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Cafeman

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  1. Cafeman
    I love Jurassic Park. I read the novels, saw all the films, played the games on Genesis, Sega CD, SNES, Saturn, and Playstation, for better or worse! I enjoyed Jurassic World as a sequel. I was not disappointed by Colin Trevorrow's direction or the storyline. Since its been a while that I played a game with JP content, I was tickled that LEGO made this game, with content from all 4 films! I am playing the X360 version.

    Just like with the films, I feel that the Jurassic Park section was the most special and fun of the 4 here, too. This review is mostly based on my first play-through of Story Mode of each film. This is the first time I've played a LEGO game with audio clips from the films. In prior games (like LEGO Star Wars), they'd pantomime scenes and you'd understand it from your memory - and it was often funny. But now, lots of the real actors' dialogue is played! This is mostly good; see JP3 section for 'bad' example.



    Jurassic Park

    The graphics are really nice in some sections, I noticed. Cinema-quality backgrounds, water, and lots sprites with little LEGO debris temporarily cluttering up the entire playfield! I got an immmediate charge out of playing as Robert Muldoon and hearing his dialogue. Man, it would have been great if Muldoon was also in TLW. But nope , he was outwitted by the Clever Girl and died. I experienced a few little glitches here and there. The one that I remember is between the Brachiosaurus paddock, and the main JP Visitors' Center. You need two types of characters to open a gate - an athletic jumper (Ellie), and sometimes a Dino Expert (Dr. Grant) to assemble LEGO bones into a machine. Well, I jumped in one of the two jeeps and the other characters didn't follow me to the gate. I had to drive back to the previous gate until the characters re-spawned, and fool around until I got both characters to the final gate. It didn't take long but at first I was confused, and I was so preoccupied with whether I *could* actually solve the problem, that I didn't stop to think if I *should* ! Still , these little bugs aren't a deal-breaker for me. I experienced a few other bugs such as a character getting stuck in infinite "backing-off-from-danger" loop, but I was able to get past that by switching characters and moving forward. I saw a number of graphical graphics tears as well. This game must've been on a tight schedule for such bugs to still be in there.

    One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen is Ellie Sattler investigating huge piles of dino droppings. She jumps headfirst into them with a swimmer's pose. Other characters back off from the smelly piles automatically (the source of my previously mentioned bug), waving their hands in front of their noses. Dino Droppings Diving occurs throughout the game. There are also Loose Earth piles (which Dr. Grant uses his shovel to dig up and reveal things) , and they often look pretty similar to Dino Poop piles, causing me to be initially confused by what to do.



    The Lost World


    The fun LEGO gameplay continues here, but opens with a boring level of Eddie's Workshop location with some minor vehicle-fixin' puzzles, then leading to the Stegosaurus sequence where you must hide in logs and get the angry Steg to attack it with his tail, getting his tail stuck there for a moment. And of course there's the hanging-trailers w/Eddie-in-the-Jeep sequence! I anxiously awaited the horrible film part where young Kelly does gymnastics and kills a raptor - it's certainly in here, even Iam Malcolm's line "They cut you from the team?!". HAW HAW HAW. I hate the scene, but its fun to make fun of it. Another funny make-fun scene is where the characters hide behind a waterfall in a cave, and the dino expert runs out to certain death (by T.Rex) because he's afraid of a little snake. After this happens, the Rex looks at the other characters and shrugs his shoulders/arms at that dumb action. Then he leaves to eat the guy! The mainland scenes with a loose T-rex are included too.


    Jurassic Park 3


    Remember when Eric's mom had that megaphone and kept yelling "ERIC! ERIC!!?", and Dr. Grant told Mrs Kirby "that's a very bad idea" ? Well, you get to hear that audio clip OVER and OVER again, for 5 minutes straight until you reach her and shut her up. Thanks, Traveler's Tales. It's weird using characters like Mr and Mrs Kirby, who had no survival skills at all in the film, yet here they are athletic and can use grappling hooks and so on. Well, overall I liked playing through this section but it is nothing special. The Spino isn't nearly as menacing as the raptors and Rex from JP and TLW sections. You do get to battle Pterries and the Spino at the end. Billy is the rock climber character and nobody is too angry at him here for stealing raptor eggs; he uses his paragliding parachute to span long trenches that no other character can. The game finishes with the Spino in the water, you get to battle it with puzzles and exploding fuel tanks.



    Jurassic World

    It was finally in this section that I realized that you need to play as a compy to access the green tubes, that I'd seen in the prior film story sections but couldn't utilize the compy yet. The two boys have a section where they need to re-tire and supply batteries and gas to the jeep. It makes more sense that in the actual film where they show incredible mechanics skill reviving a 20-year old jeep.

    Speaking of compies, by this time in the game, I'm pretty sick and tired of the Compy thugs which attack you in every movie storyline section. Sometimes you must smash then assemble a blockage over their nest (usually a hole coming out of the mountain) or they come forever. But other times 2 or 3 show up to slow you down a bit more.

    You get to play as the Rex and finally the Raptors in some parts here. JW seems more thought-out and longer than TLW and JP3, to me. Pretty much all of the main scenes are here. I liked the brief scenes in the truck , or on the bike, with an aiming reticle trying to zap the pursuing raptors. Once raptor Blue joins your team, she is needed to pull off some puzzles. It is funny to press the B button over loose LEGO piles and see the raptor furiously assembling a LEGO machine!

    --------------------
    All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed playing LEGO Jurassic World! What a trip through the films, and its easy because you can't really die, all you can do is get stumped on a puzzle for a brief while. With the authentic music and voices and great visuals, this game is a lot of fun for the JP fan.


  2. Cafeman
    I bought an inexpensive new copy of the Japanese Daytona USA Circuit Edition recently. I've played a lot of versions of Daytona USA over the years - the coin-op original, the Saturn launch Daytona USA (which I lost and no longer own), the North American Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition (CCE) on Saturn, and the Dreamcast Daytona USA. I guess I'm a real sucker for Daytona USA.

    Searching online for differences between the original CCE and the later import CE, I found some claims that the handling was improved on the import CE edition. On first play , I really couldn't tell a difference. So I decided to play the 2 versions back to back for a week and see what I could glean. Here are the results.

    Well, there is definitely a difference in feel between CCE and CE. In fact, it is a little bit annoying to switch between versions because of the different feel! I would say that the CE version is easier to control your car around curves and in power slides, and I prefer the CE version's handling. The difference feels like tweaked control, not rewritten control, so frankly its difficult for me to describe it, or to recommend one version over the other. In both CCE and CE, even with analog steering I still have to 'tap and release' the analog NiGHTS stick to steer,because the steering is pretty sensitive. I can't get my thumb to finely control the analog wand and move a micrometer's worth of distance; so I find my self doing soft analog thrusts left/right and quickly letting go, else I'd oversteer. I don't have a Saturn driving wheel so can't compare.

    In my fun test sessions of CE, I mostly drove the Hornet. I held X, or Y, or Z a few times (as the game loads) to see the dusk/night/morning color changes. This is a valueless "extra" in my opinion; I prefer the normal original colors. I bumped up the difficulty to HARD and played the Grand Prix 20 laps on Three Sevens - I came in 2nd place and it was a fantastic race! But the same is true of the American CCE version.

    So, what it all boils down to is that the CE version has slightly different control - I'm not sure if either is 'superior'. CE has alternate colors by pressing X or Y or Z (which, well, who really cares - I guess night is fun for a change). CE also has slightly quicker menu loads. And CE has slightly better draw distance, slightly less noticeable pop-up of polygons in the distance. Both versions aren't bad at all in this regard though. Remember , even the coin-op version had some draw-in in the distance.

    The single best thing which CE does have over CCE, and why I play only the CE version now, is the music! Doo-doo, doo-doo,doo-doo, doo-doo, doooo-doooooo. Daytonnnnnnah! CE has the original Daytona USA songs! I enjoy them much more than the remix versions. The NA CCE Daytona USA doesn't have the original songs - how strange! First thing I did was set King of Speed (original) to the Three Seven Speedway. Same goes for the tracks for Dinosaur Canyon (Let's Go Away) and the Seaside Galaxy (Blue, Blue Skies).

    I also noted that the two versions share the same save file; changes to music selections in one will carry forward to the other one, but since there are fewer songs in CCE, the song that carries forward is not the one I wanted. So I'd have to fix it each time I swapped CD's.

    Both versions are pretty good versions of Daytona, very playable (I've been playing the Saturn Daytonas for 20 years and still find it fun). Next I want to hook up the Dreamcast and play DC Daytona USA again, to compare while the Saturn games are still fresh in my memory.

    What do you think of the different versions of Daytona USA?

    c(_)


  3. Cafeman

    RL5203

    By Cafeman,

    RL5203 is planned to be called Detective Powers. In 2009, I was off work for several months, and during this time I read nearly all of Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories. Also, via Netflix DVDs and Streaming, I watched all the seasons and one-off films from the Granada BBC Masterpiece Theater Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett, and I was especially fond of those. So I started to think about how to do an Atari 5200/A8 game back then in late 2009/early 2010. Coincidentally to me, there seemed to be a real Sherlock craze building in enterainment. In December 2009, the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes film came out, and later that year BBC's new Sherlock debuted. Then Elementary also came out on CBS. But my game was focusing on the Brett version, in my mind - 1880's London area, with mystery, clues, dangers, and a smattering of action when it was called for.

    I wanted a game that would fit into the "Atari" era style of gaming with constant moving around, exploring and interacting, finding useful items, and using abstract concepts in the gameplay. I didn't want you to have to write down notes to remember who was who (like with the Sega CD Consulting Detective FMV games). But I didn't want a generic "Adventure" or "Action" game that artificially placed Holmes into the action as though he were a ninja or a Double Dragon brawler either.

    After some thought, I decided the overall concept of the game should be based on Holmes' famous quote, "Eliminate everything else, and whatever remains must be the truth!". You'd control Holmes (I always imagined the Jeremy Brett version) and explore the 1880's city streets and try to eliminate 'color clues' to narrow down where and whom you should locate. You might start with 4 colors for "Suspect". Eliminate it down until there is only 1 color left - RED for example. Then you know to find a RED character on the streets. All the while, the gameplay involves finding helpful items and not making mistakes or getting into danger, to keep your Detective Powers (DP) meter as full as possible, so that Holmes' abilities will be at their full strength. To further illustrate the 'strategy' of the game, you might find an alleyway is a shortcut to the next street. But if it turns out to be a dead-end, or if you suffered an attack in the alley from thugs or stray dogs and don't successfully escape that situation, then the game could penalize you with reduced DP. If your DP meter drains completely, you've in effect failed the case and must continue. My way of incorporating failure-yet-continuing was to have Holmes announce in-game that "This has become a Three Pipe Problem!" (Google it, if unfamiliar with this Holmes quotation)! You'll have to find 3 Pipes on the streets to restore your Detective Powers and continue to solve the case. Pretty neat, right?

    Like many of my homebrew game ideas, over time I came to find it growing too complicated and huge. I just don't have the time to create maps, draw art, and program a "huge" game anymore. I haven't coded anything for this game yet, other than cannibalizing the Adventure II engine, but I do have a workable design document and mockups, and I think the game could be fun. But I have to be careful not to get carried away with scope , or else I'll never finish it. So my goal now is to make 1 trial level ("Case") of Detective Powers and see how it turns out. After that I'll see if I want to add more to it. The intro case might be a simply one like "Adventure of the 5 Napoleans" where you simply have to hunt on a few city streets (each perhaps being four "City Blocks" (screens) wide), and find all 5 missing Napolean statuettes , and each one will boost your Detective Powers and also eliminate color clues. So after finding them all, you should be able to know (for example) to go look for a RED house on a BLUE street and touch the GREEN man found there. Touch the correct man and you'll have solved the case. If this sounds too complicated, I think that once you actually play the game, it would make more sense.


    Here is the official description for the game that I wrote years back:



    I might end up making one or both 64K. Why not? It solves a lot of memory constraint problems. I'm not sure if we have successfully made a 64K 5200 PCB / cartridge yet.

    Although the Sherlock Holmes "craze" has settled down since I first had the idea, I will always be a fan of the books, the Jeremy Brett Granada series from the 80's and 90's, and I enjoy the modern takes too. Below are some mockups as ideas for what could be in the final game.










    (_)3




  4. Cafeman
    July 24 2017 post -



    Well, I couldn't put the game down and my scores and strategies have increased. At one time I couldn't score higher than 50k, now I'm regularly hitting over 100k. I'm still not able to get the big-scoring chains. I try to set them up but they get blocked. Usually a chain reaction of four is good enough to finish off the opponents or at least put them on the defensive. You can't putz around too long or YOU will be on the defensive and you might as well give up the round at that point. I usually max out in my chains at the x64 level, but sometimes I accidentally get to x128.

    (_)3



    Earlier Two Posts Follow ... here is my first from April 2017 ....

    I've been playing Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine on X360 Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. Oh what a frustrating battle, but I finally beat the quest mode and beat Dr. Robotnik's level, and got the achievement.

    I wonder how many gamers, without skipping directly to that level via a GameFAQs password , have seen this stage:



    I think it is programmed well, with good visuals, good puzzler game play (in concept), and very good music composed by Masanori Hikichi. I only now realized the Compile created Puyo Puyo and this version for SEGA - that's Compile who did the wonderful MUSHA and Robo Aleste, also difficult games. But shmups are supposed to be difficult - this puzzle game is so incredibly frustrating!

    As I played through the 13 levels of Scenario mode, every time I beat an opponent, I did a save state. I played and lost some stages at least 50 times before beating them. I did start to get better skills - recognizing when to rotate one way vs the other - but this game is HARD! I bet it made kids cry back in the day. It just gets too fast. Many times, I was doing well but made 1 mistake and that was the end - the opponent did a miraculous comeback and defeated me. I felt I didn't have enough time to mentally think and build a good combo; instead I was often just trying to survive, playing more on the defense. Once a ton of 'garbage beans' got dumped onto my side, it was usually inevitable that I'd lose the stage again. I half expected the game to inform me, chess-style, "checkmate in 10 moves!" because I felt there was nothing I could do at that point.

    Then you have the art. Uglier "Sonic" characters there have never been. The bad guys are from the the Sonic cartoon of the early 90's, but it is jarring to see the poor character designs here. I don't like how Robotnik is drawn at all. All the art is unlike the usual Sonic game art. It is satisfying to see their defeated pictures though.

    So, just sharing the frustration but also the conquest of beating it. I never played the original Compile Puyo Puyo, but was wondering if its 1-player mode was also this frustrating?

    Update on May 2 2017

    I kept at this game even after finally seeing the ending. I kept thinking there were strategies that I just wasn't getting. Then I started to see how to get the highest possible score. The best way for high score is to start at level one and beat each opponent/stage as quickly as possible, getting a high bonus score. These end-stage bonus scores, achieving by quick defeats of those cartoon characters, yield far higher scores that just playing each level -- that is unless you are a master of setting up many chain reactions, which I am NOT.

    So, I got a end-stage bonus over 20,000 points once recently. Usually I'm happy to get 5,000 to 10,000 bonuses. If you take too long , you get no bonus and might only score a few thousand points in that stage. So, below you can see my progression of high scores with the final one over 50,000 points. I think I made it to the purple pig-on-wheels ("Skweel" ?) before being defeated. Once you continue of course your score goes back to zero.



    To get that far without losing, I had learned to recognize patterns and to always try to set up chain reactions. I try to never cash in on a foursome set unless I can get at least a 2-set combo. But when the game starts to get wicked, it turns into survival gameplay and I just take whatever I can as the pieces start to accelerate. I doubt I could build 2- and 3-combo sets on-purpose once I reach the harder stages. At that point, the pieces drop so fast that it is mostly a shuffling of the correct color to the left or to the right side, repeat until you win or die.



  5. Cafeman
    I've been playing Test Drive: Le Mans again recently, and its been a few years since I really gave it this much attention.

    I was really stoked with TDLM when it was released in November 2000. It was the most impressive racing game I had even seen! Although now dated, the technical achievements on DC hardware are still obvious. There can be 24 cars on the track! (Not all races have that many). And the opponent cars really feel like somebody is driving them. They make mistakes on the curves and end up in the grass (just like you will!). They also seem to be actively racing each other, not just you! There are so many graphical effects that seemed to be fresh and new ideas in TDLM at the time, like the brake pads glowing, sparks and smoke from changing gears, the bloomy headlamps of the machines at night, and even treadmarks in the grass and mud that are actually PERSISTENT! In other words, go around the track and your treadmarks will still be there from last lap when you went off-road. The lighting at dusk and the transition of day-to-night is awesome, and so are the rain/storm effects. The dark and the rain will change the feel of the course, especially if you don't have the layout memorized.

    The game seems to run at a locked 30 fps. I don't consider this a negative (compared to Daytona USA's 60 fps) because it just doesn't matter at all - the game is very smooth both in motion and in feel.

    The replays have fantastic camera angles! I'm watching them as I type this. The right-wheel-cam is probably my favorite. Too bad you can't pause the replay to get a clear blur-free picture.



    I find the Championship to be a lot of fun. You can adjust your tires, starting fuel level, and downforce for each car. I mostly play on Intermediate difficulty - no auto-braking, but other driving assists are somewhat on. It isn't "too hard" yet is challenging. This is my favorite kind of racing overall - it is slightly skewed towards an arcade-style feel, but is peppered and seasoned with just enough real-world physics and sim aspects.



    Its funny, this game is all about the 24-hour Le Mans race, but this mode is really just an extra to me. I usually play the other modes. In the Le Mans 24-hour race, you can play the day as 10 minutes (day/dusk/night/stars are greatly accelerated, which is NEAT!), and other manageable increments up to the real-time 24 hour race which would be impossible if they had not given us the option to save our game progress during each pit stop.

    I feel that Melbourne House did a fantastic job with this game! I can only wonder what kind of performance the DC still had yet to offer , if it had lasted on the market a few more years. In comparison, perhaps MSR has nicer textures and details on background objects. And Daytona USA 2001 has the AM2-proven, 60fps fast arcade gameplay that can't really be beaten. Test Drive V-Rally has sweet rally-style gameplay. But Test Drive: Le Mans stands among them with more on-screen cars with more complex polygonal (and textured) construction and a lot more sim aspects , but not at the expense of fun gameplay. Oh, and one final thing - you MUST plug in a jump pack into the DC controller to experience the nice force-feedback when your tires hit the shoulder or you bump into a car or crash!



    (_)3
  6. Cafeman
    Just like smelling the roses in the garden, it's nice to have time to Watch the Replay. After a race. I've always loved doing it , to soak in the graphics which , during a race, you can't. And also just to watch myself racing around the track , from the 3rd person vantage point. So right now I'm typing this while half-watching a Mermaid Lake replay where I came in 3rd place, using the Lightning Car with Medium-Soft tires. Today is 9/9/15 - the 16th anniversary of the USA Dreamcast console release, so I am playing DC tonight. Tonight's beverage is Samuel Adams Cream Stout.

    As I view the replay, I see billboards with "Tide Table" and "Unique" and "Ken Ken 21" scribbled on them. What do they mean? I will never know! But I salute you, SEGA artists of 2000! I see RV's parked in the lot around the track. I see the frankly gorgeous Mermaid Lake's aqua blues and tints of green highlights. There is a blimp floating around with "Dreamcast" written on it too! After playing the Sega Saturn versions of Daytona USA, it was a real treat to play the DC version when 2001 rolled around, with its enhanced visual detail, performance, and (for the time) clarity. But the point I am thinking about is that, even after having played Daytona USA in the arcade and on Saturn and on Dreamcast for years, and after picking the car with the fastest speed and acceleration, I still could only come in 3rd place, and I fought for that. It makes me want to play another round. I hate when games have no challenge. You need to learn how to take the curves (the racing line), and maybe draft off other cars when you can, or you ain't gonna get 1st place.




    Over the past week, I've reacquainted myself with this game. There is nothing more drenched with SEGA nostalgia than than playing Three Seven Speedway with the Hornet car and hearing that track's music. If you master the Sonic Mountain Curve without slowing down too much, even if you only do it once, it is a great great feeling. After coming in 1st place, I bumped up the # of cars from 20 to 30, and then to 40 cars per race. 40 cars on one looping oval track means you are constantly getting out of the way of the slower pack. You can change the # of cars on any of Daytona USA 2001's tracks, also you can race in reverse or mirrored. This is a game you can play for a night or for a week and be happy with it, put it away for a while until you get the itch again. That's my kind of game; I don't have the free time to unlock all the stuff and earn all the licenses in a game like Gran Turismo.

    I snapped some pictures and even included my white lava lamp in 2 of them. The pictures are Dreamcast hooked up to a Panasonic 42" Plasma TV by the RCA cables. I used to love using S-video, but my TV doesn't support it, but it still looks quite good to me.

     

  7. Cafeman
    I just got back from 10 Cloverfield Lane , and it didn't disappoint. The first section is a spoiler-free review, followed by a spoiler-hidden additional thoughts.



    Spoiler-free Review:

    "After getting in a car accident, a woman is held in a shelter with two men, who claim the outside world is affected by a widespread chemical attack." - IMDB's description.

    I didn't really expect the film to be a direct sequel to the original Cloverfield, with that monster stomping around - but I wasn't sure. I've read how it was originally called The Cellar, and perhaps somebody recognized a quality that justified giving it the Cloverfield title. Just like Twilight Zone, or Outer Limits - an Anthology series of films. I think this is actually a great idea, because I really liked Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane, even though they are totally different types of films. Bring on another Cloverfield title!



    Getting back to 10CL, the film surprised me a number of times. Three people are trapped in Howard's (a doomsday prepper and conspiracy advocate played by John Goodman) bunker. Howard claims that there has been an attack on the USA. They don't know who exactly, but he has a few theories. John Goodman's acting was particularly excellent! You don't really know a lot about him, you try (as the main female character does) to figure him out. So he was at times sinister and very frightening, even when he was being calm. Is he a madman or the only guy who knows whats going on? There is strong evidence both ways. The film is a slow build of intense and then lighter scenes, slowly revealing more details about Howard and the situation at hand. The intensity always returns and it comes with Goodman's character, even when he's not in the scene but just heard coming down the hall.



    After seeing the film, I went back and watched the trailer and the released stills. More is shown in those stills than you might think. Certain items in the still pictures have an important purpose, but you'd never know until watching - the perfect type of oblivious / hidden "spoiler" material to put into a trailer. Heh.

    As with the original Cloverfield film, where seeing blood splatter against a screen is shocking because it is done realistically and you know what horrible thing just happened back behind the screen, in 10CL the slow burn gets to you and just one loud event can startle you and make you jump. There are a few times I "felt the impact" of a scene and my heart raced for a minute. All of the film's questions or mysteries are not exactly answered, but the big questions are answered, and I felt very satisfied by the ending.

    Finally, I found the lead character Michelle (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to be smart. Right from the start, she's figuring stuff out. There is only one scene, one action of hers, that strained credulity just a bit - and it reminded me of another film with a similar scene - but nothing that ruins the overall film's quality.



    I would rate 10 Cloverfield Lane, a claustrophobic and suspenseful thriller with a simple story line yet filmed in a satisfyingly complex manner, with an A-.

    Spoilers part of the Review:

  8. Cafeman

    AdvII XE and alt icons

    By Cafeman,

    in 2007's 5200 homebrew Adventure II, you could get Alternate Icons to play with, other than Sir Square, if you entered a secret code on the title screen. In the 5200 version, they played exactly like using the Square. The problem with this was that some of these Alt Icons (namely the big animated Knight) were a bit too big for some of the paths. You could get around this by using the Magnet more. But it made the game a bit more frustrating.

    Of course these icons are still in the XE version, but I added Special Abilities for each.

    The Bat differs in that he never gets the "SPEED" powerup like Square does. When the troll steals an item from Square (except in Beginner levels where he doesn't steal, just makes you drop the item), you gain SPEED as a 'trade' . You also get SPEED when you kill a dragon. The bat not only gets SPEED, he also earns FLIGHT. You can fly overtop any background until it wears off.



    The Crab can slowly crawl over any background item -- plants, rocks, hedges, over water, or castle walls. This way you can cheat in the mazes - but since this slows you down, you run more risk of a creature catching up to you.

    The Knight and Knight Helmet icons are VERY STRONG. You can take a lot more bites before you are eaten. Sometimes a dragon hurts itself biting you and runs away!

    The Hand icon's special ability is his Grip. The Troll has more trouble stealing from you . He might just make you drop the item and run off-screen like he does in the Beginner levels.

    Here are some instructional images I created: Adventure II XE Basics:





    (_)3
  9. 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


     
  10. Cafeman

    RL5204 Escape From AirWorld

    By Cafeman,

    In the early 2000's decade, there was an effort to make a 5200 version of Swordquest Airworld. It didn't get too far, but it inspired me to draw up a couple of screens just for fun - a palace in the clouds with ladders and platforms, and rooms with items. I never really liked any of the Atari 2600 Swordquest games. None of them. But I did like the concept. Especially of an "Airworld". I had my own idea of such a game, and it was nothing like the original Atari Swordquest games. Years ago I had a game design I called "Joust Adventure" - a man in a poor and arid world discovered a huge egg, hatched it, and then rode the hatched ostrich-like bird into the skies and discovered a world above the clouds. It was kind of influenced by Joust, kind of influenced by SEGA's Panzer Dragoon without me realizing it.

    I abandoned that idea, then later I created a different type of design around the 'idea' of an Airworld type of game. My idea was more a game like Pitfall , or Montezuma's Revenge. It is a platformer with single flip-screens. You explore a land in the clouds. Not just a palace, but I wanted there to be multiple palaces and spooky/dangerous misty/cloud 'land' areas between them. Here are some of the gameplay and level features to differentiate this from every other platformer:


    You walk on palace platforms and climb ladders. This world was designed for creatures who can fly, and you can't - yet. Your goal is to get to the end of the entire game and finish it. Along the way you want to find and pick up treasures for points. Treasures will be inside Treasure Rooms, each with creatures which you must avoid touching. To beat the game, you'll need to find the Sky Sandals. This will allow you to walk on cloud platforms. Then you can find ALL the hidden treasure rooms. Another type of item to find are Wings. You can still make progress if you don't find every one, but you won't survive the end of the game if you don't find enough Wings. After all, you have to get back down to the ground level many miles below. Each time you find another Wing, you start to grow wings on your back and you can float a bit longer. This enables you to reach certain platforms which will lead to out-of-the-way screens and more treasure and items. Imitating Pitfall, there is a "perfect" score if you find all the treasure and play perfectly, and the game can be beaten and thus has an ending.

    Here are the Antic4 screens demonstrating the basic look of the outside platforms, and the inside Treasure Rooms.



    Here's the description so far:



    I liked the idea so this is my theoretical 4th Atari 5200/A8 homebrew game.








  11. Cafeman
    I've spent some hours recently going through all the game variations and double-checking that the more complex hiding spot rules work, and that the game's hiding routines don't create an unwinnable game.

    I did run into one scenario in the beginner difficulty where the bridge was hidden in a locked castle , the magnet was blocked off by logs so you couldn't reach it, and the key to enter that castle was unreachable without either magnet or bridge. So I will tweak the logic to not hide the bridge inside locked castles, simple and best solution. I think this situation could only happen in the 3 Beginner levels, because in those the Troll doesn't active steal and re-hide items. In Intermediate levels for example, you could hang around that blocked-off magnet and Troll would eventually show up and grab it, rehiding it in a reachable location.

    Another time I thought I spotted an error - the Chalice was in the Green Hedges in a small maze game variation. I though it was always hidden inside the Green Castle and that a bug existed. But after reviewing the code, I noticed that in 2013 I put in an extra bit of randomness - sometimes the Gold Key is hidden inside the Castle 2 and the Chalice is out in the hedges. You still need to open the Green Castle to get the Gold Key (and open the Seashore Kingdom Castle ) and thus beat win the game. So ... no bug.

    When I start up a game of Adventure II XE in an emulator, I hit F8 (Atari800win4) and look at zero page memory to see the screens and (X,Y) locations for all the items and the 3 hidden dots. I can read those hexadecimal values like Tank reads the Matrix code.



    There are a bunch of unique hiding spots for the 3 hidden dots, and no two game variations have the same 3 hiding spots. So I have also been playing and making sure its possible to "see" the dots and grab them. You need the bridge to reach many of them. When screens get busy with items or creatures , a hidden dot will change color from default black to the color of one of the creatures - easier to spot. Maybe you can see the dot in this next screenshot.



    Just like in the 5200 version, when you grab a dot, it gives you some FLIGHT power (you literally turn into a bat for a while).



    Once I am satisfied that my revised hiding-spot rules function correctly, I'll move onto fixing the laundry list of small corrections and minor tweaks so that the game can be finished and released soon. Most of the tweaks are graphical and sound tweaks. Experimenting in 2013, I added a new sound that has become INCREDIBLY ANNOYING to me and it plays too often. I can't wait to get rid of that.

    (_)3
  12. Cafeman

    Reactors

    By Cafeman,

    I was discussing Atari homebrews and Reactor was brought up. I can remember only one arcade that actually had that awesome coin-op, with its trak-ball and loud electronic music and cool sounds. Atari 2600 Reactor by Parker Brothers (the only console port I've ever heard of) was one of my most often played 2600 games, and I still go back to it. It's just so unique. The 2 types of reactor cores, the switching bonus chambers, and the invisible walls keep it interesting as you play across levels. I'd probably give it a 7.5 / 10 review.

    I once fooled around with the idea of a 5200 Reactor 2 game. I think I was going to call it Reactors. I can't remember all the slight gamme play changes I had planned, I have it written down in a folder somewhere. But in the recent discussion, 2-player simultaneous was brought up. Man, that would be awesome! With Trak-ball compatibility!

    I dug around and found my Antic4 screen development work. So I'm sharing. Of course, this was a first-draft and it would need some artistic improvements here and there. I thought about switching the bonus chambers , like the 2600 version did. But you know, I don't think the coin-op does that. Ok, as I type, I remember a few more details. I'd have "classic" gameplay and "plus" gameplay. "Plus" game would have stuff like moving control rods and different Reactor playfields. Just to spice it up.



    Most of the fun would be trying to get the tile animation to closely match the coin-op's reactor cores.

    I didn't get far so I'm including this as a 'what if...' blog. I'm not sure how many sprites/particles I'd need all at once but it'd be nice to have temporary smart-flickering (when 2 particles cross each other horizontally), or none at all.


  13. Cafeman

    Replay FX is over

    By Cafeman,

    I attended the Pittsburgh Replay FX last year Friday and Saturday - the show runs from Thursday to Sunday. So this year for 2016 I attended Thursday through Saturday. I also joined the Replay World Championships, played a lot of Time Pilot and Dig Dug on max difficulty, but got eliminated in the first round finals. Also attended some GREAT seminars, played countless pinball, coin-ops, and consoles, and heard some good music. Great show!

    Kong-Off Championships.

    This returned for a 2nd year at Replay FX Pittsburgh. I got to talk with one of the youngest competitors, Tanner, who shared with me some of his knowledge of how DK works and various patterns and percentages rules. Pretty cool. Billy Mitchell was walking around and also playing the game himself. I saw one fellow get over a million points and achieve the final "Kill Screen" - level 22.1 I believe. And I bought some Pepper Sauce!



    Replay World Championships.



    The difficulty settings were set high on all the games, so several of us laughed and struggled to even beat a few boards of Time Pilot. Several of us concluded that Stage 1 was harder than stage 2, due to the bombs along with the many shots. If I had more patience, I would have just stuck it out on Stage 2 , not killing the boss plane and hitting 100-point planes for 30 minutes. I didn't see anyone get past stage 3, with the helicopters and guided missiles. The gamer who got the highest TP score did so by staying on Stage 1 the entire time!

    I also concentrated on Dig Dug, which I'd had a chance to practice at max difficulty. But there were players who just knew the game inside out and could consistently get 10,000 point rock-drops for example, and could consistently outwit the monsters. I got about 120k I think ; top score I saw was over 900k. All games had a 30 minute time limit.

    They also had Frogger, Tempest (too hard!), Missile Command (that ball arghhhh), Space Zap, Gyruss, Lady Bug , and Centipede. In the first round finals, I was quickly eliminated by my foe "Chris" at Lady Bug. I'm not very good at the game, never really played it, besides it was Saturday night and all the Seminars were starting so I was anxious to move on to those.

    Game Playing Highlights

    I enjoyed trying out games I don't own -- TurboGrafx (Blazing Lazers, and Victory Run), Vectrex (multi-cart - mostly the Tank game and Berzerk), and Neo Geo (a vertical shooter ). Also tried out Sega Saturn NHL Powerplay 96 for the first time in 20 years - we used to LOVE that game , and it has held up pretty well. I didn't see good representation of Atari's though. Most of the Atari's and the Colecovision were actually Flashback systems. There was at least one 2600 (Pitfall was in it when I passed by), but no 5200's, and I didn't see any 7800's either. I couldn't pass up Genesis Outrun for a few rounds.

    On the many coin-ops, I enjoyed playing rounds of Zaxxon, Tron, SEGA's vector sit-down Star Trek game (awesome!), Karate Champ (I still can't do the bonus segments), and about 50 others for a token play.

    There were of course tons of Pinball games there. Pinburgh competitions were going on and lots of pinball fans. I especially enjoyed playing Twilight Zone and Funhouse. There was an AC-DC pinball - I expected lots of great rockin' stuff, but either the game has no actual AC-DC songs, or the volume was set too low.

    I did bump into Ed Fries as he played Williams' Sinistar and we discussed strategies of this too-hard game.

    Seminars

    I kind of felt bad for the Saturday night Seminars folks - attendance was sparse, even though the location was right outside of the main halls. Last year we had an excellent multi-media room, but it was very far away and upstairs. Mike Stulir told me the idea was to move it closer to the main show this year. The show had high quality banners advertising the Seminars. Still, Pittsburgh gamers kind of showed their indifference by not showing up. Slightly unfortunately, the seminars area was kind of stuck in a small corner along the side of the lobby area (with bright sun shining in sometimes), and the projection TV really should have been much bigger. It was hard some of the details unless you sat close enough. Sound quality was pretty good and loud enough - especially Mark Bussler's CGR seminar where he reveled at saying TRUXTON!!!!! into the mike.

    Mark Bussler, Classic Game Room - pretty much what you'd expect, and entertaining CGR based show with a intro video (which I had not seen before) where Mark , and 2 of the Replay FX guys, played the Robocop pinball game. The entire audience were enjoying it and busting a gut laughing at those guys doing 'the robot' in the video as another played the pinball Robocop game. Further Robocop NES discussion took place and talk of the future of CGR.

    Mike Stulir - Mike's fascinating show had plenty of pictures as he discussed the American Classic Arcade Museum.

    Ed Fries, My Life in Games - Ed talked about coding Atari 8bit games in the 80's, his Microsoft days and Halo, reading Racing the Beam and subsequently working on the Atari 2600 homebrew Halo, and his involvement with the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Halo 2600 is in it!). During the Q&A, I asked Ed how Microsoft's legal team felt about his Halo 2600. He laughed a bit and said he had indeed discussed that aspect , and it sounds like he got an unofficial 'okay' . He said humorously that nothing is in writing, so they may come after him legally yet. He also mentioned that he talked to Namco about his Atari 2600 Rally-X port; I got the impression Namco was not going for it, thus that project is still a work-in-progress and in limbo somewhere on one of Ed's computers.

    Steve Golson, the Atari 7800 ProSystem - I had heard Steve's seminar at last year's Replay FX too, and I was pleasantly surprised that the content was quite different this year. Very interesting to me - Steve worked for GCC , and I was already knowledgeable about GCC's creating Ms. Pac-Man , some 5200 games, and the 7800 system itself . What I didn't know until now is that GCC was responsible for several Atari 2600 games, including Atari Cube , Ms. Pac-Man, and Phoenix. Steve is a hardware guy, thus he showed a lot of PCB's and diagrams as he discussed the "Atari 3600" design, which would become the Atari 7800 later.

    After Steve's seminar, several of us perused his items - design docs, and amazingly, the Atari 7800 adapter for the Atari 5200, the only one (a prototype) in existence!




    Warren Davis, creator of Q*bert - Warren also had plenty of pictures and videos of various games he worked on, including Q*bert of course, but also "Us vs Them", a film-like Laser-disc game which I'm surprised didn't end up on the Sega CD 10 years later. Warren ended his interesting seminar with a video showing the making of the Aerosmith game Revolution X in the 90's, which was pretty awesome to be honest.

    This ends my brief synopsis of Replay FX highlights. I had a great time. In conclusion, let me mention some other things that made the show cool - watching people enjoy playing the games; watching people get exhausted attempting to play Capcom vs Street Fighter (projected onto a huge screen) by stepping on foot pads to control it; seeing the Star Wars stormtroopers, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, and Imperials walk around; listening to Pittsburgh Rush-inspired band Caress of Steel City (Friday night), and even better the excellent and tight band Flashback play Journey, Bon Jovi, Billy Idol, Judas Priest (with guest vocalist Richie Knuckles!), The Doobie Brothers and many others (Saturday Night) .




  14. Cafeman
    I also wrote a spoiler-free blog entry about the film here - http://atariage.com/forums/blog/618/entry-13519-star-wars-rogue-one-spoiler-free-review/

    I wrote that quickly after seeing the film, being careful to avoid all other reviews because I didn't want my thoughts influenced. Once an idea gets in one's head, its there forever. I left the film in elation, feeling some of the 80's stunned wow-factor that I remember as a kid watching the originals. Rogue Squadron stirred the Star Wars excitement in me more than last year's The Force Awakens. By now, I've read and watched many reviews and comments about Rogue One. I thought I'd blog out my thoughts on CGI humans, cameos, text story crawls, and Darth Vader.

    The most mentioned subject seems to be the CGI Grand Moff Tarkin. Or, is he Governer Tarkin as addressed in A New Hope? When he appeared from behind, with his face semi-reflected in the Death Star window, I thought that's all we'd see. And then ... he turns around, full CGI mo-capped character, Peter Cushing resurrected! And he was in the entire movie. Well, complaints from the internet peanut gallery keep popping up about how distracting this evidently was to them. But honestly, is it not true of all the Star Wars films that some characters, be it CGI or puppet, are obviously an effect? Would it have been better to cast a lookalike actor instead of CGI Peter Cushing? Check out the Tarkin makeup from Episode III again and see how horrible it looks up-close. That film wisely put him into the background, so it works. I bet few people have those cutting Peter Cushing cheekbones.

    I agree that CGI human faces aren't quite perfect yet. But it was still the best we've seen yet, far better than many attempts from earlier films. It seemed better than young Robert Downey Jr , young Michael Douglas, and before that young Jeff Bridges from Tron which admittedly was several years back.

    Tarkin was a great character, played briefly by the great actor Peter Cushing. I loved and applaud the incluson of the ruthless and brilliant Tarkin in Rogue One. It would have felt cheap if he and Vader weren't part of the film. I knew right away it was CGI because of course it is. Immediately I widened my eyes, looking apprehensively for flaws. But even on the huge XD screen at the theater, the effect held up. I think I may have actually gasped at seeing Tarkin as a character in this form! The CGI Princess Leia, at the film's close, was also not 100% a replacement for a human, but it was brief and still looked very good. Seeing the young versions of these actors again in this prequel is not something I'd complain about. To the contrary, it is true Movie Magic that we are witnessing.

    Darth Vader also returned! Wow! And they gave us two scenes with Vader! And we got to see him in a bacta tank! I've seen complaints about his funny lines to Director Krennic, not to be 'choked by his ambitions'. Why was this so bad? Anakin had a sense of wry humor at times, and Vader was never afraid to throw out a cutting jab to fellow imperials. In my theater audience, people chuckled with laughter at that. It didn't diminish the character of Vader at all. This is not a bad line. It certainly isn't 'what happens when a toad is hit by lightning' bad. Frankly, I think Vader was in a hurry to dismiss Krennic and get back to his warm Bacta tank. Nobody likes having to get out of the tub to answer the door.

    Vader's second scene at the film's finale ... WOW! I was so, so happy at that. When those poor rebels got trapped in the room by the faulty airlock door, and they turned around and you could see Vader's red lights dimly .. and then he fires up the lightsaber and methodically blocks blaster fire, uses the Force to throw them, all the while slowly advancing and cutting them all down. Wow Wow Wow! Coming on the heals of the prior excellent space battle, I was in full fanboy-grins and jaw-dropped mode at this point. Go go, Captain Antilles! Hurry!

    I really loved seeing cameos such as Walrus Man (Kenner's toy description from the 70's) , currently still having 2 arms, and his ugly wanted-in-12-systems friend, in a cameo! Looking around, there were so many things to see. Familiar droids, blue liquids, familiar races from Episode IV's timeline. Tell me I didn't see a domesticated Wampa in there during the Jedha City scenes?? I loved the 5 seconds of 3PO and R2 , as the rebels left their base. Just the right amount of cameo and humor, thankfully not wearing out its welcome. I loved seeing Red Squadron. This brings up a question - I swear I saw Biggs as one of the pilots. Perhaps it was just another pilot with a similar 70's mustache? I won't know for sure that I'm wrong, until I watch it again.

    Concerning the characters, I went into the film with no knowledge of any of their histories. Except for possibly Jyn, the other characters were not as fleshed out as much as TFA's Rey and Finn, but they didn't need to be. I got to know them all well enough that I felt down at each of their deaths. I didn't need a text crawl explaining where the story was and who was involved - but maybe general audiences did need that. I absolutely loved the film's opening , with the only necessary verbiage, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." and then the scene with young Jyn's family on their farm, and the approach of Imperial Krennic.

    Wow, a film where the entire main cast is killed by the end. Just like old films like The Dirty Dozen or old westerns. I think Rogue One's different, darker tone is one of the reasons the film was so enjoyable to me. As an example or two, I didn't expect Saw to die so early. I didn't expect the wartime ruthlessness shown by Captain Cassian Andor with his informant.

    What irony that Director Krennic is killed by his precious Death Star, courtesy of the absolutely ruthless Tarkin. Krennic, you're far too trusting.


    (_)3



  15. Cafeman

    Koffi Klay?

    By Cafeman,

    I was working with clay with others, didn't know what to make, then an idea hit me. Koffi Kopter and Pyro the Stormcloud. Turned out pretty good, especially since I had not dabbled with clay since high school art class. So I took a couple pictures and finally decided to post them here.



    If you aren't familiar , these are characters from the Atari 5200 and A8 homebrew Koffi: Yellow Kopter from 2002. The ROMs are available for both, and the AtariAge store still carries 5200 Koffi if you'd like a cart. You can post a review in the AA Store as well, there's only a couple reviews even though hundreds were sold!

    https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=137



    Cart Image is from AtariAge.com.
  16. Cafeman
    I watched Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The first section is a spoiler-free review (I assume you watched the trailers), followed by a spoiler-hidden additional thoughts.

    Based on the Rotten Tomatoes low aggregate score of about 30%, and the complaints, I went in with low expectations. I didn't particularly like the trailers. But to my surprise, I enjoyed the film and would give it "thumbs up". So this review is going to have a positive slant. Also, in my audience there was a lot of clapping going on at various scenes - mostly kids. They were loving it.

    This film is complex. A first watch yields some confusion because of the bizarre editing of some (unexplained) scenes. I think after 2nd watch, more will be understandable, especially to fans of the comics and animated series episodes.
    Perhaps the most disturbing thing I read before seeing the film was a comment that Batman now uses guns and kills people. This is not exactly true. Or is it? In the theatrical versions of Batman, his vehicles have always had firepower, and this doesn't change. In many scenes he grabs rifles and smacks bad guys around with the butt end, and he fires the rifles a few times - which could be simply wounding them, putting them down, but not executing Punisher-style. But the big guns of his Batmobile had to slaughter anything that got hit! The thing is - the film doesn't really show Batman killing. So I won't dwell on it. This Batman is older and fed up, doubting his more righteous path because , as he says, "criminals are like weeds. Pull one up, another grows in its place". Overall I felt this Batman is satisfactorily fair to the character in my eyes and was EASILY the best part of the the film. Some of Batman's (and Alfred's) scenes are stuff we've never seen before in on film, and its always exciting and fun to watch. I enjoyed the nice early focus on Bruce's detective work and planning.



    BvS is an amalgamation of at least 3 films' worth of Superman and Justice League concepts and stories. It has to introduce the new Batman and Wonder Woman and Lex Luthor, and allow story #1 to play out, and allow enough time for story #2 to play out. The end result is the film has been heavily cut and edited and yet still has far too many disjointed scenes; also it is too long. I was disappointed that the writers and directer tried to cover so, so many scenes in one film. No wonder it was originally 3+ hours. I don't think it is a spoiler to reveal this - as the trailer did - that a version of Doomsday and
    storyline is incorporated into this film. This is seriously the worst part of the film. You get your money's worth in spectacle; but its so much less interesting than the first half of the film. Which is par for the course with Zak Snyder's direction, I think; it's the exact same problem I have with Man of Steel. I loved the first half of MoS, but by the ending I felt very dissatisfied. But I've come to enjoy MoS on subsequent Blu-Ray viewings; I suspect that will be true here too. Wait a minute! Didn't Superman Returns also have a super depressing final act? Sorry, but I like the jubilant feeling I used to feel walking out after watching the first two Christopher Reeve Superman films. Or Spider-Man 1 or 2. Also Batman Begins and The Dark Knight! On any of these films, I would walk out of the theater with a spring in my step. But with BvS, the best feeling I could muster was 'that wasn't as bad as I'd feared...".

    Jesse Eisenberg plays Lex Luther. I hated him in the trailers. But surprise! At least in my opinion, his version of Luthor is a good one. He is intelligent, crafty, merciless, and he plays the long game and he is behind all of the attacks against our super friends. Yes, I found Eisenberg to be a formidable Luthor. It doesn't bother me that they've tried a fresh angle to the character. It's unfortunate that his wry and bizarre little speeches such as "the red capes are coming!" was the focus -- out of context -- in the trailers. In the film, he's being weird like that on purpose to certain characters. Luthor's ruthlessness is shown in one especially surprising turn of events mid-film; and his disregard for human life is shown in his maniacal long range plan.

    Negatives? I didn't really enjoy or understand the multiple visions and dream sequences. It reminded me of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Thor's trip to the pool -- confusing , a change in thematic tone, and evidently just setting up future stuff in the Justice League films. These scenes play out, then there is no explanation and then the normal real-time storyline resumes. Huh?? But after some thought (and googling for answers), I think most of us will understand and grow used to why these sequences are there. Snyder is also playing the long game and planting seeds. However, these scenes hurt the film, and I wish they'd been cut, and better moments not cut. The end of the film mimics Man of Steel's destruction and not-really-very-fun spectacle; dour and a sobering/ depressing mood. Little kids were BAWLING out loud in the audience. Now that is what I call an effectively upsetting ending-- but the rest of us (adults) just watched in silence until a glimmer of hope did finally rise.

    I give the film a B-. Compared to how I felt after Man of Steel, X-men 3, Amazing Spider-Man 2, Green Lantern, or Superman III (all disappointing to me of varying degrees), BvS compares more favorably.



    Spoiler Comments Next:





  17. Cafeman

    7800 Dungeon Stalker

    By Cafeman,

    I posted this in the AA store, too.

    Dungeon Stalker snuck up on me. I wasn't prepared for its amalgamation of excellent gaming ideas! At first glance, it looked like a simple 7800 port of INTV Night Stalker. But I feel that DS is more interesting and more fun than the original Night Stalker. DS is a static maze shooter with gameplay tweaks that evoke fond memories of Berzerk, Wizard of Wor, and even INTV AD&D. You can get the usual AtariAge high-quality box , manual and artwork with it .

    There is a clever mix of unique creatures. Some enemies aren't deadly but temporarily stun you. Some shoot. Some creatures' shots disappear mid-screen if you kill them; but other creatures' shots keep going even if they are vanquished. Some are faster than others. The Spiders don't shoot, they are easy to hit. But they will stop and build little webs in the maze, which can significantly impede your ability to quickly traverse the maze and reach a safe corner! On the other hand, The Bats are tiny, your shots can miss them if you don't aim dead-center. These kinds of gameplay mechanics give the game endless chances at strategy and fun. The game even provides opportunities for extra treasure, lives, and invincibility if you can grab them. Fun stuff.

    I enjoy how your shots are actually arrows, and you have to refill your quiver periodically. The creates even more judgment calls in gameplay. Should you spend 4 of your arrows to break up a spider web? Or just fight your way through the web (or take another maze path) to reach safety? If you play on Novice, you have no webs and unlimited arrows. That's fun for a while too, but you are missing a lot of the real game so I play on Standard or higher. My end-of-game rankings are getting better with each try!

    Finally, I will mention the AtariVox. If you don't have it, you'll still enjoy Dungeon Stalker. The default game sounds create a suspenseful mood, with the "heart beat" sound increasing in volume when you run out of arrows. But include the AtariVox and you will be in retro gaming HEAVEN. Seriously! "Now Entering THEEE DUNGEON" the Vox announces at the beginning, and I get that goofy grin that only a (grown?) kid with a new game can get. Much work was put into the variety and amount of Vox voice phrases that you hear. Plus, the Vox saves your high scores which is awesome. The AtariVox makes Dungeon Stalker, a fun and fresh maze shooter, into an undeniably must-own experience!




    To my initial surprise, the AtariVox plugs into Joystick 2 and needs its own speaker. I used a 1/8-to-RCA and plugged that cable into my TV . The 7800 sounds (like all my games) are fed directly into my Onkyo Sound system. Works and sounds great!

    I rated 7800 Dungeon Stalker 5/5 stars.

  18. Cafeman
    Background info:

    If I ever suspected I'd need to come back to Adventure II's code the way I have, I'd have never compressed and re-coded so many memory-saving schemes into the original 32K 5200 version! One of the things I was proudest of in 5200 Adventure II was that I fit so much into 32K.

    As has been stated in the forums many times, the game had to use bank switching for the Atari XE version because the Atari 8bits can't address 32K memory, they instead address in 16K . And you can break up those into varying 4K banks which you load as needed.

    So for example, many of the game's screens are stored in the 8K bank from $8000-$9FFF. Other stuff is stored in the next 4K bank $A000-$AFFF. Because XE carts and AtariMax carts use differing bank-switching schemes, Tep392 put in logic to do it both ways when I compile the game.

    The Abend

    I made a little change last week, something that has long been on my to-do list. I was testing the game's Vast levels, and the game crashed ("Abended") trying to load some screens. Oh No!!!!!!!!

    As I tested more, slowly relearning variable and memory addresses that I had forgotten since 2007 , I saw that not only Fire Castle screens, but also some Vast Ice Castle screens were also crashing the game. Oh No!!!!!!!!!

    For a few days I was really all thumbs, not being able to understand why my stupid little tweak had caused the problem. But I got busy with work and had to put it aside during the week. Thankfully this worked to my advantage. It's interesting how your brain works - give a problem the day off, and you'll likely come up with a fix tomorrow or the next day.

    The Cause of the problem found!

    I spent 2 hours this morning using the process of elimination to find clues to the game crashes. I found that there were actually 3 screens that would cause a crash. What did they have in common? And what was different about them compared to all the other (similar) internal castle maps??

    After investigating more,and writing down the internal hex numbers for these screens, I spotted the clue that all 3 screens used the same "map" data and were in the same bank! When I looked at the source file for that memory bank, this map screen is at the end of the bank. Clearly it was now corrupted and any attempt to use this screen caused a crash. Then my mind put all the clues together.

    Since 2013, I have slightly added changes and fresh details to a few Kingdom1 screens. Then in early December 2015, I made the final Kingdom 1 screen changes, to 4 different screens. These map changes - and not the more recent 'tweak' that I mistakenly thought was the problem - caused the problem. They weren't being compressed quite as efficiently as before, and thus incrementally used more and more bytes. I had pushed a bank over its limit. I had exceeded the 4K memory available from $8000-$BFFF. The only thing affected was the last thing in the bank - that screen map which caused the crashes! It only happened in Vast castle mazes, so I didn't notice it because I usually don't test using the huge Vast variations.

    So, every time I visited a certain Fire Castle screen, or one of 2 Ice Castle screens (I change the colors though, so they don't look identical), the program would try to load the glitched map. Every time I tried to load one of those 3 screens, using the compressed include file "Y3.INC" - it crashed the game.

    Happy times!

    I moved some memory around and solved the problem! Happy Day! Because, I HATE HATE HATE trying to fix bugs! Especially when the game is 99% finished!

    And now I leave to go see Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens! Happy Happy , Joy Joy !

    (_)3

  19. Cafeman
    I've seen The Force Awakens four times now. Three viewings at the theater, and one at home on my new BD copy.

    Review Grade: A

    I simply adore The Force Awakens! I love it! I love it more than any of the prequels. I love how it feels like natural 30-years-later continuation of the original trilogy that I loved as a youth. I like the new actors and characters, all of them. I give credit not only to the actors but to the film's director, JJ Abrams and writer Lawrence Kasdan.

    Top 3 reasons I love The Force Awakens:

    1. Rey. From the moment she shows up, after every spoken word by her, watching her live her life at the beginning and then she displays disgust, fear, anger, aggression, and sadness. I believed this character exists. John Williams' "Rey" score fits the scenes so incredibly well. Rey's duel with Kylo Ren in the forest gives me the shivers. She means business. Just watch how she kicks Kylo Ren, grabs his arm and forces his saber into the ground, cancelling it out. I can't wait to see what she becomes. Daisy Ridley was a real find. I think the greatest "payoff" scene in TFA is when Rey successfully pulls the lightsaber out of the snow and it whips past Ren who was also vying for the lightsaber; there she stands holding it, the music swells... wow!

    2. BB-8. This little guy cracks me up! Seeing him rolling and just booking along the ground ( Booking: urban slang for running really fast, probably comes from setting a record/putting it in the books) . Kudos for the filmmakers for creating a new, earnest and feisty little droid that can stand beside R2 and C-3PO.

    3. Familiar SW universe stuff. Destroyed AT-AT walkers and huge crashed Star Destroyers, TIE fighters and X-wings, blasters, stormtroopers, Imperials and Rebels (under different names), lightsabers. Also Han, Chewbacca, Leia, Admiral Ackbar, Nien Nunb, 3PO, R2, and even Darth Vader's helmet. They couldn't have added more to satisfy me.

    Grumbles about The Force Awakens:

    1. Mirrored plot points from the OT. Nope. I change my mind. At first, I was originally slightly underwhelmed by the ideas of Snoke and Starkiller plaet. But that's passed. I now don't mind the fact that "there's another Death Star-type thing!" in TFA. That is the Empire's modus operandi. And being introduced to another desert planet (Jakku , not Tatooine) where an important character is unknowingly about to be thrust to bigger things , well it worked. Nostalgic familiarity, true. But it made sense why an old ex-Rebel would hide out near the junkyard of this dustbowl planet.

    2. Han Solo's death. I don't mind that it happened. But for such a huge moment and extremely beloved character's death, Harrison's acting wasn't the greatest in this scene. C'mon, he looks surprised but it doesn't really look like it HURTS to be ran through by your son's lightsaber. I loved how Chewbacca went a little berserk , but really, more time and attention could have been shown at his rage (he didn't even pull the arms out of any stormtroopers! this was the chance to show it!) and his grief.

    3. Absolute lack of Luke Skywalker!!! I am just grumbling here, because it was a good idea to keep him reserved for the ending scene, and the next film. But dang it. I wanted to see him in action! What if he gets hit by a truck, or a TIE fighter panel, before he is done filming Ep8? What were you thinking Abrams?

    4. I didn't like Greg "Matt Parkman" Grunberg being in the SW film as Porkins Snap Wexley, a heavyset rebel pilot. He takes me out of the scene a little bit. I see Greg Grunberg, not a SW character. Thank goodness he didn't have Force powers. I don't want to see the Matt Parkman Stare in Star Wars. There were 2 other out-of-place actors, in my opinion -- Ken Leung (X-men and Lost), and the other was Carrie Fisher's daughter. Nepotism! If you watch her, she looks like she doesn't know what to do, she is just standing in the crowd in the background. But she is in several scenes. At least she is cute..


  20. Cafeman

    Introduction

    By Cafeman,

    I started RL5202 Adventure II for the Atari 5200 in 2001, with Alan Davis and Raccoon Lad. It was finally published by AA in 2007. Dave Giarrusso coined the "RLxxx" numbers back when I started my first homebrew, Koffi: Yellow Kopter. So I stuck with that and will continue to use that.

    I dabbled slowly with an Atari 8bit version afterwards, finally deciding to call it Adventure II XE and bumping it up to 64K and bank-switched. Perry Thuente has been of immense help with the technical challenges of the bank switching and A8-specific stuff.

    Things slowed down again in September 2013 when I lost many PC files. Stuff was backed up, but not organized. Also had home repairs to take care of.

    In 2015 I got a new laptop and slowly started to organize my AdvII XE stuff. So here I am in August 2015 finally compiling the code again and testing it. I hope to get AdvII done and will post some updates on this blog.

    The font on both the Title and GameWin screens is a prettier one than the default Atari 5200 font I had used before. The game now tracks statistics which are shown at the conclusion of each game.

    There are many, many other changes to make AdvII XE's gameplay different from the 5200 version. New bridges can be built; there is 1-button control now (hold to drop object and tap button to Manipulate a held object); and some changes to screens.




  21. Cafeman
    It always irks me when I see the out-of-place tile on the original 5200 Adventure II - on the first castle at the top. I finally fixed it, for the XE version.



    As you can see, Sir Square is almost dead in this picture. He's got a big bite taken out of him and the dragon is about to complete his meal.

    This was the first time I have recompiled and recompressed an Adventure II screen since I got a Windows 64-bit laptop, running win8.1 It's a lot more hassle now. I have to use DosBox to run the Antic4 utility and bin2inc utility (both by Jeffry Johnston) because they don't run natively in win8.1's CMD: prompt.

    But TASM and PUCRUNCH do run in CMD: prompt - DosBox can't seem to run TASM. It's old, I know. But that's what we started using for compile AdvII code and I just stick with that for AdvII XE.

    ---------------




  22. Cafeman
    Ecco the Dolphin was released for the SEGA Genesis in August 1992. This was a time when I felt SEGA could do no wrong. I had rented Ecco for a day or two then, but I didn't play all of it until March of 1993, when much of the USA got hit with the winter "Storm of the Century", as it came to be called. I had purchased Ecco on Friday, and we got snowed-in over the weekend. Fortunately for me, we never lost our electricity, because I had nothing else to do except play my new game Ecco on my Genesis all day Saturday and Sunday. I got aggravated that I couldn't figure out one level, or get over a wall in another, but I persevered, and I was hooked on the Ecco experience. I really enjoyed the theme, level design, and the puzzles. I eventually did beat the game. I will never forget the DIFFICULTY of the alien levels , including "Welcome to the machine"!

    Yes, fortunately for me we didn't lose electricity with the blizzard. It was unfortunate for the wife, because Ecco's shrill sonar sound drove her crazy , and to this day I don't dare play Ecco in her presence without the implied threat of extreme duress.

    Later, I played Ecco the Dolphin CD , which had some new levels , some FMV (the cool kind - CG graphics video, which was similar to the game's style, and well within the SEGA CD's color and resolution limitations), and a very atmospheric new CD soundtrack. Pumping through my old-school Fisher stereo system w/15" woofer speaker cabinets, SEGA games really sounded sweet.

    So when the Dreamcast debuted, I eagerly picked up the new version of Ecco the Dolphin in 2000, and lately I've been replaying it in 2015. On the first night I played for a while, but only reached the 2nd area, which actually has one of the most exciting parts of the entire game - Ecco vs a Great White Shark.

    The plot goes on to involve things we'd seen in the 2D Ecco games, like time travel and the aliens and trying to jump from water bubbles up in the sky (similar to Ecco Tides of Time). Atari Age member Maurice Molyneaux (Big Mo) scripted some of the plot, as I recall. I beat it back in the day, but I can't recall the ending. I'll have to beat Ecco: DotF again this fall as time allows.

    Concerning the game itself - my opinion of it hasn't changed since I first played in in 2000/2001. The game's goals are often obtuse and the gameplay is too difficult. I didn't mind it back when the game was new, but it is now annoying trying to enjoy some levels in a more limited time frame. It takes me at least an hour to familiarize myself with the level, its objectives, to hunt for Vitalis thingies, and to stop getting turned around and lost. I guess I should check out a FAQ or Guide. Mind you, the Genesis Ecco games were also just like this - obtuse goals and high difficulty. But they were in left-right-up-down 2D and hence not as hard to make progress as in this version. In stage 1, I spent at least 10 minutes just trying to line-up Ecco and then forcefully jump out of the water to grab a floating Vitalit. I could see it! But in the 3D space, the game engine is merciless and will not guide you towards the Vitalit, not even a few pixels (erm, Polygons...). Imagine playing Mario 64 and you had to spend 10 minutes trying to jump up and grab a Star that was just above you.

    It is interesting to observe how developers take a historically 2D game series and make a 3D-movement sequel. For example, much praise has been written about how perfectly Nintendo translated 2D Mario into 3D Super Mario 64. I agree with that. What a well-crafted game, Mario 64. It had far higher quality and was more accessible and enjoyable in its nature than any of the other 3D-space platformers that were around back then. I could also mention the phenomenal job that Retro Studios did with Gamecube Metroid Prime, converting 2D gameplay into not only 3D, but also into a first-person-perspective game.! Awesome job with Nintendo's trademark quality control and playability.

    To a lesser degree perhaps, but I was also impressed with SEGA's attempt to bring Sonic into 3D with the Sonic action stages of Sonic Adventure, on the Dreamcast. The design and artwork in Sonic's action stages was a perfect translation of 2D Genesis games to 3D Dreamcast stages; but the execution wasn't perfect. You'd fight the camera, you couldn't easily control Sonic's direction at fast speeds, sometimes you'd fall through the 'floor' and die.

    Getting back to Ecco: DotF, I am very impressed by the 3D engine and the translation of the 2D gameplay mechanics into this 3D world. The design here seems very well thought-out and apt, the visuals are often stunning and beautiful, and the game is exciting and scary a lot of times. You can really have fun just exploring each level.

    But the execution has problems when it comes to gameplay. The biggest problem is how easily it can be to get 'turned around' and lose what direction you are facing. The sonar map is not very helpful in this version. I have read that the PS2 port of Ecco had an improved sonar map, so the developers must agree with me! Even in stage one, I often can't tell which dolpin is the master and which are the players, and I get turned around and can't tell where to go. If you think it's bad there, wait until you have to travel through pitch dark caverns with deadly puffer fish attacking from left and right, and in your urge to escape, you inadvertently turn around and end up at the opening of the cave again. Or, get stuck against the cave wall and get killed.

    My comments serve only as a warning to you, if you want to try out Ecco on Dreamcast. Know what you are getting into. If you enjoyed the Ed Annunziata Ecco games on Genesis, you will likely have a big smile on your face each time a new stage loads! Whether the smile lasts depends on if you have the time to invest to gain the familiarity and skills to progress to the end of the game.

    Also check out my 'review' of the game for a Digital Press contest, back in 2002... sorry for using the word 'retard' in it, I was quoting somebody from Sling Blade you see ....

    http://www.digitpress.com/reviews/ecco.htm

  23. Cafeman
    I should be finishing the 98% finished AdvII XE, but I can't help playing with this. I miss having an artist to work with to design the charsets and images. For now the background graphics are just the best I could quickly come up with so far, to communicate my game ideas. There will be ways to tweak the designs and get more colors out of each screen as I go. Some coders don't reveal their works until they are practically done, but I don't work that way. I need to put something out there to keep my interest going.

    This picture shows the proposed 1st screen of Escape from AirWorld. It's purposed is to allow the player to learn what he can and cannot do - how far he jumps, what you can walk on, what the effect is from pickup up Wings (permanent power you gain) and Sky Sandals (temporary power you gain) , etc. You can't die on this screen.



    I'm open to ideas. Post a comment.

    (_)3
  25. Cafeman
    Scene spoilers! Beware if you care and haven't watched the film yet!!!

    Here are my original and mostly non-spoiler thoughts after the first watch a week ago: http://atariage.com/forums/blog/618/entry-12817-batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice-league-spoiler-free-review/

    For my 2nd viewing of Batman v Superman, my son and I went to a higher quality Cinemark theater. The screen was much bigger, brighter, and I saw details I missed watching the 1st viewing elsewhere. I caught more clues this time, explaining stuff. The sound was also so LOUD it gave me a slight headache by the end. In fact, overall I enjoyed the film about the same as the first time, not more or less. But this time I really felt exhausted by the end of it. Come to think of it - both times I was feeling fatigued before the film was even over. My son , who is 21 years old, said he thought the film wasn't bad (he HATED Man of Steel and still does).

    I'm feeling done with BvS now. I doubt I'll buy it on Blu-ray. I can't see myself watching it over & over. I enjoyed it, but it isn't a hugely enjoyable experience. By way of comparison, I can rewatch most of the Marvel films over & over and love 'em.

    My rating of Man of Steel: C- on first watch, C+ after multiple watches.
    My rating of Batman v Superman: B-

    My top 3 favorite scenes:
    1. The fight between Batman and Superman. It was pretty good.
    2. Batman rescuing Martha, taking down all the armed criminals and their leader, the "KGBeast" dude. Quoth the KGBeast, "I'll kill her", and Bat says "I believe you". Then ... BOOM takes him out. All great stuff.
    3. The Senate bomb. Best twist of the film to me.

    Least 3 favorite scenes:
    1. The scene where Lois and Superman are depressed, and Lois says "I don't know if you can love me being who you are blah blah blah". Emo / dull. Who cares? You know, Vicki Vale said something quite similar in Bruce in 1989's Batman the Movie.
    2. Doomsday . Although WW is great and there's lots of action in the battle, overall it shouldn't have been tacked on to the end of this already too-long film. Plus, just how Doomsday was created and *why*, by Lex, makes little sense to me.
    3. Lex's trailer-quoted dialogue, "Clark Kent meets Bruce Wayne! I love bringing people together! Do not pick a fight with this person!"
    ==> EDIT: wait a minute. Isn't the film showing the Lex already figured out who Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent were? So in this scene, its like he is breaking the 4th wall and winking at the audience. still don't like it.


    I found the Injustice comics series online and read through most of the first 3 years worth recently. In this series (a prequel of sorts to the video game Injustice), Superman suffers the death of Lois and her unborn child , then decides its okay to kill and be more active stopping wars, governments, and criminals. Then Superman turns the world into a police state, basically. Just about all the Justice League support him except for a few with Batman. The rest of the series, its Superman vs Batman along with the supporting characters. You can read the entire series (I grew tired of it after a while, it goes on & on & on and despite a few bright humor spots with Harley and Oliver Queen, the repeated fighting gets old ) at http://readcomiconline.com/for free (not sure how long that will last).

    I wonder if the writers and Zack Snyder were fans of this story? Because its a little bit off-putting , just like BvS. Also similar scenes (maybe from other comics too - I haven't read many Superman books so I don't know). The way Superman takes Doomsday into outer space; the visions showing a violent Superman willing to kill and clearly HATING Batman are also found in Injustice. I grew tired of Injustice, mostly because it has several years worth of comics, all with a killing and more despot Superman, which lasted too long. Similarly, Bvs lasted too long for me as a film w/the heroes mostly in conflict with each other.

    Its pretty obvious that The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel was an influence too. Several scenes plus the nature of the conflict are right out of that comic. I was waiting to see a Kryptonite arrow in BvS ! But it was changed to something else for the film version. The cover scene of the comic, with a lightning bolt behind the thick Batman outline, found its way into BvS too.

    This is curious to me, as The Dark Knight Rises film was also strongly influenced by The Dark Knight Returns with Batman being older & out of action for years, plus certain scenes like young & old Gotham cops seeing Batman on his returning night ("Son, you're in for a treat tonight!").

    Finally, I thought it poor taste in the funeral scene that a bagpipes version of Amazing Grace was used. That was Spock's funeral music! (Wrath of Kahn).

    (_)3


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