Pre NES Thread #4

[Anonymous No.10283561]

"Have you played Atari today?" edition.

This thread is to discuss games/consoles/computers made before the US release of the NES (early arcade talk is allowed too).

I know I'm in the minority, but I like the 2600 port of Pacman, although I don't really play it as a Pacman port, I just play it like it's its own thing.

[Anonymous No.10283601]

I broke 30k in 2600 Centipede on Retroarch Wii. Was very surprised because it doesn't feel great with the wireless controller. Not that 30k is great, but if I can't get that it's indicative of it being too laggy for even an old man.

[Anonymous No.10283870]

>EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ATARI
>ALWAYS WANTED TO GAME,ETC,ETC.

[Anonymous No.10284175]

>>10283561
I like the 2600 Pacman too. It's no worse than the shitflood of clones at the time and I put some hours into way worse clones.

[Anonymous No.10284223]

>>10283601
its a great port
i prefer the 5200 with the trakball but whatever
having fun is the most important part
i would argue that you need a crt for anything much faster than that though
pong\crackpot\kaboom etc
even my 1ms gaming monitor doesnt "feel right"
>>10284175
pac jr is decent
the original is endearing in a shitty sort of way
my ex gf and i played it a lot despite it "suckin bad"

for shits and giggles you should check out the bally port
it has a different name
but the spritework is quite cute

[Anonymous No.10284283]

>>10284223
I play Jr quite a lot, Ms PacMan is also great on 2600. It's different enough to arcade to warrant its own play.

[Anonymous No.10284297]

retron77 mini review:
get it used\open box for cheap if you already have atari carts and controllers
hyperkins atari stick is actually good
thank you for reading my blog
bye

[Anonymous No.10284301]

>>10284297
>hyperkin stick is good
i somewhat agree.
i like mine a little more stiff\tight but its useable

[Anonymous No.10284381]

>>10283561
>I know I'm in the minority
Not at all. Most children your age will tell lies to get attention. Just look at this kid >>10284175
So is it off topic to talk about good atari games, or are we just supposed to like and upvote garbage for le retro cred? Would it be ok if I say something like "the original arcade version of Star Wars is a timeless classic", or should I be saying shit like "OMG 2600 demake of Illbleed WHEN?!?!?!"

[Anonymous No.10284390]

>>10284381
are you incapable of having fun?
truly incapable of going against the grain of what your youtube ecelebs say?
incapable of thinking for yourself?

no one here said its the definitive way to fucking play pacman brother

i have the original pcb & refurbed it myself
i love and grew up with the original
played the machine in many pizza joints\arcades
was v lucky to experience it at the cali boardwalk

anyways,
the 2600 port isn't "good\great"
its 'endearing in a shitty sort of way'
please learn to read
bye

[Anonymous No.10284391]

>>10284223
sauce on the bally pacman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gez3MlUVpe0

[Anonymous No.10284641]

>>10284390
>i am incapable of having fun
>truly incapable of going against the grain of what my youtube emocelebs say
>incapable of thinking for myself
So that's a "no" on talking about good games then?
Also, your posts are super cringe

[Anonymous No.10284656]

>>10283561
I really like Skee Ball and Whack a Mole. And crane games

[Anonymous No.10284686]

>>10284641
until you learn to greentext properly its hard pass from all normal board users
shove off
make your own "good" thread

[Anonymous No.10284694]

bro i can't play my atari because my atari is secam but my crt is pal

[Anonymous No.10284717]

>>10284391
>>10284391
Looks like fun! Linked video was the pacman available to me at home which I enjoyed a lot. It was an upgrade from pic related.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOUz49l5jWE

[Anonymous No.10284720]

>>10284381
Name a better pacman for home play in 1982. It was the best selling Atari game by far, everyone knew it sucked but yet everyone still bought it and played the shit out of it.

[Anonymous No.10284773]

>>10284223
I have found a direct connected controller to make a bigger difference, but you're not wrong. Line doublers are hit or miss with Atari games anyway. No way in hell I could do Kaboom on an LCD though, that's for sure.
>>10284297
I wonder how the emulation is on that new 2600 from Atari; I have to assume it's Stella on the backend.
>>10284694
Aren't SECAM Ataris rather rare?

[Anonymous No.10285417]

>>10284656

I like the game where you try and get the ball on the spike.

[Anonymous No.10285472]

How expensive is it to get into Colecovision? Usually I'd emulate, but I feel like the number pad makes that incredibly difficult.

[Anonymous No.10285508]

>>10285472
Console will run you about $100 currently and games will be about $1-$20. I bought Zaxxon last week for $10

[Anonymous No.10285527]

>>10283561
At a period in time where I already owned an NES, I bought an Intellivision for like $2 at a garage sale and greatly enjoyed it. I remember fun summer days on the back sunporch playing the tank and battleship games with the paddle controllers. It even came with some of the little plastic insert cards, I always thought those were cool as fuck.

[Anonymous No.10285607]

2600 ms. pacman>Jr. Pacman>>>>>>Pacman 2600

[Anonymous No.10285897]

>>10285472
There's not a billion of them floating around but they aren't rare >>10285508 sounds right to me.

[Anonymous No.10285918]

>>10285472
There's only a few expensive games, Coleco's were cheaply made and my need maintenance.

[Anonymous No.10286406]

>>10285472
You'll find that for most games the numbers are not really used.

[Anonymous No.10286835]

>>10285607
Jawbreaker was better than all of them on the platform.

[Anonymous No.10286907]

>>10285918
its mostly the power supplies
i recommend a 3rd party one to replace the aging one
also dont do faggy stuff like rip the controllers out and swap for sega pads while its powered on
use a y cable

[Anonymous No.10287031]

>>10286406
It's not that the number keys were used
You needed them a lot of the times to select difficulty or start the game

[Anonymous No.10287115]

>>10287031
You can do that from your computer keyboard. On Mister I just map the most common number keys to controller buttons.

[Anonymous No.10287339]

>>10285472
>but I feel like the number pad makes that incredibly difficult.
Is that because you're compelled to play every game on a single 8bitdo controller?

[Anonymous No.10287465]

There are some very good fan remakes of Pac-Man for the 2600, 5200, and 7800 I believe on atari age

[Anonymous No.10287492]

>Intellivision D&D game
>features a dynamic automap
ahead of its time

[Anonymous No.10287545]

>>10283561
>increasing hand-eye coordination and developing a longer attention span
Is it true
Will I develop a longer attention span by playing atari?

[Anonymous No.10287682]

>>10287465
Sure, but people who need to resort to shrieking contrarian hot takes for attention don't want to talk about those.
For mentally stable people, yes Some very interesting stuff there. But sadly, discussing good games is not allowed itt.

[Anonymous No.10287903]

>>10286907
I've mostly fixed oxidation on the IC legs in colecos and did a few reflows. They seemed to use cheap solder mostly.

[Anonymous No.10289339]

I just wanna say that I love the Atari 2600 and it's probably my favorite system.

[Anonymous No.10289350]

>>10287545
no but you will develop a longer dong

[Anonymous No.10289769]

>>10289350
you will never be a real dong haver

[Anonymous No.10289827]

Have you played atari today? It goes good with football Sunday

[Anonymous No.10290474]

>>10289827
Not yet, but I plan on getting a few rounds of 2600 Asteroids in.

[Anonymous No.10290998]

Best version of HERO? Of course the Atari version is OG but do you guys have any preferences there? I don't mind the Speccy and C64 versions.

[Anonymous No.10291003]

>>10289350
>>10289769
got confused, paddle wrapped around dong
on my way to hospital

[Anonymous No.10291017]

>>10287492
Neato

[Anonymous No.10292367]

pre-NES is literally not worth playing. like, at all. It's all just objective garbage.

[Anonymous No.10292475]

>>10292367
Objective? Lay out the objective facts, I’m interested I’ll listen

[Anonymous No.10293079]

>>10290998
Try it on MSX

[Anonymous No.10293106]

>>10284175
alien is a better pac clone imo

>>10284223
sometimes i want to rebuy a 2600 and harmony cart. Dunno if I want to bother with hookups if i have to move again though (can't keep dragging a 100lb crt over and over).

>>10284297
nice picture of St Ralph, got any more?

[Anonymous No.10293109]

>>10285417
kendama? i suck at that game

speaking of traditional games that nobody plays, I'd like to get into bridge. I'm just not old and in a nursing home, so I have to go find a nice software version I think, maybe with online. I'd rather do it en vivo though; Maybe i should hunt down some old folks at a home somewhere.

[Anonymous No.10293539]

What are some 2600 games that just feel right to play during fall? Haunted House and Halloween are some that come to mind.

[Anonymous No.10293585]

Where do I get champ games 2600 roms from

[Anonymous No.10293594]

>>10283561
The Vectrex is on my wish list of retro consoles. Imagine a landscape where vector games won out over raster and we got 3d raytraced games almost a decade earlier.
Some demos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awMUFCYnQ4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaqg_5g1SsY

[Anonymous No.10293996]

>>10293594
To be honest, it looked cool but the games were a bit dull. I think the display was not adequate for very fast paced games on the Vectrex.

[Anonymous No.10294198]

>>10293996
One of the biggest things that limited the Vectrex system was memory (that and the video game crash)

If they had sold after the crash you could imagine flawless ports of games like BattleZone, Star Wars 83, Tempest, Lunar Lander, Red Barron ext.
One of the biggest things that interests me about the system is it's true potential. Compared to other systems of the era the Vectrex's plot data is a lot more efficient than bitmap could ever be. Rather than having to compute every pixel on screen the system only needs to hold the data of a few instructions. For video games that means effects like mode 7 scaling and rotating full wireframe 3D.

It might just be the autism but I really think vector games could have evolved into something cool given more RAM and ROM space.
With a bit of extra data vector animation looks rad as hell. I could imagine the jump from wireframe to solid tri's would have been a massive leap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEdQ3mwyrQ4

[Anonymous No.10294212]

>>10294198
dude what? the vextrex were just lights and foils you put on them

[Anonymous No.10294223]

>>10294212
>Vectrex doesn't have room for color it's all foil
It never had time to mature
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uC-oMtVSYI
(adding color through hardware)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXhFvYd9Fp4
(using the pre existing headset to add color)
It honestly could have.

[Anonymous No.10294227]

>>10294223
They were saving color for the Vetrex 2 but the market crashed

[Anonymous No.10295185]

>>10294227
Yeah, I really feel like they would have been great competition if they released after the crash with something a bit more refined.

[Anonymous No.10296079]

What are some good resources for Atari 8 bit programming for a complete beginner?

[Anonymous No.10297865]

There ought to be a connecter cable-to-cart or cart with ribbon-to-cart which allows for interaction for the Atari 8-bit with the 5200 and vice-versa. Development of programs with such a device would be interesting.

[Anonymous No.10298825]

As much as I want to own one, I've accepted that I'll probably never buy a Magnavox Odyssey since I know the price for them will never go down due to its significance and age (I'm also not gonna shell out 600-900 dollars on what will probably only be played once and then never again kek). I think the farthest back I'll be able to go is my C-100 Atari pong system from 76.

[Anonymous No.10298984]

>>10287682
why are you still mad kek
you got your way my post bringing you back to objective reality was removed

participate or leave

[Anonymous No.10299887]

>>10296079
https://archive.org/details/dr-wackos-guide-to-creating-arcade-games/mode/2up

[Anonymous No.10299958]

Why does nobody ever talk about pre-Famicom jap consoles? Are they just completely shit?

[Anonymous No.10299993]

>>10299958
This one in particular you can't emulate at all

[Anonymous No.10300005]

>>10299993
>last post is from 2021
It's over...

[Anonymous No.10300384]

>>10299958
I actually own this system, but it's broken. Although from the gameplay footage that I've seen the games look really basic, even for the time.

[Anonymous No.10301561]

>>10300384
I was mostly curious because I remember reading it was the best selling system in Japan before the Famicom

[Anonymous No.10301625]

>>10299958
seems endearing but im into this type of shit

[Anonymous No.10301648]

>>10299958
Oh and I guess I should have posted the cheaper version they released 2 years later. Yes, on both systems the controls are directly on the console and are not detachable

[Anonymous No.10302108]

>>10299958
>>10301648
Those look nice.

[Anonymous No.10302149]

>>10302108
Well preserved nip systems usually look very clean

[Anonymous No.10302645]

>>10283561
Would HIGHLY recommend watching this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfHFDvZ8q4c

[Anonymous No.10303705]

All the Colecovisions on ebay are either hundreds of dollars or for parts bullshit

[Anonymous No.10303745]

>>10303705
Look in other places more often, if you can, for one that isn't much more than $100-$120
>craigslist
>Amazon
>mercari
>Aliexpress
>Lukiegames

[Anonymous No.10303767]

>>10293539
Texas Chainsaw Massacre

[Anonymous No.10304106]

>>10303705
I noticed that too. Really sucks because it's one of the few systems I really haven't gotten into.

>>10303745
I'll check those places as well Anon. Is LukieGames like DKOldies or is it actually good?

[Anonymous No.10304181]

>>10303767
To my knowledge Lukiegames is not in any way owned by nor officially partnered with DKOldies. It has its share of haters and the like, but best to be on the lookout for yourself rather than just blindly take the grapevine's word for it. Newegg is another place, albeit it now harbors a mixed reputation in general.

[Anonymous No.10304964]

>>10293594
>>10294223
vector graphics are sexoooo

[Anonymous No.10304967]

>>10299887
>Remedial Breathing Club

[Anonymous No.10305226]

What are your recommended atari homebrews for the 2600/5200/7800?

And did you play atari today?

[Anonymous No.10305270]

Pic related is perhaps one of the best shmups on the 2600. Very fun, very imaginative, and even has a story that came in a comic book with the game.

[Anonymous No.10305312]

>>10305270
That's one neat thing about 2nd generation games, and Atari games in particular. The technology was so primitive and limiting that it almost encouraged developers to try for more abstract concepts and visuals. Granted, they didn't always land it and sometimes you don't know what the fuck you're looking at, but when it works, it's pretty amazing.

[Anonymous No.10306934]

>>10305270
>one of the best shmups on the 2600

It's one of the best games full stop.

[Anonymous No.10306990]

>>10305270
its fun
i prefer defender
i think the controls are better than the arcade layout
only think that needed changes was the flicker
the jaguar port might be slightly better due to neat graphics & flicker fix

[Anonymous No.10307164]

>>10283870
IMAGINE BEING AT COMPUTERS
SO FAT YOU LOOK AND SEE FOOD

[Anonymous No.10307167]

>>10285472
>Usually I'd emulate, but I feel like the number pad makes that incredibly difficult.
works on my Wii

[Anonymous No.10307189]

>>10285472
>>10287339
Right? It’s not like keyboards have a keypad or anything. That would be ludicrous.

[Anonymous No.10307436]

>>10307167
mister and that snes pad with the calculator numbers is prob solid

[Anonymous No.10308937]

>>10283561
BUMP OF LIFE

[Anonymous No.10308975]

>>10305226
Bump reply to this particular post

[Anonymous No.10309040]

>>10305226
Tower of Rubble has really great music (for the 2600 anyway)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG_zm3ujAec
Strike Zone has some wicked graphics for the system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB36jA-2Ra8
The same goes for Kung Fu Combat 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMPKKK24SWM

[Anonymous No.10309127]

I got a Book8088, it's basically a modern Chinese Turbo XT clone. Recommend me some games.

[Anonymous No.10309319]

>>10309040
Nice thanks for the recs brother, you aren’t the first one to recommend tower to me so definitely checking that out first

[Anonymous No.10309357]

>>10307167
Doesn't it just bring up an overlay

[Anonymous No.10310372]

>>10307189
And it's not like we just had a thread about controllers with key pad/boards on them.

[Anonymous No.10311132]

What's a respectable score in Pacman? I'm gonna try to shoot for 100k today and I'm curious to know if that's a good score or not.

[Anonymous No.10311139]

played mule today. this game is good as fuck.

[Anonymous No.10313153]

>>10311139
Which version?

[Anonymous No.10313571]

>>10304964
Agreed

[Anonymous No.10315578]

Why did Atari fail, bros? I mean, they had the industry by the balls, and yet... it was all lost so suddently...

[Anonymous No.10316020]

>>10315578
In a previous thread someone posted some excerpts from a book written by Howard Scott Warshaw, a former Atari dev. He basically said that Atari had a huge ego due to basically having a monopoly in the home console world, which led to their games becoming worse and worse quality. They also had some horrible mismanagement which led to some boneheaded decisions. Also treating your best devs like shit doesn't help either kek.

Basically, Atari was sorta destined to fail but I think that was to be expected since they basically created a new industry.

[Anonymous No.10316769]

>>10316020
Magnavox started the industry, but Atari jumped it into high gear

[Anonymous No.10317015]

>>10316020
I think that guy's biased. There's more to it than that and most of it is business related stuff that a developer probably wouldn't know anything about.

[Anonymous No.10317397]

>>10316769
Magnavox tried to play patentdaddy and got BTFO. They didn't contribute shit to the actual industry.

[Anonymous No.10317580]

>>10315578
in a word, corporatism
they fucked over their devs
they fucked over their staff
they fucked over their fans
the love of money is the root of all evil

such a bad taste that even decent hardware attempts to turn the brand around
didnt sell because people hated the brand

the only thing they did kind of right was PC
but imo they should have just picked a lane and stayed in it
esp after coleco had the adam disaster

[Anonymous No.10317583]

>>10317580
>>10315578
basically corporate investor fatcats that knew nothing about videogames decided to take over and run a company that got insanely famous making... videogames

these types of dumbassery plays still happen but now publicly traded companies have quarterly meetings and fire faggots who crash the car too much

[Anonymous No.10318076]

>>10317397
>what is the Magnavox Odyssey
>what are the Odyssey 100, 200, 300, 400 & 500
>what is the Magnavox Odyssey 2

[Anonymous No.10319142]

BUMP OF LIFE

[Anonymous No.10319412]

Atari

[Anonymous No.10319481]

Hazure

[Anonymous No.10320939]

>>10319481
Not a game company