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Let's get the word out about this Recharged Squad Challenge! The more people participating the more fun the challenge! Spread the word and invite friends to play!

In the Club VCS Fanzine we ranked Caverns of Mars: Recharged as the top game in the series! We hope that you enjoy revisiting the red planet in this Challenge! Check out all the rankings in Issue 01!

Caverns of Mars: Recharged (2023) Atari VCS Controller: MODERN CONTROLLER / CLASSIC CONTROLLER / PLAYER'S CHOICE Difficulty Level: Normal Game, Arcade Mode Play on: Real Hardware ✔ Squad Challenge ends 11:59 pm PST February 29, 2024 Objective Play for the highest possible score using the difficulty settings defined in the challenge. Post a photo or YouTube video of your score in this thread. Scores must be achieved between February 1st through February 29, 2024. Screen captures are not allowed as they are more easily manipulated for falsified scores. Multiple submissions are permitted. The player with the highest score at the end of the competition is the victor! Eligibility This is a Club VCS Exclusive Challenge. All Club VCS players are welcome! Play Rules Games may be played on real Atari VCS hardware. Choosing which controller to play on is part of formulating your strategy. Enhancements, rewinds and hacked versions of this game are not allowed. Difficulty Level We are playing Caverns of Mars: Recharged in ARCADE MODE! Select your score modifiers of choice and play to achieve the highest possible score! Fair Play Your integrity is everything. Players should play fairly, be honest, and have fun! Falsified scores will result in your immediate removal from the site. It goes without saying that we will not allow cheats, hacks, cartridge frying, enhancements, rewinds, deceitful photo manipulation, subterfuge, or any other unfair advantage. Everybody hates a cheater. More To review detailed rules on how to play, please visit the High Score Squad page here: Message Welcome to our 24th Club VCS Recharged Squad Challenge!!! For this challenge, we're taking on SqueakyBox and Atari's take on the APX cult hit Caverns of Mars! The original Caverns of Mars was was famously programmed a teenage Greg Christensen for the Atari Program Exchange (APX) in 1981 for the Atari 8-Bit. It went on to become the best selling APX game program ever. Atari included the game in the Atari50 collection. More than 40 years later, Atari returned to the red planet with Caverns of Mars: Recharged! Progress through 30 unique missions set within three primary “depths” of Mars, descending deeper and deeper into enemy territory. Blast through oncoming hostile fire, bull through debris and obstructions, and dodge other obstacles all while keeping a close eye on fuel and ammo reserves! Play in ARCADE mode from level one and take the game as far as you can for the high score! Club VCS Recharged Squad Contest This game is the second title in our fifth Club VCS contest giveaway! Prize details will be announced shortly. This time we're going a full 12 rounds with the winner announced in January 2025! 1) All challenge participants will receive one (1) entry for each challenge in which they submit a valid score! 2) The top scorer of each challenge will receive two (2) additional entries - for a total of three (3) entries in a single challenge! 3) On Twitch or Youtube? Stream or record and post your ClubVCS high score attempt for one (1) additional entry in each round. You must post a public link to the video in the Challenge. This contest is open to everybody, including Atari I/O Moderators, with a U.S. or Canada mailing address. It's really easy, all you have to do is participate be a Club VCS member and participate in our Recharged Squad Challenges.

Wi-Fi Issues: I tried to update my Evercade VS today and it would not connect to my router. Last month, I updated my router to a dual band mesh system. All of my devices work on it. The VS saw the network but would error when connecting. I visited the Evercade Discord and asked about the issue. Members there said some users reported problems with dual band, but that if I turned off 5GHz, it might work. They also recommended a factory reset. I tried these solutions without success. Finally, it struck me that I could try my phone's mobile hotspot. This immediately connected and I was able to update the system. However, the VS will still not connect to my router. Sharing this here in case others experience a similar issue.

And it is in Unity. It should 100 percent be on the VCS. Minus 10 points Atari.

I downloaded this on Steam at lunch and ran on my VCS in PC-Mode. It crashed on my 8GB VCS but was fine on my 16GB unit. I did not have the original BITD, so I don't have any nostalgia for the game. However, the options menu and scrolling view from the original game are not enabled. This is offputting for me as I prefer zoom and scroll tables - at least optionally. The new Atari-themed tables are cool and in a much higher resolution than the original tables. The original tables are presented with a ton of black/empty space. Overall, this is a bit underwhelming. I'd much rather play Pinball Fantasies on the Jaguar. It's only $8.99, but I'd wait for a 50 percent off sale TBH.

I caught part of the test stream. I can't believe that Vinnie would stoop so low! 💩🛏 That's terrible about the strike. It's definitely an abuse of the system.

Yeah, I've played Plutos and Sirius again after getting my 2600+. Both are hard but I really appreciate how nice they look and play. It's a shame these weren't completed. Music would enhance these game so much!

Balls of Steel was jist re-released by Atari. It has been updated for modern PCs and includes two new Atari-themed tables. Unfortunately, the re-release loses the Duke table. Available now on Steam for $8.99.

Very nice @TrekMD! I'm still patiently waiting for my order. I checked over the weekend after a few folks got theirs. It still says pending. Order placed 6/22/23.

Still looking for that 💯 reaction button. 🤣

I feel the same way. I think it would be much better as a twin-stick. This is a pre-Alpha demo, so hopefully the final sees some improvement. What is the Gunship demo?!

Two nuggets from the AA thread. These will apparently have manuals. Also, one game was held back from the announcement as its being "Enhanced."

Here's the press release from PLAION. https://press.plaion.com/REISSUED-ATARI-7800-GAMES-ANNOUNCED

Ninja Golf, Fatal Run and Food Fight re-issues are up for order at Atari along with the CX-78+ gamepads, stand-alone CX-30 paddles and DB9 extensions. The carts are the cost reduced $30 version from PLAION (not XP). https://atari.com/collections/atari-2600-plus

https://atari.com/collections/atari-2600-plus New CX-78+ game pads, stand-alone Paddles, extension cables and $30 boxed editions of Food Fight, Ninja Golf and Fatal Run for the 7800 are up now for order.

Some progress is being made on the VCS port.

Atari 50 is a must on any platform. It far exceeds a simple anthology compilation. It's beautifully curated and the new games by Digital Eclipse are excellent. The paddle functionality on the Classic makes the VCS version the one to get.

If you like this, check out BPM Boy from the same dev. It's been exclusive to VCS for over a year and a half. The dev, Tony Barnes (aka Retro Ninja), worked on the Strike series BITD.

Yes, they are BT. To pair them with the VCS at start-up press and hold the Fuji button until it starts flashing rapidly. The VCS should recognize it. Alternatively, you can pair in the system menu through devices. Here's a link to the manual for the controllers: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0609/3658/5381/files/Atari_VCS_Support_Pages_07.01.2020.pdf?v=1663852719

Glad to see you up and running. Welcome to the Club!

If you're starting from new, you have a lot of updates to get through - three years of them. After the updates you should be good to go. If you're having specific issues, feel free to ask in ClubVCS hardware discussion and someone should be able to help.

I think that's the newest build; they just pushed it in December. If you haven't already done it, you can manually update the controller firmware too.

What version are you on? The new update resolved the auto update issue. I tested on a NIB VCS.