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Cafeman

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  1. Cafeman

    2023 comes to an end, HB updates

    By Cafeman,


    Homebrew
    I'm over 50, thus I have 1 deceased parent (from year 2000), 1 elderly mom and her elderly husband (of 21 years) , my stepfather. This year I spent a lot of days in support of my 2 elderly parents. My stepfather's health deteriorated a lot in particular, and thus there were many trips to hospitals, caregiving, then in-home hospice, then his death in December at age 84.  Now my mom is a widow again.  The first time she was widowed in 2000, she was only a few years older than I am now. 
     
    So, things like Atari, and homebrewing, well there wasn't much time or energy for that. 
     
    But I did make some progress on these:  
     
    Koffi Redux.  I've been reworking the OG 2002 game in the same 32K memory space. Got some new tweaked graphics like more colors and more interesting backgrounds, a  2-player simultaneous gameplay, and plans for a more pinball-game inspired style of gameplay. But I did all this in the 1st part of 2023 with little progress in the tail end of 2023.  I want to include things like appearing bumpers and targets (on the clouds and tree edges) for Koffi to hit and earn you points as you play.  I'd like to release whatever I can accomplish in 32K as a demo, then bump it up to bank-switched 64K for a more fleshed-out follow up. 
     
    Adventure II 5200 2023. I applied bug-fixes, minor gameplay tweaks,  and engine improvements to the OG 2007 5200 game, still 32K as well. These improvements were based on what I did on Adventure II XE in the 2010's. I don't have much ROM space left.   I was trying to make a new 'base' version of Adventure II 5200 that I could then modify for future DLC ROMs which would have fresh new things for folks to play.  The changes significantly improve the efficiency of the sprite engine. The only problem is that these fixes introduced an old bug.  I could put in a simple plug to identify if the bug happened and fix it on the next frame -   but I really would like to solve the root problem that causes it. I put in an error trap , played in Altirra until the bug happened, then investigated memory.  But I haven't really solved it as I haven't had time the past few months.  
     
    Very little progress of another long-running 5200 Homebrew "Detective Powers". 
     
    Going forward in 2024, after this end-of-year period where I'm really slacking, drinking, and just playing games and watching movies - I hope to get back into the rewarding creativity of homebrewing games for 5200 and A8. 
  2. Cafeman
    [EDITED again - added a Before and After pic below] 
     
    Back in 2020, I started to tinker with my old 2002 game,  the 32K Atari 5200 homebrew Koffi: Yellow Kopter.    I'm calling it Koffi Redux so far.   I fixed bugs, tweaked gameplay rules,  rewrote various graphics routines to make more efficient, added some colors and graphics, and added 2-player mode.  One nasty bug was in the original on stage Windy Vines - it took AA member @RB5200 to find it and report some clues to me.  The bug mysteriously kills poor Koffi for no reason down near the vine.    I fixed the bug which had a side-effect of simplifying some code there, too. 
     
    Even though I reclaimed nearly 1K of ROM by my recoding stuff,  I was again running low. I was down to under 400 bytes of ROM left.   Originally I figured when I ran out of ROM, I'd call it done and release the current version to play.  But there are too many things I want to tweak, and I kept noticing other tables and routines which could take up a much smaller ROM footprint - one of these areas was each screen's Display List.  The screens are primarily high-resolution Antic E mode lines, and each display list was 195 bytes. 
     
    In Koffi, there are 4 gameplay screens, a title screen, and LoadLevel (between stages) screen.  MV Mountain Valley and CF Coniferous Forest screens used the same 195-byte display list, but the other screens all had their own unique 195-byte Display List Tables.   This week I implemented the method I used in 5200 Adventure II (which had about 90 different Antic 4 screens),  each of the 4 gameplay screens now uses a common display list table,  which uses well under 100 bytes to produce the 195 byte Display List.   At this point I have 952 free ROM bytes, so I saved over 550 bytes recoding all this. 
     
    However, I'll use some of that on the next step - to dynamically set the unique Display List Interrupts into that 195-byte RAM table, a unique footprint for each of the 4 gameplay screens.   This method surgically inserts the value $8E overtop an existing $0E byte, one for each place a DLI should exist as you draw down the screen.    By using my AdvII table idea called DLIMarkerScr and DLIMarkerRow tables, I won't use too many ROM bytes implementing custom DLI's for the 4 gameplay screens. 
     
    Diagram 1:    Sample Code which builds the common DLIST from $1000 to $10C2 in RAM.   The actual screen RAM is mapped starting at $2000.   One thing of note is that this Display List requires an extra LMS jump instruction (3 bytes) before you cross screen RAM of $2xxx to $3xxx - yes, a full Antic E screen needs more than 1 page of RAM memory. 
     
    ; ************************************************************************************************************** BuildCommonDLIST dlist1Part1 ldx #$08 ; store 9 bytes from dlist1 table from $1000-$1008: ;*** load initial 9 bytes: dlloop2A lda dlist1,x sta $1000,x dex ;next byte cpx #$ff bne dlloop2A ;*** load 186 bytes, all are "0E" values for Antic E mode lines, from $1009 to $10BF. dlist1Part2 ldx #$09 lda #$0E ;Antic E mode lines dloop2B sta $1000,x inx cpx #$C0 ;end of display list at $10BF in RAM. bne dloop2B ;*** load MID LMS 3 bytes: dlist1part3 lda #$4E sta $1064 lda #$00 sta $1065 lda #$30 sta $1066 ;*** load end jmp 3 bytes: lda #$41 sta $10C0 lda #$00 sta $10C1 lda #$10 sta $10C2 ;******************************************* end new dlist1 code rts ;***************************************************************************************************************  
    Diagram2:  shows what the built DLIST looks like with some notes: 
     

     
     
    Diagram3:   shows what stage 1 MV looks like with no display list interrupts turned on yet, and AFTER the DLI's are active.  Next I have to add the appropriate DLI rows for CF, WV, and PM stages. At this point I have over 900 bytes left, so it was worth the recoding effort. 
     
     

  3. Cafeman

    RL5203 update 02-03-2022

    By Cafeman,


    Homebrew
    I figured out why using the TASM .TEXT command was producing junk at times.  It was because the 'pretty font' I used with Adventure II XE, font1.s,  had the characters switched around and some were actually replaced with custom chars.    Standard ASCII and ATASCII has lower case letters from $61 to $7A, and upper case letters from $41 to $5A.  But this font1.s had upper case in the range $21-$3A.  I had a temporary programming fix which got the upper case letters to work, but I kept noticing other problems.   This character set uses descenders, requiring the use of Antic Mode 3. 

     
    I then edited the charset with Notepad, and carefully swapped upper case letters and the numbers rows back to where they should be to match ATASCII (and what the TASM .TEXT command was programmed to assume).  So that's done.  

     
    Back in 2011 or so, when I started to use that new charset for Adventure II XE,  I must have figured out where the character ranges were and adapted.   Until now I wasn't aware font1.s didn't match the 'customary' ATASCII character locations. (I didn't use the .TEXT command with Adventure II, instead I used the .BYTE command for lists for the words / rankings). 
     
    The other thing I've been doing is working on the city street screens.  AA user @LS_Dracon  produced this Antic4 charset and 1st city screen for me back in 2010, based on some mockups I had made.  So I'll use his designs from ... 12 years ago. LOL.  I've started to make changes to some things and I added a few DLI color changes.  Not sure if that cobbled street is too "busy" .   Here is a sample of the work-in-progress city street , and I just copy/pasted the verbiage from another screenshot for now, to visualize how it would look.  The Holmes text will be at top screen and is in  Antic 3.  The building and street graphics are Antic 4. 
     

     
  4. Cafeman
    RE: this thread - https://forums.atariage.com/blogs/entry/16804-cleaning-out-the-homebrew-folders/
     
     
    I dug out my 20+ year old gridlines notebook to draw some stuff and realized I had never pitched these designs for 2002's Koffi: Yellow Kopter. Posting them in a blog. 
     
     





  5. Cafeman

    DASM and ASL LSR ROL compile errors

    By Cafeman,


    Homebrew
    I got my first clean compile in DASM for Detective Powers 5200.   I had started it a while back using the 6502 assembler called TASM, which is what I used for 5200 / XE Adventure II.  But I wanted to start using the most recent DASM 6502 compiler.   Many of the code formatting changes were straight forward to see the problem and easily change, but I spent some time trying to figure out why I kept getting unresolved symbols on "A" and "a".  I'm not sure if DASM can be configured to show me the line in question causing the error. Instead it basically produces a summary of all the labels / subroutines / variables that are referenced but don't exist.   
     
    The TASM assembler allows , or requires you can use the accumulator ("A") with these:   "ASL A", or "LSR A", or "ROL A".   These were the statements causing DASM to complain, but DASM just says that "A" or "a" aren't recognized, so I had to spend some time before I got it.  There were several statements that needed the accumulator removed, but it just gives 1 error. That also confused me.  
     

     
    Next step is to be able to go from a simple Title Screen , allow Start to be pressed, and load a London city Antic4 screen, without abending. 
     

     
    (_)3
  6. Cafeman
    2022 was a busy year for me.  I didn't have free time or  mental energy to do much homebrewing on Atari XE or 5200,  which I had wanted to.    On the personal real-life front, 2022 took everything I had.    Full-time job.  Family obligations, of course.  After a year of searching and looking at houses,  I successfully found and bought what we wanted  (many other properties I was outbid on,  or the property sold before I had a chance to make an offer. The real estate market was crazy in 2021-2022 ).     I had to coordinate and hire contractors for various home improvement projects before moving into the house in April.    All the projects were more expensive and took more time than expected, all had snafu's.  Remember the worldwide shipping problems last winter?  But also, can't people do their jobs accurately?   Can't companies ship what I ordered and not some other thing that I will have to ship back and wait more weeks?     I also did some light repairs and sold the old house, which sold in 1 day.  We had lived there for over 25 years but due to ever-increasing traffic and noise and more houses being built where trees used to be - we got out of that location.     Then the wife and I spent the last half of the year organizing, going through boxes,  and pitching/selling lots of our stuff from the old house.    
     
    I had surgeries on both hands, one in May and one in November.    My left hand was most recent and I'm still not fully recovered from that.  The right hand was worse though, it took months before I didn't notice aches in it.  You'd be surprised at how much typing and using a mouse , or using a pen, uses your hand.  When your hand still aches, you realize even typing can hurt.  But, I needed these surgeries and it appears I no longer have to suffer from serious numbness from carpal tunnel syndrome.  Which is good!  
     
    HOMEBREW 2022!  Reviewing my notes, I had time in February and then a bit in the 4th quarter, that's all.   Oh, I did have free time in the evenings, but those are not peak brain cell usage hours for me.   Only in the past month have I returned to organizing, brushing up on ASM / Antic / Pokey skills, and started to tinker again.  I took a few scans and pictures of older notebooks just so I can return here in the future and remember.  I have about a dozen different folders for ideas.  One idea I've held onto is an attempt at how I'd do a 2600 Knight Rider game. It may be too much hard work.   
     
    Ok, now it is picture time! Pic-ture tiiiime! 
     
    Atari 5200/XE project folders and a sample of Adventure II XE testing notes from around 2020. 
     

     
    My most active project is for Detective Powers.  Next in line, I made a 2-player simultaneous 5200 version of Koffi: Yellow Kopter, but it isn't playable yet.   Then in time I really need to sit down and make common 64K 5200 and A8 engines so I can develop for both at the same time.   
     
    Concerning DP,   @Thelen made a wonderful new Antic4 tool called Mode4 in Feb 2022, which is pretty nice to use on a windows laptop.   Here is a preview of what I got going so far for country manors which Holmes must visit.   I am not a skilled artist, but using the tool I'm trying to see what I can accomplish. It is a lot of trial and error. 
     

     
     
    Looking at project notebooks, I am reminded that my goal in hand writing notes is speed, not neatness.  I used my i-phone's Notes app and its Document Scan feature for these pictures.  Not sure these are any better than just taking a picture of the page though. 
     

     
    I was always recording Memory Checks.  It is easy to fill up.  

     

     
    2022 was the '20th anniversary' for the Atari 5200, but I wasn't able to complete anything this year.   Bring on 2023.   
     
    c(_) 
     
     
     
     
  7. Cafeman

    RL5203 Jan 2022 update

    By Cafeman,

    For a while,  I have had an idea for Atari 5200 and A8 called Detective Powers. My old blog entry from 2015 has my original ideas.  Here is the original blurb for the game: 
     
    Assume the role of the world’s most famous consulting detective, using investigation and deduction to navigate Baker Street, countryside manors, and interior room locations in a retro 80’s arcade-adventure style of game play. Find helpful items and clues, keep your Detective Powers fully charged and solve each case. Cases are based on several canonical Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and are planned to include The Musgrave Ritual, The Dancing Men, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Final Problem. Sherlock Holmes Adventures is a 32K game for the Atari 8bit XL/XE computers and the Atari 5200 Supersystem.
     
    I've worked on it now and then, but my goal of twin 5200 / A8 dev has been slow going.  I have 2 Atari 5200 engines at 32K, and 1 A8 engine at 64K using bank switching.  My attempts to make 1 64K engine that would produce twin 5200/A8 game ROMs hasn't been going too well. So I went back and just fooled around more with the original 32K 5200 code. I figure I can eventually copy this code to an A8 compatible shell.  But I was tired of fighting with the mechanics of bank switching and 5200 vs A8 registers. 
     
    I took the prettier font/charset I used in Adventure II XE and I've got a shell going on 5200. This game is more text-intensive, and the 5200 version is currently in TASM (not DASM). I tried using the TASM .TEXT directive, but it only seemed to work with lower case letters.  If I put .TEXT "Hello World" , the capital letters don't translate to screen correctly.   I wrote a conversion macro so I can continue to use the .TEXT feature for the verbiage and not worry about capital/lower-case letter problems.    I haven't included any of the actual in-game screens into this engine yet.  First I'd like to understand better how to easily include the verbiage.   In the game, Holmes will talk to you as you play, as though you are Watson. Do something dumb, you'll read in the text box "Really Watson, this will NOT do!" 
     
    I still have some more work to figure out how to more easily include lots of verbiage. 
     
     
     



  8. Cafeman

    Koffi Redux 2020 part 3

    By Cafeman,

    Updated 10/12/20 with the results, see bottom.
     
    I'm running out of ROM memory with the new code I'm adding for the 2-player mode of the game.  Koffi: Yellow Kopter was programmed in 32k back in 2002.  It seemed like a huge amount of ROM at the time, so I didn't try much to keep things small.  There ended up being huge graphics tables and repetitive code routines, just because that was easiest to do.   Also, before I finished Koffi, I used up as much remaining memory as I could.   
     
    Over summer 2020, I went back and rewrote several routines, and I've ditched the original game's credits / names text and freed up 1k or 2k.  I thought this would be enough to add some fun new stuff, but I'm once again running low on ROM space,  so I am now rewriting the routines/data tables which are the biggest ROM wastes:   those that create the image of the Trees.
     
    Stage 1 Mountain Valley's Tree / leaves graphics take up 1,000 bytes originally. But most of the bytes are the value of $55.  I am now trying to store a big rectangular block of $55's (no need to code these into the ROM now) programmatically, and then just have left-edge and right-edge tables to provide the more rounded tree details.  
     
    To illustrate, an original code section: 
    ;************ Draw Leaves Layer2 ******************   ; RWL 2001     lda #<leaves2     sta Ptr1     lda #>leaves2     sta Ptr1+1                                                            lda     #$32                               ;row 4 starts at $3208         sta     $81                                                                           lda     #$08         sta     $80     jsr CommonMVTreeDrawLoop    ;  rewritten as common routine RWL 072520, saved hundreds of bytes  
     
    Using data tables like this one:  
     
    leaves2 .byte $15,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55 ;line 7         .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$50    ;                     ;                                                               .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55 ;line 8         .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$50    ;                     ;                                                               .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55 ;line 9         .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$54,$55,$50    ;                     ;                                                               .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55 ;line 10         .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$51,$15,$54    ;                     ;                                                               .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55 ;line 11         .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$54    ;                     ;                                                               .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55 ;line 12         .byte $55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$55,$54    ;                     ;     
    See all those $55 values?   A compression routine would also reduce ROM needs, I could compress these tables and expand them into screen RAM directly. But I'm not wanting to add a compress/decompress routine to this game this late in the game,  which would take up some ROM itself anyway.  So, I'm reducing these tables with my own custom draw routines.  
     
    10/12/2020 Monday night.   Results:  Success! I got the same basic tree image but at a cost of about 640 bytes less!    
     

     
    prior Blog entries: 
     
    https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/16854-koffi-redux-2020-part-2/
    https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/16763-koffi-2020/
     
  9. Cafeman
    The very last programming change I made to Adventure II XE brought me great happiness, because it was a bug fix that, although infrequent and minor, had eluded me.   Giving up on it over the past years of this project, I concluded that it must be a weird timing issue with the Atari Hardware and VBI timing. Something was perhaps changing registers behind the scenes?  Because my code was surely 100% rock solid and correct.  
     
    This was a bug which plagued me for years of this project. I'm not sure if it exists in the 5200 version (probably), but I don't recall it occurring back then.    I spent hours trying to determine why this somewhat infrequent bug would occur.   Then I'd forget about it. But with lots of testing of the game over summer 2020, I started to see it again and too frequently.  I said to myself, "Self, you should be able to figure this out and fix it".   
     
    Description of the bug:   Sometimes when you stab a dragon and kill it, the "Dragon Killed" success music would fire, but the Dragon didn't die.   Literally, it seemed that the DragonState variable didn't get changed to a value of 0.   The code decrements the dragon's hit points (health) for every frame that the sword is touching the dragon.  But somehow the dragon would get down to 0 hitpoints left, but its DragonState would not be 0.    This isn't tricky programming. It all looked fine. I kept blaming "weird Atari hardware timing". 
     
    So with the game done otherwise, and nothing else to do, I decided to attack the problem systematically. You know, like a real programmer would. I tested using the excellent Altirra emulator, setting WatchBytes on-screen so I could track exactly what was happening as I fought the dragon.  I killed the dragon over and over, then hit the Revive key (which revives the dragons too) and fought/killed the dragon again and again.  I was able to get the glitch to happen but not consistently. All the memory locations that I tracked were exactly as I'd expected - correct.  What's going on???
     
    Then I started to review the code in detail. Some of the labels for subroutines in the code were stupid, the code didn't do what I originally had intended back in 2004.  So I changed a few labels to make more sense, to help the analysis.  And then I saw it.     
     
    The code Check_If_Killed_Dragon was executing 100% correctly.  As I always assumed.   But after it, in the same frame, it was immediately falling into the next routine Check_If_Bit_By_Dragon, which checks if the Dragon bit you, and changes the Dragon's DragonState variable to a "2" - which means to chase the player.    
     
    So ... if you killed a dragon and the dragon's pixels were touching your player at the same time, it was inadvertently changing the DragonState from 0 (dead) back to 2 (chase player) ! It wasn't "weird Atari VBI timing" at all .  It was BAD PROGRAMMMING.   Mine!    And, I fixed it.    Now, after Check_If_Killed_Dragon, it jumps out of that logic. It can check if you were bitten the next frame. This simple addition of a Jump fixed the years-old glitch! And I felt ... quite pleased and happy.  The game was 100% finished at that moment.  
     
    Sorry I blamed you Atari 8-bit computer line!   You were just doing what I told you to do. 
     
     
     
     
  10. Cafeman
    [This older blog entry was updated on 2/14/2020 and 9/30/2020]. 
     
    2001-2002 -- Alan and I begin the game and design 75% of what it will be like. Raccoon joins as the artist.
    2002-2004 -- Raccoon Lad & I discuss 5200 limits, we design and create screens, and program the game.
    2004 -- Infogrames "Atari" attack! Game renamed (temporarily to Quest for the Golden Chalice.  Knocked the wind out of me for a while. 
     
    https://atariage.com/forums/topic/59600-quest-for-the-golden-chalice/#comments

    2005-2006 -- mostly me finishing and debugging the program and trying to accomplish my own vision within dwindling memory space.
    Jan - March 2007 -- Since I have to wait for the game to be manufactured, I do add a few things like the Dragon Trap, then test some more.
    May 2007 -- 5200 version of Adventure II is published by AtariAge!


    ... XE Port begins ... 

    Sept and Oct 2010 -  Perry Thuente (Tep392 on AA) ported the code to 8bit format, including both XEGS and Atarimax Bank-switching formats, and other mods involving OS, keyboard code. Added Bryan's AA splash screen. I now have a lot more memory to work with overall, but need to shift things around some more.
    2011 - overhaul of Random Item hiding logic, creature behavior, and overhauled hiding of the 3 Bat Eggs/Dots. Distribute code and data to different banks to leverage out available total memory. Use one bank for a character set to get prettier text on title screen.
    2012 - address bugs with collision and troll sprite 'remnants'. Changes to map paths, create new EXITS on hedge screens so Hedge Maze is the hub between Ice and Dark kingdoms, not the Green Castle itself like in 5200 version.
    Oct 2012 - first PRGE demo.
    2013 - experiment with new sounds;  add more wood plank bridge building (you can build bridges on both islands screens now, not just 1); Added end-game statistics. Implement one-button control scheme.  (5200 version used 2 buttons).  More gameplay tweaks and bug fixes. Timing seems different running on A8? New box artwork is done by David but we do not reveal it. Release first demo in AA Homebrew forum, with resulting feedback. PJT fixes PORTB problem. My homebrewing desktop computer has a problem at end of year, lost some data and felt burned out. Quit for a while.


     
    2014 - project on hiatus.  Too much real-world stuff going on such as home repair. 
    2015 - I got a new Lenovo i7 laptop, so I restored and reorganized my Adventure II folders and files, and started working on it again. Added content and tweaks, fixed new bugs that got introduced, continued to get frustrating trying to add new content into the original hard-coded engine!  At least the Yuengling beer was satisfying. 


     
     
    2016 - project on hiatus again.  I just can't get to it.  I can't really remember why! Too busy living life I guess. There is an up-to-date PRGE demo in October.

    Jan and Feb 2017 - with a real "Git'R Dun" determination, I completed engine optimizations.  I had too much going on in Vertical Blank , which was causing strange behavior when several large sprites were all on screen.    These optimizations corrected DLI screen color errors that had been plaguing me.   I programmed the Alternate Icons with distinct special abilities. Added all-new rankings and overhauled rankings determination logic. Opened up Sword collision so it will harm a dragon even if you are not carrying it (I know that is how 2600 Adventure worked, but if you play 5200 Adventure II, a dragon will glide THROUGH an uncarried sword unharmed. Not any more!)

    Sept and Oct 2017 - Fixed some rankings bugs. Revised Title screen so that options are selectable via joystick.  Continued to add content here and there, and worked on years-old list of items. Purchased Atarimax USB programmer, to test on real hardware. Another PRGE demo October 2019, showing new Title Screen and options like Dark Mode. New artwork is revealed in a banner at PRGE show.

     2018  -  not much accomplished.  I lose interest in things. 
     
     2019 and 2020 work: 
     
    1.  After experimenting with different sounds and tunes, I decided to keep most of the original 5200 sounds, which now to me are iconic of the game.  Even the dragon barks. I reduced the repetition of the main tune, and added a couple new sound cues.   To save ROM space, the 5200 version sounds/music  were hardcoded into small static tables which used an index to find the right piece, and compressed/decompressed into RAM to boot. Thus it was difficult to really do much modification of those.  It was easier to make new sounds than to change the old ones.   I moved all sound logic and sound/music data tables to their own 4k bank which I didn't even fill up!  I really feel the game's overall silence is important so I didn't want to put a repetitive and looping pokey tune in there playing all the time.    

    2. Play testing, using Altirra and its nice debug, but also using the Atarimax USB programmer and 8 mbit cart with my XEGS and Atari 800XL consoles.  I have not seen any differences of game behavior between Altirra and real hardware,  other the colors / brightness of a laptop screen vs Plasma HDTV.   With one exception:  my Plasma would roll at the Game Win screen, I eventually fixed that by tweak to when I turned off Antic between game screen and Game Win Rankings Screen.    
     
    Another thing as I opened up the Start, Select, and Option console buttons to server as Start/Quit, Revive, and Game Pause functions, respectively. This allows use of the Atari XEGS without a keyboard.  
     
    My son proved helpful with QA testing.  He really tries to break the game.   Because of his testing, I noticed one glitch that was reported before - when square is changing screens,  if you kept spamming the rotate-carried-item button, it can mess up the X coordinate and the item will be far away from you but still 'carried'.  I thought this bug was an unavoidable VBI timing issue, but it is "user-caused" !  I fixed it.  This was a too-common pattern of mine, blaming the Atari hardware for my own glitches! Because , you know, I'm such a good programmer n'at, how could it be happening due to MY code?  
     
    3.  A new DEMO was released on 2/5/2020 to the Homebrew / Adventure II XE demo and testing thread. So far it looks like 70-80 downloads of the various different formats.  Feedback comments were:  (1) comments about Key colors.  Green and Gold keys aren't always distinguishable;   (2) and a comment showing a collision bug, Knight Helmet gets stuck.   I did find a bug and fixed it to prevent getting stuck on plants, etc. when you are the Knight Helmet. 
     
    This brings up a good subject - NTSC colors.  I spent quite a few hours trying to prevent 'NTSC greenish hue' syndrome on my yellow/tans, and also quite a few hours experimenting with different key colors so that it was always easy to distinguish which key you were looking at.   Depending on which color of background graphics a key sits, it can be near impossible to tell the Gold and Green keys apart, or sometimes even the red and blue keys have a similar purple/white hue on some screens. Making the keys darker helps to distinguish them, but then the keys are sometimes lost in the background graphics which isn't acceptable either.  So, my first solution was to cycle / pulsate the key colors.  But I still got negative feedback about the keys, even after adding the cycling.  And then ....  an epiphany around March 2020 ... 
     
     ... I was so surprised that I didn't think of the obvious solution before -- have unique bitmaps for each of the 4 keys.  I started by making the Gold Key have a square handle.  It looked great - problem fixed. AA member TIX drew some additional Key designs, and I picked 2 for the Red and Blue keys.  Of course I had to rework the code which had previously assume all keys had the same bitmap. 
     
    4.   In summary,  my 2020 tweaks included the new unique key images, that collision fix,  a screen garbage fix at Game Win, several minor gameplay tuning tweaks, and ... one more bug fix that was rare but plagued me for the past few years:  sometimes you would stab a dragon, but the dragon would not die on screen even though the kill music played. This baffled me over the years, then I would forget about it,  but then in testing I would see it again. I thought surely there was a strange and unknowable Atari Hardware VBI timing bug doing something weird. However, since I had some free time waiting for AtariAge to manufacture the game, I decided that I should be able to figure this out and fix it.  And, using the Altirra emulator, I did indeed finally spot the problem, which was not strange timing but was 100% bad programming by me! But the details are a story for another blog entry. This was the last coding change, in September.  Fixed! 
     
    In summary, I had also added new uses for 4 items for the XE version.
         (a)  Sword now interacts with Dragons even if not being carried; 
         (b) Chalice now grants you SPEED as long as you hold it. I think this makes the end-game less tedious and more fun, and adds the game play mechanism of keeping the found Chalice close by to re-grant yourself SPEED as you explore. Yes, you can find the Chalice before you find the sword or the Yellow/Golden Key for the Seashore castle.  This was not true in the 5200 version.  The Chalice will also trigger a sound cue if you carry it onto a screen hiding a Bat Egg;   
         (c) Blue / Ice Key  now interacts with the Minotaur in a certain way. 
         (d) Red Key also has a hidden function, other than opening up its Castle gate.  It isn't a necessary or even helpful function but you'll know it when you go to the right place with this key.  
     
    4.  AA Store  and Publishing ...   Its looking like October 2020.     David Exton created nice art and layouts for the manual and box designs.   The manual is very distinct from the 5200 Adventure II manual with a lot more art (and in a different style).    Albert had to figure out a solution to getting more A8 cart shells in 2020 - in August he shared a pic of one, a charcoal color. The picture is in the Adventure II XE demo and testing thread. 
     
    This may be my last blog entry for Adventure II. I've been involved with the game since 2001!  19 years duration, although not actually 19 years-worth spent. 
     
    FIN


     
  11. Cafeman
    In July 2020 I and sat down at my home-brewing desk and started to play around with tweaking my 2002 Atari 5200 homebrew, Koffi: Yellow Kopter.     I have had notes about doing a 2nd Koffi game since 2002 when I finished the first one, but it seems ever more unlikely I'll devote time to do a whole new sequel with all the ideas I'd planned.   So, I decided to play around with the original, add a few game play tweaks, some new visual details, fix a few bugs, and add a new 2-Player co-op mode.  Some of my first changes are listed at an earlier blog entry: 
     
     https://atariage.com/forums/blogs/entry/16763-koffi-2020/
     
     

     
     
    As I started to experiment and add fruits, more colors, 2-Player code and other things, what it turned into was a serious need to reclaim some more ROM memory.  And OH THE HORROR of some of my old code!     Koffi was a 32K game, which seems like plenty of ROM for a game like this, but it fills up.   And in 2002  I was new at 6502 ASM codeing and learning, so I did several routines burning more ROM memory than I needed.  And I had tried to fill in all the 32K memory just for the principle of using it all,  thus the original game had a lengthy Credits with people's names at Game Over.  For this version, I axed all that.    I reviewed several screen-drawing routines that were basically the same code, so I consolidated most of these to use tables and parameters and to call a common subroutine.  Same deal with the BuildRainDrops / EraseRainDrops (which use the 5200s' missiles) -  I consolidated 6 of these subroutine to be consolidated table-driven loops rather than 6 lengthy individual subroutines which all basically did 90% the same thing.   Between these two categories I freed up about 700 more bytes in the past week, so that should be enough to finish 2-player mode and add some more interrupts and colors.  
     
    Here are some WIP pictures.  I hope to accomplish a few more dramatic visual changes, but it depends on free memory and if adding too much logic affects the gameplay.   For this version,  I kept Koffi's "Koloring Book" mode, where you press the #5 key and then can use *, 0, and # keys (at the bottom of the 5200 controller) to change the colors of 16 different categories on screen. And I added 3-character text descriptions to each of the 'categories', for example CL1 is Cloud Color 1, Tr1 / Tr2/ Tr3 are Tree colors 1/2/3, and so on.  In the 5200 original, it just showed the hex value 0 through F. 
     

     
     
    2 Player Mode is starting to work.  You toggle it on the Title Screen by pressing the #0 key.    It is understandably glitchy for now, until I modify ALL the collision and Points logic to handle 2 players.  To get 2 Kopters on-screen, I took Koffi's original Player0 and Player 1 (which gave him multi colors) and devoted Player0 to the first kopter, Player1 to the 2nd.   
     

     
    If the first Kopter is named Koffi, then I guess the second Kopter will be named Toffi.   
  12. Cafeman
    I tend to save information forever. I've had various notebooks and folders in my garage's filing cabinet , the info is all from 2001 through 2011.  Today I decided to dig out the folders , keep what might still be useful, and pitch the rest. All of the paper had a slight musty smell.   All these were in the top drawer of the file cabinet;  the bottom draw has all my guitar tablature magazines, some from the 80's (remember Guitar for the Practicing Musician anybody?). I'll be going through those mags next to see if I can de-clutter. 
     
    ANYWAY ... I pitched all my work-in-progress notes for 2002's Koffi: Yellow Kopter, plus work-in-progress notes and folders about 2007's Adventure II.  I kept the notes of various other homebrew ideas I had. Who knows?   
     
    Look at all the work I had to do to code Raccoon Lad's sprites! 1's and 0's, yes indeedy. 
     

     
    Then I found these notes ... I remember an original idea for Adventure II when it was just Alan and myself, was to have different colors of Armor.  The Bat turned into our Troll.  Some wanted to see the Wizard, but frankly I vetoed that idea for a few reasons, primarily that Robinette didn't have a Wizard in 2600 Adventure! It was an invention of the manual writers.  Plus I had my hands full with the rest of the programming.  If you want a Wizard, there are 2600 homebrews where the author put him in. And homebrew games where the wizard returned! 
     
    Yeah though, I remember our idea to find Blue Armor to help you cross over water.  Adventure II changed that idea, instead you can build bridges from wood planks, over the water. Or fly across the water if you get that power-up.  I see that we also intended there to be an Inventory system , but that was simplified to be more Adventure 2600-ish - carry 1 thing at a time, bub.  These hand-written notes are from 2001 or so.  I took a picture, then pitched them. 
     

     
     
    I don't know what this simple maze design was for - but it was never used. You want it? 
     

     
    Finally, I also pitched my work-in-progress Koffi notes, I don't want to see those any more, after all the code itself explains how the game works better than those notebooks. But I found this doodle of a Homebrew Patch idea or two ... I like the idea for patches.   I'm not sure if anybody has done them for an AA homebrew?  I think I did see something on ZPH about earning a patch but I can't remember which game(s). 
     

     
    That's all. I filled an entire large-size garbage bag with notebooks , manilla folders, and pages.  Next I have to go through those guitar tab magazines. 
     
  13. Cafeman

    Koffi 2020

    By Cafeman,

    Trying to refresh my skills using DASM , I started to make little tweaks to 2002's Koffi: Yellow Kopter.   So far, did these things:
     
    removed y2k-compliant bootup code (the Atari fuji symbol w/multicolors). Freed up some ROM and the game boots immediately to Koffi's title screen now.  modified the hues of the raindrops to a more blue hue. Using hues $B4/$B8, the raindrops looked green on emulators although looked bluish on my orig 5200 and on ancient emulator VSS.   NTSC color values weren't what I orig thought they were. Well the raindrops are blue now.   Fixed a bug with Koffi's water tank level.  It was challenging to find the reason why the yellow water meter would display as though it were full, but internally the water value would wrap around to $00 value (thus no water untl you catch more!). It could happen (usually on Easy mode)  when you had a full meter, after Pyro the cloud was defeated and the final countdown was going on to put out the fire.  Well, I found the cause. Fixed. You can start the game with a Joystick button press now.  Fixed another bug on Pyro's Mom (the 4th stage which is a boss fight). If the fire Chaser gets hit by Mom's lighting, he shoots up and hits her, stunning her and giving you some time to safely go hit her right in the clouds. (ow!)  The bug , which I knew about but decided back then to call a feature, is the Chaser can get stuck in this sequence in an infinite loop.  Solved, fixed.  Tweaked the graphics for Mom's eyes after she is defeated to be more centered as I originally intended. Tweaked the Tree Bonus logic . It is easier to get the 500 point max bonus now, and I added some more granularity to the points levels.   Tweaked the settings as the levels increase. You can defeat Pyro a bit quicker on each level now, speeding up the pace of the game a bit.   
    Reviewing the code, I believe I can free up some ROM space and make some more gameplay and graphics tweaks for Koffi 2020.   What I'd like to try is to have a 2-player simultaneous mode.  I always wanted that (like in the Williams game Joust), but it was beyond my abilities back in 2002.  We'll see. 
     
     

     

  14. Cafeman

    Me and Saturn

    By Cafeman,

    I loaded Shinobi Legions and have been relearning it for that past 2 nights.  I have not played it for a LONG TIME.  Probably not for 10 years or more.  Quick take:  it is pretty awesome and fun!  Its funny to me, I remember taking note of the game's load times when it was new.  Well ,  compared to Genesis cartridge gaming, yes there are some load times, but after playing modern games for so many years, Shinobi Legions'  load times now seem negligible to me!   The game is more fun, with better control, than I had thought. 
     
    But last night, it locked up on the first boss. Then no disc would load - it appeared my Saturn would not spin the disc anymore or something. Was the laser gone? Did some mechanical doodad finally wear out?  So I unplugged it, shot high pressure component-cleaning air into it, and then turned it upside down and did it again.  BANG my Saturn was working fine again.  Not sure how or why. 
     
    I have been relearning patterns and subtleties of gameplay. This Shinobi plays differently than the Genesis games, even the ninja powers aren't accessible in the same way as before. There are different sword swipes you can pull off - press up + button, or up/right diagonal + button, or forward with button .. all different swipes. The animation is very good and overall its quite fun ... and HARD. I got to the boss on the mountaintop , after climbing hand-over-hand on vines and killing massive snakes and avoiding cannons.  I can't remember if I ever got past this level or not, its like a new game that I've never played before.   
     

     
    The in-game music is excellent.   And although I used to mock the FMV's, I now find them very entertaining in a 'cheaply made' bad sense, and yet there are a few surprises in the cut scenes. One of them is when all the ninjas and a girl actually jump / spectacularly dive off a cliff into the sea - with real people!  The cliff looks to be over 20 feet high! 
     
     

  15. Cafeman
    As I blogged about earlier, Panzer Dragoon Remake made me want to hook up the Saturn again to play though the original. 
     
    Now I'm mostly working on Panzer Dragoon Zwei, which is one of my favorite Saturn titles. I am up to level 6 which is the assault on the huge flying imperial ship. I died at the boss fight, so I'll try it again next time - this game allows a Save End option to continue later.  
     
    It has been so long since I had played Zwei, that I keep getting killed off. I don't remember the strategies or patterns, and that makes the game a lot of fun all over again. In fact almost all the levels killed me off at least once.  Level 5 (I think) where you battle in the high-up snowy skies killed me the most so far. I finally remembered the secret to beating the boss - have enough health of course, but also don't lock-on at all because his rotating shield blocks all missiles. Just keep following him and button-mash fire at him until he's gone. 
     
    I also popped in my Williams' arcade classics disc and enjoyed a round of Bubbles, Defender, and Robotron.   For Robotron I have to angle my controller a bit because the firing buttons aren't laid out in a perfect diamond. for Up/Down/Left/Right shooting, but I adjust pretty quickly. Love using the Saturn japanese pad for gaming.  I didn't even have to take a carpal-tunnel-syndrome break like I often have to with other controllers (my hands go numb). 
     
    Maybe next time I fire up the Saturn, I'll finally beat all of Zwei and open Pandora's Box.  
  16. Cafeman

    I'm on a Saturn kick

    By Cafeman,

    Sega's 3rd party released Panzer Dragoon Remake for Switch, which I don't own and don't really intend to buy right now.   I've always been a bigger Sega fan than an Atari fan.  I almost picked up a Switch when the newer Virtua Racing came out last year, but didn't. 
     
    So I dug out my Saturn from the closet o'doom and hooked it up.  I have to use composite with my Panasonic 42" Plasma since it doesn't support S-video. I see there are Saturn Component and HDMI cables and I'm looking into them, but the Saturn's composite ain't that bad to be honest. 
     
    Well I fired up Panzer Dragoon and played it about 2 hours over the weekend. I couldn't beat it. It was way more difficult than I remembered. But my 4-in-1 RAM cart has pre-loaded cheats like infinite energy, so I played the game through cheating. I honestly don't know how long it has been, because I didn't remember the 2nd to the last stage at all! You are flying over water with a city and bridges around you on the land.  I'm sure I'd have died had I not had infinite energy.   I did remember the final boss fight. The game ends super classy with hand-drawn art and more superb music. I love Panzer Dragoon. Tonight I'm going to play through Zwei again, no cheating (at first). 
     

     
    As I heard the music and the shots and explosion sounds from Saturn Panzer Dragoon, I had flashbacks of playing the system years ago - there's something about the sounds quality that I really like.  I'm running in stereo of course but through my Onkyo 5.1 system - sounds retro and great.   I love the controller too.  And I think it may look , play, and sound better than the version on OG Xbox Panzer Dragoon Orta, which at the time seemed washed out to me. I'll have to try it again - I think that version is based on the original PC version and there is a difference in feel and look compared to the Saturn original. 
     
    I watched the entire Panzer Dragoon Remake (skipping through it a bit), and it is very faithful to the original - same enemy placement, same soundtrack.  It isn't AAA quality, but I didn't expect it to be.  Some of it seemed quite beautiful to me.  I hope it comes out on PS4 this year. Else I'll have to rethink buying a Switch sooner rather than later. 
     

     
     
  17. Cafeman

    Star Wars The Mandalorian

    By Cafeman,

    Star Wars: The Mandalorian series.  Episodes 1-7.   
     
    Initially I wasn't going to subscribe early to Disney+. But then they showed the trailer for The Mandolorian.   There was absolutely no thought process after that.  I waited a week to let 2 episodes queue up, then subscribed and watched the first 2 eps back-to-back.   I've now watched all 7 of the aired episodes, so what do I think?   I'll list my top 5 surprises and bottom 5  'cons'  so far.     I was going to post this earlier but never did, thus I kept watching more episodes and this blog entry grew longer than it should have. 
     
    The Mandalorian immediately won me over with eps 1-3. After that, I enjoyed episodes 4-6 to lesser degree. I started to fear it wasn't going anywhere and that the episodes were one-off's.    Then, episode 7 re-introduced key characters and progressed the storyline, with surprises and tension! Episode 7 "The Reckoning"  is my favorite of all the episodes. 
     
    PRO's: 
     
    5.   A fresh story set in the Star Wars universe with plenty more details of familiar creatures, planets, and races from the OT era that weren't a main part of the  Rebels/Empire/Skywalker story.   The story occurs chronologically about 5 years after the events of Return of the Jedi  --  the fall of the Empire, when Death Star II was destroyed along with dark sith lord Emperor Palpatine and the turn of Darth Vader back into Anakin Skywalker before his own death.  This story does not concern itself with Rebels vs the Empire, or Jedi, or even the Force.  These things exist but are not the focus of the characters.  It's SW universe but a fresh take and given enough weekly episodes to breathe a bit. 
     
    In many ways, The Mandalorian is successful at looking and sounding like it was filmed at the same time as the original 3 films.  We're getting more details on the side-stories.   Bounty Hunters.  Cantina hangouts.  An AT-ST, which is no longer a minor enemy when used by marauders against farmers.     Familiar droids, beasts and races.   We get to know an actual Ugnaught!  I liked Nick Nolte's Ugnaught character Kuiil and his amusing manner of concluding his speeches:   "I have spoken. "   Allll-righty then!   We got  Jawas and their Sandcrawler. We got to see aliens of the same species as Bounty Hunter Bossk!     And seeing IG-11 was great ... after seeing the trailer (and thinking this was IG-88, the Bounty Hunter droid from TESB),  I was surprised he was a potential ally to Mando. I enjoyed seeing IG-11's return in a later episode.   
     
    4. Music and art.  I really love seeing the hand-drawn art of various episodes scene at the end of each episode!  Marvel MCU films have done this too to great effect.  The first time I remember seeing this idea was back in Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi) in the intro credits. I can still remember sitting down in the theater and hearing the Spider-Man music gear-up and ... OMG is that the uber-realistic art of Alex Ross?!   I love the classic Atari 2600 box art for the same reason, it adds all good qualities to the end product.  I enjoy watching the end-credits of Mandalorian, waiting to see what paintings they'll show.  
     
    3. Filling out more details of the Mandalorians.   I don't know what is / is-not Star Wars canon anymore. Mandalorians were in the XBOX game Knights of the Old Republic , which took place 1000 years Before the Battle of Yavin  - 1000 BBY.  In the game, Mandalorians seemed to have no qualms with taking off their helmets to show their faces.  But that isn't the case in the show's era. 
     Mandalorians were in the animated show Star Wars Rebels, which takes place before Star Wars: A New Hope (Ep4).  In this series, one of the rebels was a young female Mandalorian by name of Sabine Wren.   We got history of the planet Mandalore and its people. Is that still considered 'Star Wars Canon' ?  I'm not sure, but in this show, The Mandalorian is called "Mando" for short.  He doesn't ever remove his helmet in front of others.  He isn't entirely ruthless and certainly he isn't invincible in battle, although quite skilled.  He has a history, a story to tell. He's following the rules of Mandalorianism.  "This is the way!"      I like the character even though I thought he'd be different. He has all the expected weapons - disintegrator, rope, flamethrower ... but no jetpack yet! 
     
    2.  Guest actors.  For some reason is kind of dig the Cara Dune character and the actress.   That's one tough woman.  She wears no helmet, not much armor either ... really?    I remember when Gina was on American Gladiators as Crush, she was a jaw-dropping Amazon.  Then she was a kickboxing fighter. MMA? I never watched it. But I'm glad she's finding tough-guy film roles because she really looks the part.    Also I liked seeing Chubs / Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), he's always a welcome sight.  "you gotta tap, tap, tap it in, Happy".   Nick Nolte is also always good, and even Clancy Brown showed up dressed as the big red alien muscle in episode 6.  Others I forget their names but recognize their faces. 
     
    1.  The Child!       Every now and then, somebody just nails a character or concept perfectly in a show.   In this show, it was the surprisingly well-kept secret and the introduction of The Child ("baby Yoda" as the media dubbed him).      Seriously, weren't we all stunned when we discovered in Episode 1 that the 50-year-old bounty was a very young child version of Yoda's species!   His adorable cuteness knows no bounds as he wordlessly (but not always quietly) observes the goings-on.    I really enjoyed seeing him act as a curious little child,  by pressing ship buttons (he's reprimanded by Mando ;   then he does it again! HAHA) .   Or, “BabyYoda” tries to Force-heal Mando's wound (he is prevented, due to Mando's ignorance,  then put back in crib. The indignity!).    “BabyYoda” sees the Razor Crest’s joystick ball-mount and wants to play with it (denied! put back in crib again!).   “BabyYoda” is there in the background, sipping his cup of bone broth,  observing Mando VS Cara Dune struggle (and inadvertently interrupting the fight. HAHA!).  The he is playing with a frog, which he swallows whole!     I think the cutest scene was watching BY being  turned over for the bounty to the Client.    BY shoots a desperate child look to Mando, looking and squeaking in desperation  as he is turned over to the ex-Imperials.   Oh man. That one broke my heart for a moment.   But he also shows some seriously strong Force levitation powers, I think it put a chill into Mando's and the Ugnaught's spines.   "What was that?"  "I don't know".    When you finally get to watching episode 7,  BY’s Force powers are shown to even greater degree, and for a brief moment he adopted a rather frightening disposition that seemed more Palpatine than Yoda!  
     
     
    CONs.   Some very minor nit-picks here, since there aren't any major problems with the show. 
     
     
    5. Episode length is short.  This isn't really hurting the show.   But the episodes end so quickly with  30 to 40 minutes on average, and that includes the introduction and end-credits.    
     
    4. Episode 4 bone (broth) of contention:   when Mando and Cara Dune realized there was an AT-ST with tremendous firepower, why didn't Mando use his ship, the Razor Crest? It is a former military craft.   Surely the ship of a Mandalorian bounty hunter could destroy one AT-ST?    However, Mando states that there isn't anything on the planet powerful enough to shoot out the AT-ST's legs... so they devise a trap.  It was still a fun stand-alone kind of episode.   But the question still rolls around in my brain. 
     
    3. Episode 4 - another 'mmmkay' moment - why does the attractive and skilled female widow find herself so immediately attracted to Mando?   He could be a Bossk-style lizard inside that helmet. He could have any number of bad traits that she hasn't seen yet, she's only known him days.  I guess she did try to take off his helmet to get a good look at him. 
     
    2.  The Force?   In this group of characters, it appears nobody is familiar with The Force.  Even the ex-rebel Cara Dune.  But didn't the Rebels always say, "May The Force be with you" ?  Even Han Solo said it in the first film!  Maybe Shock Troopers didn't say that.   
     
    1.   Weak middle of season 1.    Episode 4,5,6 were stand alones - fun to watch to but I started to lose interest, because there seemed to no longer be a story-arc .  It seemed each episode was Mando and Child trying out a new location to hide out / make money.  Take Episode 5 - The Gunslinger.  Cool episode title.  And I appreciated returning to Tatooine, and it was nice to see Ming-na Wen show up.  But this was the weakest storyline with some of the weakest performances so far in my book.  
     
    My Mandalorian Episode rankings:     7 =  1 >  3 > 2 >  6 > 4 > 5.  
     

  18. Cafeman
    If I had to rate Xbox Knights of the Old Republic based on the first 5 hours, I'd have given it a meager 4/10 , and those 4 points were solely because of the Star Wars universe.  You are stuck on boring planet Taris.  Your character slowly jogs around the upper and lower levels of a city block, talking to characters, breaking into apartments (how exciting!),  trying to remember who's who and why you care, and engaging in some turn-based battles with unimportant characters.  Blah.   The music, voice and sounds are pretty good, and the graphics not bad for that era, but it just lasts too long, and that's why I gave up on the game 15 years ago.
     
    To be honest, I played even longer than 5 hours on Taris because I forgot stuff and re-explored, and I'm not sure how 'fast' you could beat the planet in a replay. 
     
    But the game immediately gets more interesting once you get off the planet and head to Dantooine. And then, you can Pass Go and proceed directly to Tatooine!   Yes!  I really enjoyed the cinematics of the Falcon Ebony Hawk taking off, hyperwarping, and entering the new planet!  But it is a thousand years before Anakin... 
     
    Dantooine was mentioned by Princess Leia as a bluff to Grand Moff Tarkin, back in the original Star Wars film.   The Imperials investigated and found remnants of an ancient rebel base , that's all.   To which the evil Tarkin, who just exploded Leia's home planet of Alderaan,  exclaimed hilariously, "she LIED to us!!".    What comes around, goes around, Monsieur Tarkin. 
     
    Back to KOTOR, I was finally seeing Dantooine, and that was a little bit exciting to me. There's a Jedi counsel, farmland to explore (those people must starve regularly because the Xbox can only render a few polygonal fruit trees), mysterious Force-related stuff to learn about, and rogue Mandalorians to battle! 
     
    I was again growing frustrated with the game,  because I ran out of things like grenades and credits. So in desperation, I did what the game's creators wanted me to do, I searched around. Oh! There is a Rodian (Greedo's race) selling weapons! I passed right by him a few times. Oh! By going back to my base ship,  the Ebony Hawk, I find that the Wookie and Mandalorian in my party will actually give me free grenades (not the type I really wanted) and Stim enhancement shots! That's good.  So far in the game, I'm low on credits but I refuse to play the Pazaak card game to try to win more money.  That will have to change, I suspect. 
     
    There were 2 tough battles for me on this planet.     The first comprised of 2 individual attacks against a security droid.  I seemed to be attacking it, but it wasn't getting harmed. So I re-engaged my brain and examined the weapons ... oh! ION weapons are good against shields and droids, and sometimes Vibro Blades might be better than a lightsaber due to energy shielding.   So I switched things up, threw an ION grenade,  and both Droids fell quickly .   The final battle on Dantooine was against the leader of the Mandalorian thugs that were bullying and killing the populace. This guy was TOUGH.  And I didn't have any Frag Grenades because I was out of credits.  After at least 10 losing battles, my team defeated him (and the rest of his team was a snap to finish off after he fell),   and the experimentation did teach me better how to battle in this game.  
     
    Mostly my other 2 party members have been the Mandalorian guy and Jedi Bastila. I've been talking to both, hearing his glorious war battle tales, and her sad tales about her family.  This is likely par-for-the-course for an RPG (I don't play many), but I took note that KOTOR has very good writing and very good voice acting.  The one problem with the game is the frequent re-use of character faces and  builds for different characters.  But hey, it was 2003. 
     
    So now I'm on Tatooine, at familiar Mos Eisley (ahem) - I mean at Anchorhead (not that they look any different).    I'm actually eager to get back to it after work tonight!  I love the idea of destroying Sand People and outwitting Jawas!  
     
    And the Star Wars Binge continues .... 
     
  19. Cafeman
    I am done watching the films in story-chronological order!  Here is my ranking of the 8 Skywalker films and 2 side story films, which I'm sure nobody will agree with: 

    Ep5 > Ep4 > Ep6 > Ep7 >  RO > Ep8 > Ep3 > Solo > Ep1 >  Ep2. 

    Breaking it down a bit: 

    Ep5 > Ep4 > Ep6  -  because the OT films are the best of all them. Unbeatable.   Ep6 ROTJ is an 8.5/10 film, not quite up there with Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back - both of which are 10/10 excellent films.  
     
    Next I list Ep7 The Force Awakens which I rate as an 8.5/10 film overall.  Despite mirroring Ep4: A New Hope story points: a desert planet with a force sensitive new person,  and a cantina scene, and a new planet-killing "Death Star" type of weapon,  a new "Empire" and a new "Emperor" , and even a trench scene ... despite what it looks like when written down, I think JJ Abrams and crew did a nice job bringing back the SW feel and making it all seem familiar, but not really the same story at all.  Plus we got to see Han, Leia, and briefly Luke 30 years after ROTJ!   John Williams introduce new themes here, including Rey's theme which I love.    Ep7 TFA is the best of the not-OT films. 

    Next I listed Rogue One. I like the film, I'd rate it 8/10. It has an awesome final battle, the first Darth Vader scenes since 1983 ROTJ, and reanimated Tarkin which I greatly enjoyed.   I can't rank it too high, since without the OT already existing, Rogue One wouldn't be so great to me.    It fits right into the OT feel, it adds to the Death Star / Rebels story, it fleshes out Vader and the ruthless Grand Moff Tarkin too.  Its a great and fresh film. 

    Next I listed Ep8 The Last Jedi. I like the film, I'd give it 7.5/10 overall, but I get bored with the Finn/Rose scenes, and I don't like how the film uses Holdo and killed off Ackbar.    I don't mind Snoke getting killed, I never really liked that character anyway.    Poe and Finn seem less interesting than they were in TFA!   Maybe the film is just too long and should have had some parts cut or edited. 
     
    Next I listed Ep3 Revenge of the Sith,  a 7.5/10 film to me. It is packed with combat scenes, and even shows Kashyyk and the wookies.  Although it doesn't connect with me like the OT does, it does have scenes we never got before , mostly Palpatine vs just about everybody individually, even Yoda.   I love watching Ian McDiarmid chewing up his scenes. 
     
    Next I listed Solo.  I enjoy the film, and it has young Han, Chewie, the Falcon, and a fantastic version of young Lando Calrissian!  I would rate it 7.5/10 overall. But despite Han and Chewie and even Lando,  this film feels the least like a Star Wars film to me.  Especially with Woody Harrelson and The Vision and that G.ame-of-Thrones actress in it.    So I didn't rank it that high on my SW list.  Fun to watch, but not memorable to me. 

    Next I listed Ep1 The Phantom Menace.  Like Ep7 about 15 years later, TPM brought back the familiarity of SW in a decent way, starting with 2 Jedi and lightsabers.    Darth Maul is the best not-Vader Sith who ever could have been imagined!  His athleticism and attacks , and appearance, are a treat to watch while the swelling music of Duel of the Fates is playing.  Other superb characters are Liam Neeson as Qui-Gonn and introducing Ewan McGregor  as young Obi-Wan .   I liked seeing Tatooine and Jabba again, and the Pod Racing sequence is thrilling.      I'd rate TPM 7/10 as a film. 

    Finally,  Ep2 Attack of the Clones (easily the worst of all them), perhaps a  6/10 film.   AotC has some enjoyable scenes like all SW films,  but a lot of bad scenes that weigh the film down; usually as soon as Anakin and Padme start talking, I click the Fast Forward button until the next scene appears, making it a much more enjoyable movie.  
     
    I guess I really don't like the Prequel Trilogy films as much as the other ones.   One of the reasons is that George Lucas relied on CGI too much and you can see it.  Another reason is the dialogue is often bad. I think Lucas has great ideas, but it seems he wasn't the best director, perhaps?   In hindsight, I think only 2 PT films were needed.  Or, we could have gotten to know the other Jedi a bit more over the course of the 3 films before they are all wiped out. Or, Darth Maul could have, you know, NOT been killed off so quickly?  Well, I have to watch Episode IX and then re-evaluate the PT against the entire Sequel Trilogy. 

    Next up on my Episode IX Star Wars binge:  more video-games, and The Mandalorian to watch! 
     
  20. Cafeman
    I've watched Star Wars Episode VII:  The Force Awakens about a dozen times;  I've watched Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi a couple of times.    I just re-watched them, after having watched all the other SW films in story-chronological order. 

    I've already blogged a lot about Episode 7: The Force Awakens, so I'm not in the mood to say the same things.  Basically I really enjoyed its return to the OT feel, and I really liked Daisy Ridley as Rey.  Even though TFA mimics story points from ANH, I still enjoy it a bit more than TLJ.  

    If TFA is an example of how to play it super-safe in making a new Star Wars, then TLJ is an example of how to go in a totally unexpected direction from the prior film, for better and worse.    TLJ starts with off with an unexpected use of humor, as Poe Dameron and his droid BB-8 try to stall First Order General Hux from attacking the fleeing Rebels or their own tricked out X-wing.   I like the gag and I laughed out loud on this viewing as Hux, who takes himself and his role far too seriously,  is played for laughs.  He just doesn't get it;   but his fellow officers sure do, as do we the audience.     Then after a costly brief battle (for both sides), Hux is immediately and hilariously berated by Supreme Leader Snoke himself, wiping the floor with Hux's face!   But Hux was not 100% a fool as we soon learn.  

    As I watch General Hux later in the film, I am starting to believe his character is the Star Wars equivalent to Pride and Prejudice's character Mr. Collins.  Mr. Collins is a pompous, idiotic clergyman who constantly drops the name of his patron, lady Catherine De Bourge.   The actor who plays him in the 1995 BBC mini-series was perfect for the role, a greasy and sniveling man who has a bit of authority.    In the same way, Domhnall Gleeson's General Hux can't mention enough times his admiration for the SUPREEEEME LEEEEEADER Snoke.   And he is pompous enough in his zealous love of the First Order that he gets easily pranked by Poe Dameron.     Hate the scene if you will, but I've watched it several times and I like it. 

    My problem with TLJ is that as the film progresses, I start to get bored with some of it.  I love all the scenes with Luke Skywalker , Rey, and Princess Leia.   Leia's Force abilities are demonstrated for the first time.  She is empathic and senses what is going on with Kylo, Luke, or Rey. She doesn't waste time doing things like levitating and cutting fruit for example, but when her life is in danger, she is able to almost unconsiously pull her body through space to safety.  I like this scene. I will not criticize it. It makes sense to me.   

    What I don't like about that part of TLJ is that Admiral Ackbar is killed off in this attack scene with only a mention later.  The film squandered his character.   Later,  paleo-botanist Ellie Sattler shows up in a purple wig to replace Leia - it should have been Admiral Ackbar in this role,  taking charge, making the sacrifice, and being heroic!  Admiral Holdo (purple-hair's name) is lame!   Sigh.... oh well.  
    I also have problems with Finn's and Rose's dialogue and mission , namely the journey to the Casino planet and return. This stuff veers away from the main story and I get impatient with it.  The Casino's aliens are entertaining enough, but the preachy message about war profiteering,  sad or smiling horses and  pauper kids really don't connect with me.     Well, once Finn and Rose find a master hacker character and infiltrate the First Order Star Destroyer (to turn off the hyperspace tracking device), it gets better.  

    TLJ does a great job with its use of the Force. It shows new Force abilities and the Force is once again quite mysterious!  The scene where the Dark Side tempts Rey is  creepy, mysterious, and very cool!   The way Kylo and Rey get connected, and Luke's unexplainable final demonstration as he punks Kylo Ren on the Ice Planet Hoth  the SALT planet . Well, at first watch I didn't really like the reveal about how Luke got there.  But now, I think it is GREAT.   The scene where Luke appears in the cave, briefly talks to his sister Leia, then walks past them all and outside to confront Kylo Ren and the walkers ... that was one of the most exciting SW scenes I've ever seen. Even knowing how it ends, its still magnificent! When he brushes off imaginary rubble from his  shoulder , fantastic!  Mark Hamill rules in this film! 
    I actually enjoyed the decision to make Luke regretful and hiding out on the island, waiting to die. I originally expected him to be an uber-powerful wizard by now.  But that would have been boring to be honest. Instead, it was nice to see Mark Hamill act his way around the unexpected direction of his character and his journey to going back to using the Force and his decision to help Rey.   Especially enjoyable was his getting trolled by Force-Ghost Yoda.  Who was again an excellent puppet. 

    Finally ... I really really liked that Kylo killed Snoke, and I liked Kylo and Rey teaming up to battle the First Order red guards. I never really liked Snoke that much, good riddance and bring back Palpatine for Episode IX!

    In my next blog entry, I will rank the 8 Skywalker films and 2 side story films and give some brief reasons for my personal rankings. 
    Star Wars!
     

  21. Cafeman
    I decided to re-watch Rogue One, then Episode IV: A New Hope immediately after.  I have never done this before!   Rogue One is a 2016 film, but a prequel to 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope.    I know the original Star Wars film like the back of my hand, but I wonder, how will the experience change after having just watched its prequel?   Rogue One ends with Princess Leia having just escaped the Imperials and Darth Vader, with the plans to the Death Star.    Star Wars began with Princess Leia storing those plans in a certain little R2 unit, before being captured by Darth Vader. 

    Will it feel natural? Rogue One is the story of the individuals,  rebels,  who just battled and sacrificed their lives to accomplish getting those Death Star weapon plans.  It also explains, in a satisfactory way,  why this huge battle station has a critical security flaw that farmboy Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance will later exploit.    Rogue One was created nearly 40 years later, thus it likely has much more believable special effects and production values. Right? 

    Watching Rogue One .... 

    From Rogue One's first moments, I enjoyed the fresh direction and mood that is set.  There is no verbiage screen crawl here, instead the film starts quickly with a great-looking scene of  an Imperial shuttle descending past a planet's rings and down to its surface.  RO avoids the 2000's-era CGI look of the prequel films  and feels very different from them.     I don't dislike the prequel films, but they do seem to exist in their own bubble, with a very different in feel from the Original Trilogy or any other Star Wars films.    Rogue One seems to fit naturally with the feel of ANH.  Care must have been taken to purposely do this. 
    Having just watched EpIII:  Revenge of the Sith, I enjoyed seeing Jimmy Smits appear in Rogue One as Bail Organa, appearing without notice from the shadows at the Rebel base.   Unfortunately, he informs Mon Mothma that he is heading back to Alderaan ... and we all know what is going to happen to Alderaan soon. 

    Now ... rewatching the OT films.  

    Over the weekend I watched the DVD special editions of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.   I just didn't have the patience to dig out my VHS versions and watch them in crappy resolution, so I tolerated a few of the extra S.E. goodies... more on those later on.  I need to hunt down the de-Specialized versions. 

    First of all, I did feel that Rogue One led naturally to Ep4 A New Hope, not much else to say.    Good job RO people!

    Watching ANH,  I was reminded what a great film that is.  It doesn't waste a moment.  Many scenes are not hurried and are left to breathe a bit, but even so the film is tightly edited and never lost my attention.   TESB was also a fantastic and complex story line of course.  TESB was the first Star Wars film I watched back in the day -  around 6th grade  I think - since I had not been taken to see the original Star Wars in '77.   So, I will always be partial to TESB as a film, yet I still can't find any reasons to disagree about TESB  geing the absolute  best of all the Star Wars shows.    It was even more fantastic BITD when we learned that Vader is Luke's father, and Yoda says "there is another" hope.   Well, we wondered for 3 years, who is it?  And was Vader lying? You cant trust a thing that a Sith says, and that seems to make Obi-Wan into a big fibber.  Which we learned later, is true.  From a certain point of view.    

    I  feel like a hypocrite after complaining about forced C-3PO humor in Attack of the Clones, because there are a TON of 3PO "funny quips" in TESB too.  One quip that I really did enjoy was when 3PO didn't quite get through the Hoth rebel base door following after Solo and Leia; it closes on him, and 3PO turns away and mutters "typical!".    I laughed. Then Han opens the door again and pulls 3PO into safety.  
     
    Watching ROTJ, I found myself feeling impatient with Jabba's palace scenes for some reason.  The Special Edition "improvements" are at their most intrusive here, with CGI alien singers and extra music that was not needed.   If this is the first time a person watched it, I guess it is fine, but to me, these extras are intrusive.   You have to remember, this film introduced Jabba the Hut (mentioned but not shown in the prior films,  before the Special Editions added him to one ANH scene at Mos Eisley).   He was introduced and he is magnificent here - gross, slimy, shrewd, cruel. A real gangster.   The puppet work on Jabba is fantastic - his eyes narrlow pupils focus and you can read his emotions when he laughs or is angered;   and his tail and hands are moving independently in a natural way.  Jabba is deservedly strangled to death by Leia in a gruesome tail-twitching scene. 
    After seeing a CGI Yoda in the prequel trilogy films,  I was reminded at just how well the puppet Yoda (TESB/ ROTJ) works! Such an expressive little character.  When he died in ROTJ from extreme old age  (when 900 years you reach, look as good you will not!), it is a heart wrenching scene.  Slow-motion is used both in TESB's Dark Side cave and in ROTJ when Yoda vanishes after dying, his cloth clothing slowly folding in its own emptiness.  Love that stuff. 

    I really enjoyed the OT films again and I think I may rewatch them all again before Episode IX!    They are far and away still the best of Star Wars.   ROTJ is the lesser of the 3 OT films to me, despite it having absolutely fantastic and iconic scenes and a satisfying ending -  there is a little bit of 'seen this all before' with the Death Star, and personally I get impatient watching some of Jabba's palace and the Ewok village scenes.    

    My rankings of the films I've seen so far on this watch (man this is hard, ranking them) is:     Ep5  >  Ep4 > Ep6  > Ep3 > Ep1 > Ep2.  

     I'm not sure where the side-stories of Solo and Rogue One fit in.   But to me, RO > Solo.    It seems wrong to put them ahead of any of George Lucas' work, like comparing apples to oranges.   I'll think about it and rank them all after I've also rewatched Ep7 and Ep8.  
     
    Star Wars! 
     

     

  22. Cafeman
    I started to play Xbox Knights of the Old Republic for the first time in advance of Star Wars Episode IX ... although I've owned it for 15 years!  
     
    On Monday I played for another hour or so.  I'm still on Taris but I have seemingly finished the sewers/Vulkar Swoop Bike prototype engine mission.   I  won the subsequent Swoop bike racing heats (not hard at all), and the female Jedi Bastila has been freed and she is a member of my party now.   I think I learned something about fighting in the Vulkar base sequences - use an Ion grenade to disable enemy personal force-fields,  *and* activate personal force-fields for all 3 members of your fighting party.   Don't forget to lob frag grenades too.   (also - manually save.  Frequently).  I have a couple unfinished missions which should earn me some credits at the very least, so next time I play I'll be wandering around the Cantinas and Apartments to complete those. 
     
    Favorite parts of KOTOR so far .... running into the Rankor and my party getting demolished by it several times;  fighting Gamorrean Guards; seeing the various alien species walk about, species we first saw in A New Hope's Cantina scenes;   and the accurate SW sounds such as  Wookie bleats and growls . 
     
    Edit update 11.25.2019 ... I finally got done with Taris and I believe I only need to defeat 2 ruins protector droids before I can leave Dantooine. Problem is, I am low on supplies.  Taris was on the dull side. Dantooine has Jedis and lightsaber action! I'm not sure I am in the mood to play the entire game though. I have other, more action packed games to play!
     
    Star Wars! 

  23. Cafeman
    I have  re-watched all three Prequel Trilogy films back-to-back.    I've come to live with and accept some earlier harsher criticisms, so I won't focus too much on those.  But I will be talking about what was dumb.   Some random thoughts: 
     
    Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones  (Released May 2002, 17 years ago!)  -- thoughts: 
     
    Anakin acts like an immature,  whiny brat the entire first half of the film. It is awkward to watch these scenes, as everybody else in the scene is taken aback at his petulant behavior.   And he can switch on this behavior at a moment's notice.   But starting with his visit to Tatooine to search for his mother, Anakin starts to exhibit a lot more interesting and better acted traits. I got chills at he scene where Anakin rides into the desert to search for her, then he loses control to rage and takes his revenge on all the Sandpeople.  It was a great touch showing how Yoda could sense ripples in the Force from Anakin's pain, and hearing deceased Qui-Gon yell out "Anakin! No!!".    
     
     I enjoyed the Jango scenes and seeing Slave I's offensive abilities.   It was awesome when the Jango-Clone soldiers finally showed up, along with ole 'backwards-speak' General Yoda commanding them.   "To the forward command center, take me!"     And Yoda's lightsaber battle vs Christopher Lee's Count Dracula Dooku!  BITD,  I seriously geeked out at that scene at the theater!   This time, I still mustered up an eager smile at the scene, even though I knew what was coming.   I love some of the little details, such as  how Yoda uses the Force to pull his saber from his belt to his hand.   "Much to learn, you have!"     It was a treat to watch an older Christopher Lee in action, battling and defeating Obi-Wan and Anakin before almost meeting his match when Master Yoda shows up. 
     
    Dumbest parts #1:    Love-scene dialogue.  In the past, I'd usually fast-forward past the dull, clunky dialogue between Anakin and Padme.    But this time, I watched them all;  they are what they are.   I had forgotten the "I hate sand" meme was invented here and couldn't help but produce a rude snort when I heard the line again. 
     
    Dumbest parts #2:  the video-game styled steel-mill / factory dangers.  I still don't understand how Anakin got his arm out of the steel casings. This sequence reminds me of playing Dragon's Lair for some reason.   And speaking of this sequence...
     
    Dumbest parts #3:  C-3PO's excessively forced humor and 'action'.  Ugh.   He loses his head, it gets grafted onto a battle droid. "This is such a drag!" as R2 drags his disembodied head away.   Just like the "Roger-Roger" droid dialogue we've had to deal with, this may have been aimed at young children, but this fourth-wall-breaking joking around is so corny that it takes me out of the movie, just like in the ridiculous Gymnastics Raptor-Take-Down-Scene in Jurassic Park:  The Lost World.  
     
     
    Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith  (Released  May 2005) -- some thoughts: 
     
     Ah yes, I remember now, General Grievous is in this one. With a hunched-over gait and as sinister-looking as George could manage, also with a hacking cough that isn't explained.   I actually appreciate how some things aren't explained by spoon-fed expository dialogue.   Another example is how Palpatine is pulling the strings in all three Prequel films - at first I think many wouldn't realize his just how deep his craftiness goes, but there are clues that basically every major event was being planned and orchestrated by him.   Thus, I feel it is not beyond reason to have him somehow found a way to survive and to be part of the upcoming Episode IX, as the trailers indicate.    Getting back to Ep3,  Palpatine isn't even trying to pretend that he isn't a Dark Lord of the Sith at this point.    Ian McDiarmid is a treat to behold in this film, he appears to be relishing his role as Chancellor / Emperor Palpatine and really chewing up his scenes!  Ha!   
     
     I think George Lucas tried hard to give fans their money's worth with all the STUFF stuffed into Revenge of the Sith.    Lightsaber battles, chases,  and spaceship battle scenes.   Anakin really does look agressive and ferocious when he goes on the attack.    But Yoda has the best lines.  At an end your rule is, and not short enough it was. 
     
    Finally, I've often wondered, why does Obi-Wan only in this film strike the two-fingers pose?   And why does Obi-Wan's ridable bird lizard have that annoying yell?  To quote Mr. James Carrey from Dumb or Dumber, "want to hear the most annoying sound in the world???"  
     
    So far I've re-watched 3 films and my personal ranking hasn't changed:  Ep3 > Ep1 > Ep2.     (Yes, I like the oft-maligned Ep1 a little more than Ep2).      
     
    Star Wars! 

  24. Cafeman
    Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , episode IX of George Lucas' original 9-chapter story, debuts December 20, 2019.       Back in the autumn of 2015 before  Star Wars: The Force Awakens (episode VII)  came out,  I binged the Clone Wars animated series (on Netflix  I think) and found it was mostly very good!      And now, leading up to Episode IX, I am  binging on Star Wars content again to get me in the SW mood.  On the movies side of things, I'm going to re-watch all the films in chronological story order:  Ep1, Ep2, Ep3,  Solo, Rogue One, Ep4, Ep5, Ep6, Ep7, Ep8. 
     
    Today I re-watched Star Wars: The Phantom Menace on DVD, in full Dolby Surround Sound.  Blu-ray films always seem to use DTS sound, but most of my DVDs used Dolby Surround, which to me seems to have louder, more potentially booming dynamic range compared to the more well-mixed DTS sound ... but it could just be my 2000's era Onkyo surround sound system too. 
     
    Watching the Phantom Menace for the first time in a few years, I found myself immediately interested and pleasantly surprised by the film!  Time has passed so my prior grievances have  kind of just become accepted in my mind.   There were too many silly Jar-Jar and Gungan mannerisms and dialogue and clumsy antics by the film's end, but not enough to ruin the film for me.   The soundtrack by John Williams is just fantastic, and I enjoyed young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-gon Jinn and their actors.    This film was released in May  1999, and the actors appear so young to me.   Liam Neeson must have been in his mid-forties at this time -  younger than I am now.    And good grief, Natalie Portman was still a teenager!   And the Yoda puppet is very ugly! 
     
    Overall, there is a lot of good stuff found in The Phantom Menace, in my opinion.  But I think George Lucas missed an opportunity with  his direction of young Jake Lloyd as pre-teen Anakin Skywalker.   He is a young kid at this point, but I felt he could have been directed and shot with a few more scenes which would foreshadow Vader.    Like when Anakin accidentally activates the spaceship's auto-pilot, but he survives the dogfight and flies into the control ship bay and blows it up from inside, saving the day.   My problem with the direction is that is almost seems like Anakin did all these things by accident, or was very lucky.  I'd have enjoyed watching him piloting that Naboo craft  and showing in his eyes the concentration as he piloted a scenario that he was quite familiar with due to his days of pod-racing.  It should've been a fist-pump scene when the control ship is defeated (like the mood and suspense we all felt in 1977's Death Star explosion .. wow!) .  But its not quite that. Oh well. 
     
    I was reminded how awesome Darth Maul was, and the excellent Duel of the Fates music and the great Jedi / Sith lightsaber battle at the end.    The sequence where Maul, Jinn, and Kenobi are separated by red force-fields  -- and they can do nothing but glare at each other and wait -- is well filmed , well staged, well acted, and well scored.  Its stuff like this that makes rewatching Ep1 well worth it.  
     
    Next up is Star Wars:  Attack of the Clones, which has historically been my least favorite of the (so far ) 8 main Star Wars films. 
     
    Star Wars! 
     

  25. Cafeman
    Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker , episode IX of George Lucas' original 9-chapter story, debuts December 20, 2019. Or Thursday night December 19 as new big movies started to bump up the day.  
     
    I remember in the early 80's when Star Wars was the best and most exciting thing there was, and articles would comment that these films were really just episodes 4,5 and 6 of a bigger story that floated in George's head.  I never thought we'd actually get films for 1,2,3 or 7,8,9.  And now episode 9, the end of the Skywalker and common Star Wars tales, is almost here.   And then its done. Of course, it isn't George's vision anymore, but I'm fine with that.  Just give us some Star Wars.  I'm happy that Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2, and C3PO are still showing up in these Sequel Trilogy Star wars films.  But after Ep9 ...  what will Star Wars new films and shows be like?      The Mandalorian TV show is filling in gaps in an earlier era.  Like the very good "Clone Wars" animated series did.   Before Episode 7 came out, that fall I binged the Clone Wars animated series (on Netflix  I think) and found it was mostly very good!      And now, leading up to Episode 9, I'm binging on Star Wars content again to get me in the SW mood again. 
     
    So I started on November 1 by digging out my Xbox console and putting in a game I've owned 15 years but NEVER PLAYED THROUGH ... Knights of the Old Republic.  Now, my oldest boy played it through back in the 2000's and I saw a bit of it.  But I'm not a big RPG gamer , so after running around on Taris for 2 hours and getting lost, I think I put it away and never returned. I know it is an acclaimed game though, so finally I'm going to play through some or all of it.    
     
    I'm about 5 or 6 hours in. I just defeated a Rancor in the sewers, if you know that part. I simply spammed grenades at it until it died.  But now, up above the sewers in the Vulkar base, there is a certain battle which killed my scout, my female Twi'lek party member, and my Wookie party member.   I'm heading towards the light side of the Force / Jedi with my decisions. The game has a lot of depth and I still feel like I've not quite understood the best way to win battles.  So far I think the game was done pretty well. I'm just not 100% sure I'll have the time to beat it before December 20th.  There are other things I want to play and watch. 
     
    My plans for the Pre-Ep9 Star Wars binge are to play through KOTOR, to also play a bunch of Gamecube Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike (including the bonus 80's coin-op SW games on Rebel Strike), and also to buy Playstation 4 Jedi: Fallen Order later in the month.       On the movies side of things, I'm going to rewatch all the films in chronological story order:  Ep1, Ep2, Ep3,  Solo, Rogue One, Ep4, Ep5, Ep6, Ep7, Ep8.  And I'll start watching the Mandalorian soon too, might subscribe to Disney+ soon. 
     
    Star Wars! 

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