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HELP! Opinions needed on Atari 5200 Space Invaders!


HDN

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@socrates63 Inspired me to make this post by mentioning that he recently played 5200 Space Invaders. 

Well, I guess I will just say it, I'm doing a review of Space Invaders as a pilot for my new YouTube series that I'm only posting here. My buddy is helping and one of you is also, I won't say. 

But I'm trying to get feedback on all of the versions of the game. I have the 2600 game as the main course but I would like to touch on a few other versions. I have LCD and arcade and maybe Famicom covered. I have never played the 5200 version, so I need your thoughts on it! And also the Atari 8-bit version if you want.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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The 5200 version is really unique compared to the 2600 version.  The 2600 version is what I discovered Atari with but the 5200 and its Space Invaders is what I ended up with. 

While not exactly accurate the game is fun.  Enemies come marching out a row at a time instead of all enemies being on the screen already.  If done right the player can wipe out most of the enemies as they come marching on the screen.  After every other wave the enemies change to a new set of enemies.  Up to four sets are in the game with the last set being most likely some of the best animation I have seen on the 5200, ever, as this set morphs between different designs.  When a wave with the fourth set of invaders starts, all rows are of the same invaders.  After a few seconds they morph, or shift, into another shape which makes for a really cool effect.

The first six waves of this Space Invaders follows the same mechanics of the arcade; the more enemies you destroy the faster they move.  Once they start moving faster, however, their marching sound gets a bit louder.  The last two waves with the shape shifting enemies doesn't use the marching sound like the other waves.  Instead the sound is only heard when the shape shifts.  Missing is the sound the player makes when shooting.

Successfully defeat the first eight waves and the player is greeted with being rescued by a gold flying saucer.  After this the game starts over using only the last set of invaders.  During all waves there is a mother ship that comes out randomly whose point worth also seems to be random.  As for controls ... They work good in this game, at least for me they do.  And I love that 5200 box art!  

Some may say it is from the 400/800 version of Space Invaders but to me the 5200 version seems more advanced while using some of the same features and, yes, I played the cassette version of that Space Invaders as well but favor the 5200 version more.  Its just not the same to me.

 

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When Atari created Space Invaders for the 2600, they created something unique so they chose to do something similar with the 5200 version.  They created their own version of the game, which I think is cool.  Atari 5200 Guy explained it in detail so I'm not going to repeat what he said.  This is a case where different is cool.  🙂

🖖 Going to the final frontier, gaming...

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