21 replies to this topic

[Tempest]

I've finally updated my website with reviews of Androman on the Moon and Actionauts. Check them out: http://www.atariprotos.com/

Tempest

[xZanU]

Tempest, on Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:49 PM, said:

I've finally updated my website with reviews of Androman on the Moon and Actionauts. Check them out: http://www.atariprotos.com/

Tempest

Nice job. Why Klax never made it to production is beyond me, that is a fantastic puzzler. It is one of the few hard to get games that I would actually pay a good price for.

[Wickeycolumbus]

Thanks for the update Tempest!

The link to the screen shot of Going Up?? is broken though.

[moycon]

Thanks for the heads up. Always a pleasure reading your site Tempest.

[Tempest]

Wickeycolumbus, on Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:30 PM, said:

Thanks for the update Tempest!

The link to the screen shot of Going Up?? is broken though.

Fixed that. Thanks.

Tempest

[supercat]

Tempest, on Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:49 PM, said:

I've finally updated my website with reviews of Androman on the Moon and Actionauts. Check them out: http://www.atariprotos.com/

The description of Actionauts gameplay is not accurate. Each arrow will move the robot one space regardless of the speed selected, so changing the speed will not allow the player to avoid walls. Further, running into walls is harmless for the robot, and in some levels is necessary (note: it wasn't necessary in any of the original levels, but it was harmless). The purpose of the speed control is essentially user convenience. At faster speeds, it's difficult to see what the robot is doing, but at slower speeds it may take awhile for the user to test out a program.

Speed could impact gameplay if the cartridge were more developed, since every time the robot completes all the steps in its program it fires a shot and restarts the program; this shot always travels in the direction the robot is facing. At faster speeds, it's possible for the robot to turn before the shot hits a wall, thus causing the shot to reach places it otherwise could not. Since there was never any code to make the shot do anything, such behavior doesn't really affect gameplay, but it is an interesting thing to notice.

[Inky]

Tempest, on Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:21 PM, said:

Wickeycolumbus, on Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:30 PM, said:

Thanks for the update Tempest!

The link to the screen shot of Going Up?? is broken though.

Fixed that. Thanks.

Tempest

Still seems to be broke.

[Tempest]

Ok now it's really fixed. I promise this time...

Tempest

[Rom Hunter]

Great reviews!


Tempest,

The video of Going-Up?? shows all there is.

You can walk the animated character around the screen without any collision and there's a horizontally scrolling Starpath - Presents - Going-Up?? - © 1983 window shown in the brick wall.

That's it.

Also, why is it in your rumor section?

After all, the proto was found on tape.

Airworld on the other hand...

Edited by Rom Hunter, Wed Feb 18, 2009 3:37 AM.

[Tempest]

Rom Hunter, on Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:35 AM, said:

Great reviews!


Tempest,

The video of Going-Up?? shows all there is.

You can walk the animated character around the screen without any collision and there's a horizontally scrolling Starpath - Presents - Going-Up?? - © 1983 window shown in the brick wall.

That's it.

Also, why is it in your rumor section?

After all, the proto was found on tape.

Airworld on the other hand...

Well because the rom isn't out there for me to review and it has to go somewhere. Until I can get my hands on it, it stays in the rumor mill (although I agree it's not the best place for it).

Airworld is a special case. I put that page up well before the rumor mill section existed. I should probably move it there eventually though.

Tempest

[Rom Hunter]

Understood.

Please re-consider Words-Attack.

[Tempest]

Rom Hunter, on Wed Feb 18, 2009 5:36 PM, said:

Understood.

Please re-consider Words-Attack.

It has a production label and everything. I still think this is a case of a company taking a mostly finished game and releasing it regardless of playability, in which case it would not count as a prototype. It's a real gray area that I'm not keen to explore.

Tempest

[Rom Hunter]

As I said before, only one cart has ever been found, the (4K) ROM has over 1K of free space left and without the necessary word-pool, the game doesn't make any sense to play.

Considering this, I find it very hard to believe that this game was officially released.


Talking about gray area's: A Mysterious Thief, Pizza Chef, Immies & Aggies and Spinning Fireball are complete games that were officially released....

Don't get me wrong, as ZiMAG / Vidco proto's I think they should be kept on your site, but I also think Words-Attack is worth a review, being the incomplete game that it is.


Ok, I'll stop now.

You can't say I didn't do my best to convince you.

Edited by Rom Hunter, Thu Feb 19, 2009 12:40 PM.

[Tempest]

Rom Hunter, on Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:30 PM, said:

As I said before, only one cart has ever been found, the (4K) ROM has over 1K of free space left and without the necessary word-pool, the game doesn't make any sense to play.

Has anyone tried to hack in a word pool into the game to see if that makes it playable? Just curious.

Tempest

[Rom Hunter]

Nukey said it could be possible, but it needs some good programming skills.

[Lord Thag]

Nice update to the site, man. I'd never heard of the 2600 Robot thing! That's why your site is so fun to read. It's one of my favorite ways to kill a lunch break. Thanks!

[Tempest]

Lord Thag, on Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:02 PM, said:

Nice update to the site, man. I'd never heard of the 2600 Robot thing! That's why your site is so fun to read. It's one of my favorite ways to kill a lunch break. Thanks!

Thanks.

There are pictures of Androman on the net if you search for them. I need to put one of those on the page so people know what I'm talking about. Think a small Alphie on wheels. Actually I swear my Japanese friend had one of these, but it didn't use the 2600 obviously. They always had cooler toys in Japan back in the 80's...

Tempest

[Herbarius]

Hey Tempest, I just looked at your site AtariProtos.com, it's awsome! It's fun and informative to read the descriptions and stories of each single game... Kepp it up!

However I think I noticed a little mistake...

At the page describing the E.T. game you state that they produced more games than Atari systems, because they thought they would sell additional Ataris just because of E.T. ...

But as far as I am informed, that's not true, although it's messed up by people quite often.
The game they produced more cartridges of than there were systems was Pac-Man. They produced 12 million copies, but there were circa 10 million systems out there. So they expected 2 million 2600s to be sold just to play Pac-Man. That was as your site correctly (I assume) states in March 1982.

E.T. came out for christmas 1982 and they produced "only" 5 million cartridges. That's still a lot, but because there were propably still at least 10 million systems out there it's not more carts than systems...


So, you may want to fix that and put the correct information to their respective game...

Edited by Herbarius, Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:24 PM.

[Rom Hunter]

Herbarius, on Sun Apr 26, 2009 6:57 AM, said:

Hey Tempest, I just looked at your site AtariProtos.com, it's awsome! It's fun and informative to read the descriptions and stories of each single game... Kepp it up!

However I think I noticed a little mistake...

At the page describing the E.T. game you state that they produced more games than Atari systems, because they thought they would sell additional Ataris just because of E.T. ...

But as far as I am informed, that's not true, although it's messed up by people quite often.
The game they produced more cartridges of than there were systems was Pac-Man. They produced 12 million copies, but there were circa 10 million systems out there. So they expected 2 million 2600s to be sold just to play Pac-Man. That was as your site correctly (I assume) states in March 1982.

E.T. came out for christmas 1982 and they produced "only" 5 million cartridges. That's still a lot, but because there were propably still at least 10 million systems out there it's not more carts than systems...


So, you may want to fix that and put the correct information to their respective game...

That's correct.

Only 1.5 million of the 4 million E.T. cartridges produced were sold.

But the fact is E.T. was a tough technical challenge that I feel I met reasonably well. I made that game start-to-finish in five weeks. No one has ever come close to matching that kind of output on the VCS. It could definitely be a better game, but it's not too bad for five weeks.

That said, I also realize that consumers don't (and shouldn't) care about development time. All they should care about is the playing experience. I feel E.T. is a complete and OK game. Some people like it. It certainly isn't the worst game or even the least polished, but I actually like having the distinction of it being the worst game. Between that and Yar's, I have the greatest range of anyone ever on the machine.

– Howard Scott Warshaw


Personally, I have never seen or played a better VCS game done in 5 weeks, including homebrews.

Edited by Rom Hunter, Sun Apr 26, 2009 4:35 PM.

[Herbarius]

Quote

But the fact is E.T. was a tough technical challenge that I feel I met reasonably well. I made that game start-to-finish in five weeks. No one has ever come close to matching that kind of output on the VCS. It could definitely be a better game, but it's not too bad for five weeks.

I agree that it's a very good game for a development time that short. Also he propably was only able to do it because he already had the experience with the Indiana Jones game and maybe he could even re-use some of the code. I don't even hate it like a lot of people do, I think the reputation of the "worst game ever" has to be put in relation to the hype it got (the TV commercials, the success of the movie, ...) and the resulting disappointment.

But there's a little thing that blows my mind: somehow he had enough time to cram not one, not two but three Easter Eggs in there... He had only this ridiculous short amount of time to finish the game, but yet if he'd used the time he "wasted" implementing the Easter Eggs to polish some of the controls, I think it could have been slightly better... Or maybe if he'd settled with one of the Easter Eggs...

Edited by Herbarius, Sun Apr 26, 2009 6:08 PM.

[Tempest]

Fixed. Thanks for the info.

Tempest

[Rom Hunter]

Herbarius, on Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:06 AM, said:

Quote

But the fact is E.T. was a tough technical challenge that I feel I met reasonably well. I made that game start-to-finish in five weeks. No one has ever come close to matching that kind of output on the VCS. It could definitely be a better game, but it's not too bad for five weeks.

I agree that it's a very good game for a development time that short. Also he propably was only able to do it because he already had the experience with the Indiana Jones game and maybe he could even re-use some of the code. I don't even hate it like a lot of people do, I think the reputation of the "worst game ever" has to be put in relation to the hype it got (the TV commercials, the success of the movie, ...) and the resulting disappointment.

But there's a little thing that blows my mind: somehow he had enough time to cram not one, not two but three Easter Eggs in there... He had only this ridiculous short amount of time to finish the game, but yet if he'd used the time he "wasted" implementing the Easter Eggs to polish some of the controls, I think it could have been slightly better... Or maybe if he'd settled with one of the Easter Eggs...

Hmm.

You got a point there.