zzip

October 16

51 minutes ago, Laner said:

It's hard to say if those adjustments NE146 illustrated above would have made the game less offensive to my 9 year old mind. Maybe slightly. But even with the graphical adjustments, it simply doesn't play like Pac-man.

I continue to be astounded at the hubris by Atari to look at the original port, and say "Yep, that's good. Ship it!"

It may have moved it to the same category Defender for me- A letdown, but not a punch in the gut the current version felt like.. I'd have figured it was the best the 2600 could do (at least until I saw Ms Pac-man)

October 13

2 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Do you have a link to that?

Doesn't seem like it's still online, but I have a copy of the Jan 2022 version:

Atari-IP-Catalog-Jan21-2022.pdf

October 13

3 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

I know you said this in a joking matter but if Atari ever actually tried to go after something like Donkey Kong Nintendo would (at the very least) ask for a 100 time's more money than what Atari itself could earn/generate in 10 year's ( going by modern Atari's current annual revenues ), this would never even be worth considering by any of the parties involved.

Not worth it anyway. Nobody really wants 2600 Donkey Kong, DKjr even less. Popeye is probably third-party licensed so that leaves just Mario Bros?

October 13

There might be other arcade opportunities similar in size to the Stern deal.. Exidy? Data East? Who owns Moon Patrol? Vanguard?

There was also a whole bunch of developers / publishers that popped up in the early home computer days that might be available. Here's some that don't seem to have been swallowed by big players

Epyx

Big Five ( I think Atari may own this already, Miner 2049er and Bounty Bob strikes back showed up on the last IP list Atari published)

First Star (Boulderdash and a few others)

Datasoft

Sirius Software

October 13

2 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

blip on the radar of they're executive board, the Xbox division could sign new deals with Atari and no one at Microsoft HQ would know or even care about it ).

It would still need to get reviewed by a legal team and that might cost as much as the deal is worth. I think that's why these old properties get locked up in these mega companies and never used. It's not worth it to create new releases, or license them out or sell them off.. So they just sit there. Unless there's a fan inside the company that has the pull to make things happen, there's just apathy about it.

Doom has far more mass appeal than anything in the Activision catalog

9 minutes ago, Austin said:

On the contrary, the XBOX division has done more with its older backlog than most companies out there. I'm more likely to lean towards being optimistic in this case.

More than just putting them out on Xbox live?

October 13

I'm not sure it will change anything, might even make the situation worse. A huge player like Microsoft is too big to worry about tiny deals like licensing the Activision 2600 catalog.

October 13

What 2600-era catalogs worth owning outside of Activision, Imagic and M-Network?

The first one that comes to mind is Parker Bros, but their game are almost entirely third-party licenses, so it's useless. Same with Coleco.

CBS? Xonox?

October 13

9 hours ago, KainXavier said:

While the extended tutorial seems a bit heavy-handed, the gameplay looks really fun! I love the aesthetic, and I'm getting Luigi's Mansion vibes from it. The game wasn't on my radar before, but it definitely is now. Thanks, PowerDubs!

Yeah once you're past that tutorial, that ghost only shows up if you ask for help. The game is fun... well at least addictive and frustrating because apparently I suck at it

October 13

Where's the Chuck E Cheese option?

October 12

13 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Since it's an endangered species, maybe they meant bringing back the Jaguar with DNA a la Jurassic Park or something. 🤔

Maybe they can cross-breed them with Lynx and create Jynx? Hmm Jynx, now there's an appropriate name for an Atari console!

October 12

5 hours ago, Gunther said:

ATARI asks, "So should we bring the Jaguar back too?"

Click the link and let them know:

https://x.com/atari/status/1712117236276600941?s=20

They never mentioned a console though, how do I know if I say yes, I won't end up with a jaguar plush wearing a speaker hat?

image.png.475280120b89e65c09a317517d960612.png

October 12

1 minute ago, desiv said:

Here's an interesting concept...

Instead of releasing carts, perhaps consider releasing one cart that has WiFi.
Then customers can digitally buy games via your digital game buying site (here on AA most likely). And they can switch games (either from a built into the system ROM or from the website or ? that would send the game of choice to the cart.)

That wouldn't rule out single game carts too, for those that want them. But it would be a kind of multicart/digital fulfillment model???

Just one of my crazy ideas...

And just to point out, absolutely NONE of my crazy ideas has ever been put into production, for what I am assuming are VERY GOOD REASONS!!

Why have a cart system at all in that case? The new VCS is better suited for digital rom distribution.

October 12

36 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Seems like fun but one thing that’s hard for me with this type of game is focusing on the tiny cars, especially when they’re moving quickly. But the closer you zoom in, the less time you have to react to to obstacles.

The glory days of that style is probably back when the arcade cabinet would have multiple steering wheels for local party fun.

Is there a zoom option I missed? The tiny cars are the biggest issue for me. Especially when there's another car that looks like mine, more than once I thought I was driving a computer controlled car, while my actual car was back there stuck in a 'ditch'

October 12

6 minutes ago, donjn said:

Agree 100%, and what @Flojomojo didn't get, is that when you posted:

"No! character creators are for making characters that you want to stare at the rear-end of for a 30-hour game"

You were poking fun at people who say they play a female because of that reason, a pre-defense for myself, in case that came up lol.

I wasn't really poking fun, I create characters with cool looks in games with character creators, and sometimes they are female. I don't create them to look like me, I would look terribly out of place in the Dark Souls universe Well maybe in the Sims..

But I don't want to play a game that forces me to play as protagonist that annoys me in some way, whether it be a male character or female character. So if I reject a game with a crappy protagonist, I don't need anyone telling me I'm wrong for doing so.

I swear the current path is going to lead to games being made with characters that are vaguely humanoid-shaped blue blobs- that represent everbody and nobody, because the developers will realize they can never please everyone!

October 12

I'll just say there is a huge double-standard around this topic in present day. On one hand you have the recent Dove commercial featuring a morbidly obese girl who is tired of playing as skinny characters and finally gets to play a morbidly obese character with smug grin that looks just like her. Dove (a soap company) is going to commit resources to ensure that happens.

But if you are a guy and express this exact same preference, you are the worst person ever!

Personally, I don't think people should need to justify their reasons for liking or not liking a game, including not liking the main protagonist. People like what they like,

October 12

Yeah, I think it looks more like Berzerk than "Berzerk Recharged" does.. odd choice when Atari is trying to hype that one up!

October 12

6 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Seriously? I suppose you make avatars that look like you for every game you play? Talk about sucking the fun out of an escape from reality.

No! character creators are for making characters that you want to stare at the rear-end of for a 30-hour game :lol:

October 12

1 minute ago, donjn said:

There are a lot of people who don't like playing games as the opposite sex.

And yes, it goes both ways, it sucks for women who want to play as women in some games but can't.
We all have our thing, I am sure there are some games you won't play that have reasons I would not agree with as well 😀

My understanding is you can play as any of the five characters in this game, but you have to unlock them first.

October 12

#45099 Haunted House 10/12/23

October 12

This is out now on VCS! $15.99 - I think that might be a sale price because it is $19.99 on other platforms.

October 12

1 hour ago, DhaemonX said:

Any word if Activision will release new copies of their 2600 games? Like Pitfall and Keystone Capers?

I don't even think they've released an Activision compilation in over a decade, don't seem interested.

October 11

12 hours ago, Mockduck said:

Yes, with a few exceptions, most notable being Antstream.

These don't get announced by Atari when they get released, so it has proven more difficult to track these by release date, but looking at the apps tonight looks like one was released on 9/16/23 called Nebula. Unsure what it is at the moment, really.

I think it's a paid video service? I watched a youtuber yesteday make a pitch to join Nebula and subscribe to his content to see his videos sooner.

October 11

1 hour ago, Emehr said:

@zzip @Lord Mushroom @Giles N This square-jaw Adventure guy talk inspired me to sketch something up...

I tried him with appendages but ditched them in favor of keeping him true to his squarish nature, letting the action of his sword and shield fill in the blanks. I like the idea of an expressionless visor. As for a name: Sir Squarinn?

I like the idea! What if his sword looked a bit more like the Adventure sword?

October 11

14 hours ago, Punisher5.0 said:

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/10/10/new-look-for-ps5-console-this-holiday-season/?sf269561511=1

Looks like the rumors were real about updated PS5's. I think they look cool and its great that you can add an optical drive to the digital system if you want.

But these are the same specs, right? I've heard rumblings about a "PS5 Pro" but it doesn't feel like the power of the base PS5 has really been tapped yet.

13 hours ago, adamchevy said:

Those do look very cool. I like the ability to add a disc drive. It gives it a nice modular design. I have been waiting to pick one of these up with the PSVR2. I was hoping that Sony would develop the PSVR2 library a bit more, but I still am looking forward to owning one and trying VR for the first time.

Yeah main reason I haven't picked up a PSVR2 yet is I would lose access to too many of my favorite PSVR1 games and there's not enough in the VR2 library yet.

October 11

1 hour ago, davyK said:

Trouble is, Stargate/Defender 2 was far better. Taking your Pacman argument and applying it to Defender , one could argue that Bob Polaro didn't try hard enough. Stargate was an 8K ROM? So, like, Pacman, Defender having 4K is a genuine reason for a lower quality port.

No. My argument against Pac-man is there are a number of obvious design decisions that were not the result of being limited to 4K nor hardware limitations. There is no cost to getting the colors at least close to the arcade. No cost to not giving Pac-man an eye. No cost to shaping the sprite correctly (as long as the height is the same) negligable cost to creating sounds closer to the arcade and so on. Just a number of small changes to show that Frye at least respected the source material would have gone a long way.

There are other changes that would help: maze design, tunnels, fruits, but I acknowledged they may come at a cost.

Now if I'm looking at 2600 Defender for easy design fixes, the most obvious the the shape of the Lander enemy, it's not supposed to be hat-shaped. I think the arcade sprite is taller, so that might cost a few bytes to fix.

other issues:

Swarmers that don't swarm - would need a fair bit of code to get right, might be a 4K issue

Smart Bombs/Hyperspace - As you said it's due to the CX40 having one-button, some less than ideal trade-off is required here.

Ship disappearing while firing - might be fixable in 4K, but would probably require reworking the kernel, so not the kind of easy fix that can be done in an afternoon. But this might be the single best fix to the game if they could pull it off.

Cityscape vs Mountain Scape - Back then I chalked this up to 2600 limitations, but seeing that Stargate has mountains, guess not. I don't know how easy the change is, but since the city is only changing the height of fairly wide buildings, vs mountains that have a higher horizontal resolution, I think this changed would have a cost

So maybe the Defender port could have been slightly better and been under 4K

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