Top 10 Atari 7800 Games Voted on Facebook

[7800 Pro Gamer]

Two days ago I asked members of 3 Atari Facebook groups to post their top five 7800 games.   I then scored those games, giving their number one pick 5 points, number two 4 points, number three 3 points, number four 2 points and number five 1 point.   Using this system, I then tallied the points that each game received to come up with the top 10 7800 games according to the community. 

I placed no restrictions on what could be chosen.   Retail games, homebrew games, hacks, physical copies, digital only, and everything in between.   Whatever they wanted to submit, I scored.  I'm hoping that this will be the definitive top 10. 

Over 50 different games received at least 1 point, and dozens of people participated.  I made a quick five minute video posting the results that you can see here:

 

Edit: the top video is the correct listing. Somehow I messed up my count.   I can't delete the other video but it's unlisted.   I'll leave it here for now!

 

Tomorrow morning I will write out the top 10 for those who would rather not watch the video.   Let me know what you guys think.   And remember, this was a collaboration of several people, this isn't my personal list.  But I'd love to hear what's missing and what seems to be overrated in your opinions!

Thanks guys!

Edited July 23, 2023 by Silver Back

[Atari 5200 Guy]

Im not going to spoil it for others but that game really deserves the number one spot.  It really is well made.  

[socrates63]

First off, I love that homebrews are included. Given the limited size of 7800 official library, I find it helpful to see how they all compare.

Second, I am surprised at the total omission of

Spoiler

Asteroids

--not even an honorable mention. Whenever I read people talking about their favorite 7800 game, it seems often mentioned, so I'm surprised to see it not make the list. On the flip side, I'm not surprised by the game in the top position as I've seen it come up often in such discussions.

Third, seeing the lack of original games that aren't arcade ports on the system really did the 7800 a big disservice. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing that people may have tired of arcade ports by then considering how arcade ports were central to 2600 and 5200 marketing. The NES library brought a freshness and originality that people wanted? More games back in the day like the one in the second spot probably would have helped the 7800 cause back.

And finally, great video! I see I'm missing a few homebrews mentioned.

[RickR]

7 hours ago, Atari 5200 Guy said:

Im not going to spoil it for others but that game really deserves the number one spot.  It really is well made.  

Agreed.  Definitely a favorite on the 7800.

 

1 hour ago, socrates63 said:

Second, I am surprised at the total omission of

Very much agreed.  Especially given that Galaga is in the top 10, and it's not as good a game.  

1 hour ago, socrates63 said:

And finally, great video! I

TOTALLY agree!  Nice job, @Silver Back

[7800 Pro Gamer]

Guys I messed up.  I miscounted so I spent the whole morning fixing the video and reposting it.   One game was bumped and another got a fairly high spot that wasn't listed before.   I'll edit the original post and post the new video in this comment as well.   I hope there's no more errors, I triple checked.  Sorry 😔

 

[RickR]

No problem; no worries! 

 

[7800 Pro Gamer]

10 hours ago, Atari 5200 Guy said:

Im not going to spoil it for others but that game really deserves the number one spot.  It really is well made.  

Thank you.   I had to add the corrected video.   It's only my second video ever so I guess I learned a valuable lesson.  Double check your information before spending hours on something!  Lol

 

3 hours ago, socrates63 said:

First off, I love that homebrews are included. Given the limited size of 7800 official library, I find it helpful to see how they all compare.

Second, I am surprised at the total omission of

Your post actually made me realize that I made a mistake so thank you very much!  And thank you for the kind words!

 

2 hours ago, RickR said:

TOTALLY agree!  Nice job, @Silver Back

Thanks!

[TrekMD]

Excellent list.  There's no question these are all superb games for the system!  Glad to see it is a mix of original releases and homebrew titles too.

[7800 Pro Gamer]

3 hours ago, TrekMD said:

Excellent list.  There's no question these are all superb games for the system!  Glad to see it is a mix of original releases and homebrew titles too.

You know I see know reason to split them anymore.   It's amazing how many good games the 7800 got despite the hurdles it face, but we are lucky to see so many excellent games coming today.   Not many consoles get a second chance to shine like the 7800 has!

[TrekMD]

1 hour ago, Silver Back said:

You know I see know reason to split them anymore.   It's amazing how many good games the 7800 got despite the hurdles it face, but we are lucky to see so many excellent games coming today.   Not many consoles get a second chance to shine like the 7800 has!

Unfortunately, many of them were sold by Atari Age and that is coming to an end.  Bob already said he's not going to be developing more games.  I hope he changes his mind, though.

[Sabertooth]

It wouldn't be my list, but not a bad game in the bunch. WELL DONE, SIR!

[socrates63]

Speaking of homebrews, the 7800 is catching fire. AtariAge has several 7800 homebrews releasing later this year. I recently picked up the digital version of EXO but haven't gotten around to setting up my Dragonfly yet to play it.

[7800 Pro Gamer]

30 minutes ago, socrates63 said:

Speaking of homebrews, the 7800 is catching fire. AtariAge has several 7800 homebrews releasing later this year. I recently picked up the digital version of EXO but haven't gotten around to setting up my Dragonfly yet to play it.

Roughly 10 homebrew a year the last 3 years when you include AtariAge, video61, and a few of the independent games like gambler and frankodragon.  Not a bad average for a console that's over 35 years old. 

1 hour ago, TrekMD said:

Unfortunately, many of them were sold by Atari Age and that is coming to an end.  Bob already said he's not going to be developing more games.  I hope he changes his mind, though.

Bob said he wasn't making anymore!?  That's horrible news, he's like the godfather of the 7800 homebrew scene!

[TrekMD]

That's what he said.  If it isn't AA distributing the games, he won't make more.  I had been trying to get him to make a 7800 port of Phoenix, so I guess that won't happen.  Nor will he finish Defender for the 7800.  He may finish Adventure III, though.  We'll have to wait and see.

[Justin]

4 hours ago, socrates63 said:

Speaking of homebrews, the 7800 is catching fire. AtariAge has several 7800 homebrews releasing later this year. I recently picked up the digital version of EXO but haven't gotten around to setting up my Dragonfly yet to play it.

I haven't kept up with these enough lately to be well informed on what's going on. Are all of the new 7800 homebrews being done in 7800basic or are some of them not? Just curious. Wish everybody well 

[7800 Pro Gamer]

11 hours ago, Justin said:

I haven't kept up with these enough lately to be well informed on what's going on. Are all of the new 7800 homebrews being done in 7800basic or are some of them not? Just curious. Wish everybody well 

It seems like a lot of people are using 7800basic but honestly I don't know.   I believe I saw somewhere that Bob is still doing all his stuff in assembly but again, I'm not positive. 

[Justin]

2 hours ago, Silver Back said:

It seems like a lot of people are using 7800basic but honestly I don't know.   I believe I saw somewhere that Bob is still doing all his stuff in assembly but again, I'm not positive. 

Thanks for the info! 7800basic was a breakthrough achievement for Atari 7800 homebrew games. It seems like not that long ago 7800 homebrew development seemed almost impossible, and there were only two games being worked on, one was Senso DX. I used to talk with @Video 61 about this all the time. 25 years later now there is  a new library of 7800 games to choose from. Were all of Bob's 7800 games done in assembly? I think he lives in my old neighborhood, I should reach out to him. It seems like the more 7800 development being done in assembly the better, the 7800 is tricky and sometimes you can feel a clear lag in games done in 7800basic simply due to the limitations. There have been some incredible games coming out for the 7800 and I hope to see that continue.

[7800 Pro Gamer]

4 hours ago, Justin said:

Thanks for the info! 7800basic was a breakthrough achievement for Atari 7800 homebrew games. It seems like not that long ago 7800 homebrew development seemed almost impossible, and there were only two games being worked on, one was Senso DX. I used to talk with @Video 61 about this all the time. 25 years later now there is  a new library of 7800 games to choose from. Were all of Bob's 7800 games done in assembly? I think he lives in my old neighborhood, I should reach out to him. It seems like the more 7800 development being done in assembly the better, the 7800 is tricky and sometimes you can feel a clear lag in games done in 7800basic simply due to the limitations. There have been some incredible games coming out for the 7800 and I hope to see that continue.

You know I've noticed slowdown in games where I doubt there should be any.   The 7800 runs Robotron flawlessly and I've seen it display incredible amounts of visuals and run smooth as butter.   But the other day when playing keystone Koppers I noticed slowdown on screens where all three levels had obstacles and the crook.  Maybe it's because there is some pretty looking backgrounds instead of black but I would think the 7800 should still be fine.   Could that be an effect of 7800basic using a lot of resources?

[Justin]

53 minutes ago, Silver Back said:

You know I've noticed slowdown in games where I doubt there should be any.   The 7800 runs Robotron flawlessly and I've seen it display incredible amounts of visuals and run smooth as butter.   But the other day when playing keystone Koppers I noticed slowdown on screens where all three levels had obstacles and the crook.  Maybe it's because there is some pretty looking backgrounds instead of black but I would think the 7800 should still be fine.   Could that be an effect of 7800basic using a lot of resources?

Yes, exactly. Nice tight programming in assembly language tends to be best in terms of performance, however programming for the MARIA chip hasn't been an easy task - almost a lost art form - and 7800basic has opened up Atari 7800 development to many more people which has been a good thing.

@Video 61 and @RickR could probably speak to the lag issue better than I can, and if 7800basic correlates with lag in some of these games and meeting the Doherty Threshold. The Atari 7800 is plenty capable of running Robotron: 2084 flawlessly without slowdown, I believe this relates to how 7800basic works.

I'm envious of what OpCode Games has been able to do with porting MSX games to the ColecoVision and wish there were more games of equal or better quality being released for the Atari 7800.

[RickR]

I imagine lag can come in when the CPU has to be involved.  Maria can handle moving objects -- lots of them -- on it's own once it has been given instructions.  But what to do with collisions (for example)...the CPU has to decide.  So think about a game like asteroids.  The only collisions that matter are anything with your ship, or your bullets with any other object.  Robotron is similar.  It is a really nice balancing act between Maria and the 6502.  If there were more complications in the game design, it might have lag.  I don't think any other console can do these games as well as the 7800.  I think the CPU has to do it's processing only between scan lines or something.  I'd have to re-familiarize myself with the details on the 7800.

Assembly would definitely be better for any game with lots of objects, as the CPU would be given much more efficient instructions. 

It has been a long time since I've done 6502 assembly.  Decades.  It would be fun to try something on the 7800.  I always figured I'd give it a go when I retire and have lots of hours during the day.  They called the 7800 6502 something different.  Sally?  If memory serves, that was just a special variant that could do either 1.19 or 1.79 Mhz for 2600 compatibility?  I don't remember. 

7800 Basic would be interesting to try! 

 

 

[7800 Pro Gamer]

@RickR thank you for the explanation that makes sense.   And I think your right the Sally chip is often referred to as the CPU.  I also by no means am saying that a game with occasional slow down is bad, I love keystone Koppers!  I was just curious why some games seemed to run better than others.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Silver Back

[Atari 5200 Guy]

You guys are correct.  Sally is the 6502 and Maria is the GPU.  What makes this 6502 a bit different is because Maria can halt the CPU while she fetches her display information from RAM.  The 7800 is, without a doubt in my mind, the better of the two consoles when compared to the NES.  The only time the CPU slows down is when TIA is accessed for any reason.

Robotron is proof the 7800 can handle a lot at once.  Sounds?  From TIA?  She is very capable of generating awesome sounds when allowed time to do so.  Need proof? Robotron has excellent sound as does Ms. Pac-Man. Asteroids even throws in a few extra sound bits. 

Even though it was designed by GCC the 7800 is every bit Atari at heart.  It has character and is well dressed.  It's unfortunate mishap is it became a foster child with parents who didn't care about it at all.  If Warner would have stayed in board things might have been a whole lot different for it.  It did need something fresh like the NES got and unfortunately failed in that department.  BUT...it did fill a void, it cost less overall than the NES, games were much cheaper for it, and it was the only console to get Pole Position II and a killer Asteroids.  Try playing Robotron on NES hardware. I bet it would suffer.

@RickR I would love to learn assembly.  I am learning C fairly well, though, and I come from decades of BASIC programming.

[CrossBow]

On 7/24/2023 at 5:56 PM, Silver Back said:

You know I've noticed slowdown in games where I doubt there should be any.   The 7800 runs Robotron flawlessly and I've seen it display incredible amounts of visuals and run smooth as butter.   But the other day when playing keystone Koppers I noticed slowdown on screens where all three levels had obstacles and the crook.  Maybe it's because there is some pretty looking backgrounds instead of black but I would think the 7800 should still be fine.   Could that be an effect of 7800basic using a lot of resources?

I brought this up a few times with Lewis during beta testing. Here is the odd thing. I was the only one of the testers to notice this slow down to any degree. There was much more of it and much worse in earlier builds. But yes it seems that once you have radios blinking away on all floors on a screen, that the system has trouble at that point. But again, it wasn't something that Lewis was able to replicate to the same degree I was showing. I even recorded screen footage of the plays where it would come up at 60fps and you could see the slowdown plain as day, but Lewis and the other testers couldn't replicate it or didn't notice it as they were playing on CRTs and I might have been the only one playing with AV upgrades etc in place. 

So this could be somewhat 7800 specific. We already know that in addition to the red-headed step child treatment is received under the Tramiel banner, that it also seemed very much to be a console that was pieced together from whatever they had lying around or whomever was able to provide them with the cheapest batch of parts that month. That various bodges inside them on a console to console basis kinda demonstrates this.

The 6502C 'Sally' was also the same used in the 5200 and 8-bit computers. So the 7800 can operate with any of them from those other systems.

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by CrossBow

[RickR]

Assembly isn't hard, given good tools.  It's just a much different way of thinking/organizing code. 

I'd wonder if that CPU "halt" that Maria can do for DMA may also cause some slowdown.  If I understood correctly and my memory is still ok, I think the 7800 uses sprites for everything, even backgrounds?  Meh, something to look into if I ever get time to do something fun like that. 

6 hours ago, Atari 5200 Guy said:

Try playing Robotron on NES hardware. I bet it would suffer.

This is absolutely true.  The 7800 can do games like Robotron and Asteroids better than any other system of the time.  No flicker at all.  No limitations on the type or direction of movement.  Rotating rocks that move really fast?  No problem. 

NES version of "Ballblazer" is a good one to consider...it just isn't as good on NES as it is on 5200, 8-bit, and 7800.  Oh, and the C64 version is horrible. 

 

 

[CrossBow]

3 minutes ago, RickR said:

Assembly isn't hard, given good tools.  It's just a much different way of thinking/organizing code. 

I'd wonder if that CPU "halt" that Maria can do for DMA may also cause some slowdown.  If I understood correctly and my memory is still ok, I think the 7800 uses sprites for everything, even backgrounds?  Meh, something to look into if I ever get time to do something fun like that. 

This is absolutely true.  The 7800 can do games like Robotron and Asteroids better than any other system of the time.  No flicker at all.  No limitations on the type or direction of movement.  Rotating rocks that move really fast?  No problem. 

NES version of "Ballblazer" is a good one to consider...it just isn't as good on NES as it is on 5200, 8-bit, and 7800.  Oh, and the C64 version is horrible. 

 

 

BallBlazer is best on the 7800 with the slightly increased color palette and especially much smoother overall game play speed! There is some improvement in the graphics on the 7800 version as well. Really noticed when you see the rotofoyls up close as they appear much more jagged and pixelated on the 5200 / 8-bit vs the 7800.