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Which game should be ported to ATARI 2600 ?


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quote:

Originally posted by Jess Ragan:

There were a lot of games that were released for the 2600, but many others arcade, computer, and console releases were not translated to the 2600 format. Which of these games do you wish had been made for the 2600? I'd say Robotron: 2084 and Jeff Minter's underground classic Gridrunner.

 

Be careful what you ask for: I suspect Robotron: 2084 simply cannot be done justice on a 2600.

 

Back in the day, my major disappointment vis-à-vis games not translated for the VCS was Kick Man, a personal favorite from the arcades. (Well, not really from the arcades in my personal experience: the only Kick Man machine I ever saw was at a local supermarket.)

 

Another arcade game I wouldn't mind seeing on the ol' VCS is Pac & Pal, one of the more eclectic Pac-Man sequels. So far as I know it's never been ported for any home system.

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I'd have liked to see Super Pac-Man, though with the hardware limitations that would have been a flickering nightmare. Maybe Pac & Pal wouldn't be so bad since there's less objects on the screen (at least from the screen shots I've looked at).

 

I wish that there had been an NTSC release of Klax.

 

Maybe Marble Madness could have been done - just imagine Crystal Castles with vertical scrolling and proper trackball support.

 

I also wouldn't mind Donkey Kong 3, provided more care was put into it than the ports of the other Donkey Kong games.

 

I, Robot would be nice. A stunted version with a strictly overhead view and no viewer-killers might be possible.

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Good calls on the

Bosconian (I think it could be done),

Frenzy,

Lunar Lander (heck, they did Gravitar didn't they)

Rally X

 

Lots of arcade games during the 2600's peak never got translated. I could never list them all but there are quite a good number of them... For example, unsung arcade games such as:

PORTMAN

MOON CRESTA

SKY KID... Would have made great (and possible) 2600 translations. By the way, Pleadies was one of those I always thought about... but lo and behold, there it is.

 

Now, I'd like to see translations of arcade games such as Zookeeper! (where is this?) :P

 

Heck.. I would even love to see a Space Invaders PartII / Deluxe tranlsation. I think would make an excellent homebrew... (a translation of the ARCADE game that is)

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I think someone did a fesibility study on Robotron and concluded it could be done but it would be tough. I'll have to look that up and see...

 

Klax is damn cool to play on the 2600, I have a 99% complete NTSC proto (just missing a few bells and whistles) so I can't see why they didn't release it (was the market in the US that bad in 1990?)

 

Games I would have liked to see (sticking to games that could actually be done on the 2600):

 

Crush Roller

The End

Galaga

Black Widow (a non-vector version)

Bubbles

Caverns of Mars (was planned at one point)

R2D Tank

 

and of course...

 

Spaceballs the 2600 Game!

 

Tempest

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Marble Madness would have been cool. I've only ever played it on NES, but it was tubs of fun.

 

How about Birdie King? I put so much money into that machine as a kid (and I had no idea what golf even was) and Atari has no really good golf games that I know of. It might have required that pesky trackball though....

 

Hole in one Stan

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Here's some more, mostly drawing on my C-64 history:

 

Bruce Lee

Jumpman / Jumpman Jr.

Gateway to Apshai

M.U.L.E. (!)

Gauntlet (The real Gauntlet)

Paradroid

Archon (Hey, if they can do Chess...)

B.C.'s Quest For Tires

Pacland

Friday The 13th (Wizard Video anyone?)

Space Taxi

Star Control (Space War + strategy)

Elite

 

Okay, so Elite would be pretty much impossible... but I think it'd be possible (though difficult) to get decent versions of all the others. For those of you who've never heard of any of these games, I'd recommend downloading a C-64 emulator and going to Arnold. Oh, and good call on Shamus! That's a forgotten classic if there ever was one...

 

--Zero

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What about Space Panic? Would be simple enough I should think.

 

As a kid I actually wrote my own clone of Grid Runner for the Timex Sinclair 2068 -- America's version of the ZX Spectrum! For a game written by a 12 year old, I must say it was decent but slow as hell cuz I wrote it in BASIC! Argh!

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Well, if they could do Mr. Do!'s castle, then space panic could easily be done(seeing as Mr. Do's castle is basically a better remake of Space panic) If you knew a little Atari assembly, you could hack Do's castle and make it into Space panic.

And what about Universal's Snap Jack? I think this could be done too.

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(Yanks the cord on his See & Say)

The Zero says:

 

"A few that I always miss:

Bosconian (This might have been difficult)"

 

If Sinistar was possible, it seems like they could have done Bosconian as well. Personally, the Namco game I'd like to have seen on the 2600 was Galaga. Maybe that's a lot to ask from a system that old, but if the 2600 can do Solaris, hey, the sky's the limit as far as I'm concerned.

 

"Bomb Jack"

 

Ooh, nice choice! But this definitely would have been a tough port to the 2600, as impressive as the arcade game was.

 

"Frenzy"

 

Oh yeah. And throw in the better articulated sprites from the ColecoVision version, too.

 

"Pepper 2 (I love the Coleco version)"

 

Well, there's always Demolition Herby...

(plays the game for a while, then turns it off in disgust)

Well, maybe not.

 

"Lady Bug (While we on the topic...)"

 

Mm hm. Lady Bug wasn't one of my favorite Pac-Man clones but a 2600 version would have been fun. I don't think it would need to be as limited as Santulli suggested, either.

 

"Rally X or Radar Rat Race (any Vic-20 fans?)"

 

YES! Absolutely. I'm a Vic fan 4LIFE!

Speaking of which, does Ward Shrake ever post here?

 

"Major Havoc"

 

Probably not possible. It was a very complex game with multiple play modes. But you never know.

 

"In fact, Bosconian and Major Havoc never appeared on any game system that I'm aware of... "

 

Bosconian was ported to MSX, and as one person already mentioned, emulated on the Playstation. Plus there was a really nice remake on the X68000 computer.

 

And of course, any number of platform games would have been cool too: Contra, Rolling Thunder, Megaman, Elevator Action (100%), etc

 

Rolling Thunder...? Hmm...

(I don't seriously want to see Mega Man or Contra on the system, though. They're just not well suited to being ported to the 2600)

 

JR

 

P.S. To whoever suggested it, I'd LOVE to see a Spaceballs game on the 2600, or even better, the NES.

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OK, I'll pull an obscure one out of my hat: Stratovox!

 

A great classic Taito arcade game (I actually have the cocktail table version in my bedroom...), which I think would be very cool on the 2600. The graphics and gameplay should definitely be possible (for you who are unfamiliar with it, think a cross between Defender and Space Invaders and you're almost there). The hardest part would be the voice element, which is one of the coolest parts of the arcade version.

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Comments on this thread...

 

There was a version of Bosconian on MSX. I'd like to see this one on 2600.

 

Rally X -- yeah, I thought this could be done, though I'm more familiar with the arcade version than Radar Rat Race.

 

Bomberman -- I'd LOVE to see this, but I'm not sure it could be done "properly". I'm sure it could be done, but maybe not with multiple bombs etc.

 

Robotron -- someone did a feasibility study for the 2600 and said it was possible? Did they maybe not get to the later levels? I can't see any way the sheer number of robots could be done properly. Imagine Berzerk with more, and faster robots, as well as Mom, Dad and Mikey. Uh uh, no way.

 

Food Fight -- see Robotron, though, it could probably be done on some level. Wouldn't mind seeing it either.

 

Others? Blanking out... Maybe Beezer? :-)

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First, I think Desert Strike, the classic EA game could be done. It would follow the same minimalist treatment as Desrt Falcon 2600 followed. I loved this game on my ST and would love it on the 26.

 

Tron Arcade? This could be done, and done right graphically. Control would be a bit messy though.

 

I'd like to see a pseudo-sequel of Crystal Castles.. Crystal Castles II: Bentley Bear's Adventure. Sounds like a project for Khryssun's VCS Simulator.

 

And, a very easy one to do... Robby Roto.

 

Wasn't a 2600 Kickman programmed by Digital Eclipse?

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Desert Strike on the 2600? HA! You've got to be kidding me! Maybe on the 7800, but not the 2600.

 

Tron could be done very easily (I looked into it at one point), but as you said the controlls would be a problem. The only thing I could think of is using the Tron Joystick (Problem 1: not everyone has one) and a racing controller plugged into port two (Problem 2: How do you hold both?). It would be very interesting...

 

Tempest

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If you break desert strike down to its bare graphical elements, yes, I'm convinced it could be done. Think of a cross between desert falcon and defender. 'course I only know some visual basic and how to print "Hello, world!" in C++

 

cout >> "Hello World!"

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I think Qix could be done, it'd be a little tricky though. Probably similar to Stela sketch or Tron cycles with some sprites and missles added. The Qix (screen saver demon) would be the trickiest part, but a heavy simplification might solve that problem. Heavy flickering would actually work for the Qix and the Sparkz, and actually add to their appearance rather than detract from it.

 

[ 10-12-2001: Message edited by: Raccoon Lad ]

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The major obstacle to doing Qix might not be the sprites so much as the memory. With no screen memory in the 2600, you'd need a huge block of RAM to store the areas that have been filled and those that haven't.

 

You might be able to pull it off as a Supercharger game, since everything is essentially RAM at that point. However, given the playfield resolution (40 wide pixels), you'd need to use sprites for the filled areas. To do this, you'd probably have to resort to a display like in Suicide Mission, with flickering sprites completely filling the screen, acting as the display itself.

 

(I wonder why this was never used to simulate vectors in more games...)

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