, but that's just me. GOSUB did provide a fun afternoon for me (well 2 now: one when I got it and one to prepare for this review) but I really don't have the want to continue beating it. It feels fantastic, and there are bonus levels along with the boss battles to break up the maze based gameplay. It all works fantastic, its just a shame that it didn't last longer. I believe I paid 30 dollars, maybe under 35 with shipping for this one from 2600connection (google it, because the website I had led to somewhere else now) and I've spent more on a single evening before. You could have dinner, see a movie, or play GOSUB and have some good old fashion enjoyment. Plus the cartridge looks nice. But if you want something with a little more meat on it, then you may want to look elsewhere. The Cartridge and Manual Look Nice. Shame there's no box... Graphics: 5 out of 10 The graphics aren't really bad, but they are simple. Given the simplicity of what's needed you could've really went all out with details. But it works in context of the rest of the game Sound: 6 out of 10 I really like the songs composition and it sounds good. The only sound effect I didn't care for was that beeping at the title screen, but I guess it's my fault for letting it sit. Gameplay: 7 out of 10 This game plays fantastic. Don't touch the edges, avoid the enemies, and grab the treasure! It's simple but it works! Fun: 8 out of 10 I loved it while it lasted. I felt like we were just getting started with the sharks and portals when I got to the end, so it feels like it finishes abruptly. But I really liked the experience up until then. Value: 3 out of 10 I hate to give this such a low score on value, but it only lasts a few hours with little reason to go back to it. I may play it once every few years and that's it. This is truly the low point of this game. Overall: 6 out of 10 GOOD! I bounced back and forth between a 5 and 6 for this one. I do recommend it for those that are okay with paying 35 bucks for an evening of fun. Everybody else should steer clear, but I do want to say that I'm glad I experienced this game and don't regret the purchase.

Has the Atari XP games released yet? I preordered all three but I switched jobs early February and pulled the cash back out since I was super excited for Yars Return, Sabatuer or Aquaventure. I mean it's cool their putting stuff out but I didn't have a choice at the time. Is there any other Atari XP stuff being rumored?

It looks awesome and I can't wait to play it on my 7800. To anybody who may be interested and Lance can correct me if I'm wrong but there is a 5200 version already. I don't own a 5200 so I'll wait patiently. Just another update while I'm posting, you can play Krull over at the other popular Atari forum but only on the browser 7800 emulator I guess. I'm gonna ask if he can provide a file for concerto and dragonfly owners.

Missile Command 3D was built specifically for Jag VR too but it works well without it. I'm sure Dactyl Joust would've been something similar. At the time yes having the most up to date arcade ports would've been a viable way but would anybody buy a new system for mortal Kombat when they could just buy the SNES or Genesis versions? I don't think they could've ever hope to compete with Sega or Nintendo so they either need cutting edge 3D that looked and played well, or great pixel art, or a niche that they could survive on is my thought. But it's all conjecture and I doubt carving a niche, especially one that wouldn't truly exist for a long time was viable either,ni just would've liked to seen them go that route

When it came to reviewing Double Dragon for the 7800, I had to make a serious decision of what I'm doing here. Am I relaying my experience with a game and giving a grade based on that, or am I recommending games to my audience of probably 4 guys who already play and own the games I'm talking about. Okay well I guess I'm assuming these will each an audience of literally dozens one day. Think big, why not. Anyway, am I recommending games for you or relaying my personal experience? Because my grade for Double Dragon will be vastly different depending upon that answer. This Box Looks Awesome on a Shelf! When it comes down to it, I already know how I feel about most of these games and nobody care what I think. People read this stuff because they've already made a decision and their curious what others think, or they are deciding if it's something they want to experience. I'm going to grade this game on whether or not the latter should pick this one up. I'll make notes about why my experience is different from my recommendation when its appropriate. So the decision is made moving forward, all thanks to a port of a popular arcade game, on an unpopular (at the time) console. Let's move on and look at Double Dragon. There was a time when Double Dragon was massively popular. It had a few successful arcade games, a whole bunch of home ports, a Saturday morning cartoon show, and I'm sure there are landfills full of all kinds of child's items with Bimmy and Jimmy Lee's faces on them. But now a days you'd be hard pressed to find somebody under 30 that knows what a Double Dragon is. Still, it was massively exciting to me as a child to have Double Dragon on my 7800 in the late 80's. Today it's an uncommon cartridge to find, and can sell for a lot of money when you do find it. So should you spend that money on it? I like the look of the Title Screen too... Graphically the game is a mixed bag. The character sprites look okay, but most of the enemies look similar to each other. It makes it hard to tell if your fighting a Williams or some other chump. Abobo stands out nicely as the massive brute of the enemy gang and I do like his sprite. But the rest are mostly misses in my book, especially when compare to the arcade or even the NES port. The colors feel a little off to. I think most of the levels have nice details and look pretty decent, but instead of using a color pallet to reflect the gritty, greasy feel of a corrupted city they choose to go with some brighter tones. Maybe to make things pop more? I really don't know, but the odd coloring choice becomes even more apparent if you mess around with some of the graphical hacks out there for this game. The animations are mostly passable, but I find it strange to pick up a baseball bat and see your character overhead swing it with one hand! Why doesn't he wind back and follow through like, you know, the way real people do!? I do think this graphics get the job done and are passable, but I think it should've been better all the way around. I do find some of the levels intriguing and there is nice variety in the scenery. That said, the sprites and colors are hit or miss in my eyes. Abobo looks pretty good, and so does that car! Like graphics, the sound design has its up and downs as you play. I do like the familiar songs that play in the background. The music has that Double Dragon feel, which is really impressive since they used the stock TIA chip. But when you knock out an opponent and they start to blink out of reality, somebody revs up a car motor motor somewhere. What? No....no way! Okay I'm being told that's not a car motor, but the scream that Abobo makes when you defeat him. It's bad, but given the hardware they were working with, I'm okay with giving them a pass here. After all, it may be a mixed bag of audio but at least the bad stuff sounds humorous rather than obnoxious. I'd take that any day of the week. I grew up with this version of Double Dragon, and I know how to play it. Beyond that, I know how to beat it and what works and doesn't work against the enemy gang. But if I put myself in somebodies shoes who was picking this up for the first time in 2022, I'm not sure they would have the patience or understanding to enjoy this one. And it's a game you have to work at to get the most out of it. I've given other games a pass for their trial and error mentality, but that's because I could see a natural progression in difficulty. That is, I could see how if somebody gave those games a real chance, they had a rewarding feeling to it. But Double Dragon is hard to learn, and when you find the winning strategy, it's just repetitive. It doesn't feel like you learned the game and become a martial arts expert. Rather, you found a way to exploit the AI and that's not rewarding. Right about here the bottom of the screen becomes less safe... All of our hero's moves from other versions are present, but the controls take a while to get used to. And you don't get much of an opportunity to see what works and what doesn't. Your opponents have 2 modes essentially. They have a mode where they wonder around the screen to position themselves for their next attack. They almost never fight back when in this state. Then they have the attack mode, where if you get within their reach they will pound your face in. It can be hard to tell which is which at first, but even when you learn that it's just half the battle. But at the start it feels like the enemies will pound your face in without letting you have a chance to counter them. It's frustratingly tough and most people will walk away from it there I think. But if you stay with it then you'll start to see what does work, and unfortunately it's not a lot. You can really only land kicks and punches on enemies who are wondering about the screen. For the opponents ready to engage, you really have to rely on the jumping back kick. And that's the move you have to abuse to get anywhere in this game. Initially it's easy to pull off because you can keep yourself at the bottom of the screen to better work the controls to pull off the move. But in later levels the bottom of the screen is a straight drop to your death. And with only 3 lives and no continues, you can't afford to give any up to falling off the screen. Since the jumping back kick is needed for about 80% of the enemies, I could see people being turned off by the repetition even if they learn how to play. Machine Gun Willy is a BS boss to fight! I hate him! But despite the odd color choices, and the bad sound effects, despite the aggressive enemy AI and extreme learning curve, and despite the fact that there are much better ports out there, I still love Double Dragon for the 7800. I'm not going to give it a passing score, because if I look at it objectively then it could've been done much better. I do want you all to know that it is possible to enjoy this game, or any “bad” game really. Reviews are opinion pieces after all. Sure we back up our scores and findings with facts, but something I love may be something a lot of other people hate. And that's okay. But I do want to give scores that are realistic, and scores that I think will reflect the experience that the majority are going to have. With that, I can't recommend Double Dragon for the Atari 7800, especially for the price it goes for today on eBay. But load it up into an emulator anyway, and you might be surprised at how much fun Bimmy and Jimmy Lee still have to give in 2022. Graphics: 5 out of 10 You can recognize locals from the arcade and tell what everything is supposed to be. But we've seen that it could've been done so much better, and given that I can't excuse the graphics. Sound: 6 out of 10 Even though I couldn't excuse the graphics, I can give the audio a pass. Yes it is 2600 TIA sound, but I feel they did a much better job here than most other developers did. Gameplay: 4 out of 10 The gameplay here just isn't good unfortunately. The enemy AI is tough to overcome, and the only way to win is through repetition. There are a lot of moves to use, but almost all of them are useless. Value: 6 out of 10 One thing I'll say is your going to be playing this game a long time before you complete it. You'll have to learn how to play, then master the controls, and even then you'll have to play until you get a good run. So I do feel there is a lot of gameplay value for the money. Fun: 3 out of 10 I had a lot of fun with Double Dragon. Personally the fun is like an 8 for me. But I think most people will find it to be a 4 or lower. That means that they probably won't enjoy themselves unfortunately. Overall: 4 out of 10 Bad! It pains me to give a game that I grew up with and enjoyed a score of 4 out of 10, but I think that's how most people are going to perceive it. But again, I want people to give it a try for themselves, because if your reading this then your interested in the 7800. And if your interested in the Atari 7800, you might be surprised at how much you enjoy this one. Everybody else can steer clear.

I wish I would've bought Musha back then! Those are definitely wins @CrossBow

Not to derail this topic but Atari should've leaned into nostalgia to carve out a niche for the jaguar. The VCS came out in 1977 and a lot of the original owners were grown up with disposable incomes. If they saw a commercial for Tempest 2000, Breakout 2000, Missile Command 3D and the rest they might've bit on it. Then add games like return to Crystal castles and Dactyl Joust and you have the first nostalgia bait console. Then do battlezone, asteroids, space invaders and more updated for a new generation. Idk if it would've worked but I think it would've been better than leaning into the whole do the math thing and the 64 bit thing. But it's all hindsight I guess

I never knew that. Was any work done on it? Dactyl Joust was another I heard about before that looked good but very early it got cancelled

I haven't played much of the knight guy game, I'm saving it for when it finally comes. But I am very excited for that one. There's so many being worked on right now, keystone kapers looks and plays great. Attack of the PETSCII Robots could be interesting, the demo for Ghouls and Ghosts was very promising! Of course the new Popeye game is supposed to be coming in April I've heard and that's another big one. Theres just so many it's finally paying off to be a 7800 kid, too bad most of us are over 40 now.

The Atari 7800 homebrew scene is exploding with activity. There are lots of exciting ports and new developers getting involved on a weekly basis it seems. Being dedicated to my childhood console and wanting to speed awareness of it as a collectors piece, I've checked out more new games than most I would think. With that, I'm excited for a couple games that most don't seem to be aware about or care about. So I'll start the discussion here with those. Starting with... Tile Smashers - Peter Meyer is hot off an excellent port of Venture and I'm really anticipating his multi tier Breakout clone. You can see early WIP builds via his YouTube channel. This reminds me of a multi tier pinball machine and I hope it's as much fun as it looks! Monster Maze aka It's Dark Out There, Bring a Torch - Think Pac Man with limited visibility in the mazes. It has a nice spooky aesthetic and you start with spiders and bats chasing you. Once you clear the maze and pick everything up, then you have to find a key to unlock a door to move on, all the while being chased by stronger witches and mummies. This game combined Pac-Man and haunted house to great effect and deserves more attention. Check it out on AtariAge forums under the above name. Dragons Havoc - Other games on Atariage forums have tens of thousands of views, but somehow this totally unique and brilliant original game has less than 1000. Criminal! Beautiful sprites and parallax scrolling topped off with the great rage mechanic that demands accuracy with your shots. A large demo is available and this guy deserves more eyes on his game! and finally... Mario Bros Arcade - It's hard to find information on this one and I think we all know why. Nintendo will shut them down faster than you can say mama mia! But ZeroPage HomeBrew showed this game off late last year in a stream that's on YouTube, and this promises to be a nearly arcade perfect port like Donkey Kong PK is. It may be tricky to get a hold of once it's released, so be sure to try to stay updated and don't delay to pick yours up whenever it's available! And those are the HomeBrew I'm excited for that seems to be getting no attention. Of course theirs others but let's talk about what's being worked on and what's exciting to all of us! I just wanted to shine a light on this games but we can talk about any new ones. Thanks guys!

I really regret selling some things that have shot way up in price, but who would've known. I had chase the chuck wagon complete in box with "manual" that my mom sent away for and kept pristine (because she said it sucked). I had both the dino crisis games that are going for way too much now, I had D2 and Illbleed that are going for ridiculous money, and Duck Tales 2 from my childhood that I can't afford now. But how were we to know I guess?