Best of the Genre (GAMES)

[Omega-TI]

I've only been back into the TI for about a year, so I'm figuring there are many things I may have missed over the years. There are so many different types of games driving, maze, text adventure, shooter, etc.that I cannot keep track of them all. I'd like to hear your opinions on the best of the different types.

 

At the present time I'm also looking for a good driving game. Is there anything better than....

 

POLE POSITION

[sometimes99er]

Unfortunately I can't remember any TI games since my departure in about 1985, that I've used for more than perhaps 10 minutes (sorry to fellow game programmers). It's not that I don't play games, but probably more modern ones. Oh, one did stick out, Robotron, prototype cart discovered in about 2008.

 

[unhuman]

My dark favorites from when I was a kid - not sure I've replayed any of them.

 

Barrage was pretty amazing like Missile Command.

The Tennis game was good (TI Tennis?) - there was a cartridge published of it.

Arctarus (sic) was the closest thing we had to Zaxxon.

Micro Pinball?

Major Tom, hard as hell, very good.

TI-Runner - like Lode Runner

[+arcadeshopper]

My dark favorites from when I was a kid - not sure I've replayed any of them.

 

Barrage was pretty amazing like Missile Command.

The Tennis game was good (TI Tennis?) - there was a cartridge published of it.

Arctarus (sic) was the closest thing we had to Zaxxon.

Micro Pinball?

Major Tom, hard as hell, very good.

TI-Runner - like Lode Runner

 

This is my list too

[Omega-TI]

My dark favorites from when I was a kid - not sure I've replayed any of them.

 

Barrage was pretty amazing like Missile Command.

The Tennis game was good (TI Tennis?) - there was a cartridge published of it.

Arctarus (sic) was the closest thing we had to Zaxxon.

Micro Pinball?

Major Tom, hard as hell, very good.

TI-Runner - like Lode Runner

 

I have Barrage, Tennis and Arcturus as well as TI-Runner on disk. I SUCK at Micro Pinball, so I'll probably not play that game again for another decade or two! Now I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've never seen Major Tom. What kind of game is it? I'm assuming it's like the song and something to do about space?

[+arcadeshopper]

 

I have Barrage, Tennis and Arcturus as well as TI-Runner on disk. I SUCK at Micro Pinball, so I'll probably not play that game again for another decade or two! Now I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've never seen Major Tom. What kind of game is it? I'm assuming it's like the song and something to do about space?

 

It's a clone of the base portion of major havoc .. it's on the gameshelf for download.. http://tigameshelf.net/

 

Greg

[+save2600]

TI really does have a great selection of games to choose from. Right now, I'm limited to just cartridges and cassette games, but some arcade type games that I still enjoy from time to time include:

 

Big Foot - DK/climber type game that requires some strategy and good timing, excellent speech

Burgertime - excellent, just wish the background music didn't cut in/out or restart with the sound effects

Blasto - Combat + Bomberman = more fun with two players

Car Wars - Slot car + Pac-Man = always a challenge

Centipede - excellent port, favorite of any system & love the way it plays

Congo Bongo - fun for a few minutes, great graphics and translation though

Donkey Kong - one of the greatest all around ports ever despite missing springs, play this nearly every time I boot the TI

Frogger - one of the better home versions of the game

Jungle Hunt - damn good port

Junkman Jr. - Lode Runner/Miner type game

Micro Pinball - great pinball game, although the playfield could be more interesting

Miner 2049'er - don't play it as much because I can't be fussed to remove the SS, but great game

Ms. Pac-Man - slow at first, but picks up the pace

Munch Man - great variation on the theme

Popeye - excellent port

Q*Bert - excellent port, I play this often actually

Star Runner - can't go wrong here... Lode Runner type game of course

Star Trek - loved the arcade BITD and this port is great, speech even!

Super Demon Attack - not as good as the 2600 version, but great for what it is

TI Invaders - best Space Invaders port ever, UFO bonus between stages is a cool addition!

[+save2600]

A game I was *trying* to play the other night was Protector... not sure if it's my interest level, ADD or what, but even after all these years, I still cannot get into this game! WTH? Might help to RTFM I guess, but jeez... you'd think you should just be able to pick up a game like this and figure it out. I always end up accidentally shooting the people to be saved or crashing into something. Is this not a Choplifter type game where the people need to be brought back to home base or what? OR is it more like Defender, where you just leave the people where they are (even if they're on top of buildings) and take care of everything else floating above? Can you tell I've not invested a lot of time to this game?

[RobertLM78]

A game that I found recently on Gameshelf that I think I really neat is Sub Commander. It reminds me of Silent Service - in fact, I wonder if the game inspired Silent Service.

[S1500]

RPG - Tunnels of Doom.

[Omega-TI]

A game that I found recently on Gameshelf that I think I really neat is Sub Commander. It reminds me of Silent Service - in fact, I wonder if the game inspired Silent Service.

 

I agree, that is a good game. It's not a quick shoot 'em up, which I found is a nice diversion. You end up actually figuring out different strategies the more you play it. And for it's time it I thought it was one of the most visually appealing games available on the TI.

 

[RobertLM78]

At the present time I'm also looking for a good driving game. Is there anything better than....

 

POLE POSITION

Pole Position is a good game, but a little disappointing: I was playing it last night and passed all the initial opponents at the start of the race, but still lost just as I started the second lap...

[GratedTopping]

Here are my recommendations of some of the very best TI games of various types...

 

MAZE GAMES: "Car Wars" is not exactly a driving game, but is a pretty-good classic clone of Exidy's "Crash!". "Diablo", in Extended BASIC, is a fun, award-winning game where you move pieces of a maze-track so that the ever-moving ball can continue to move forward. As well, to me, TI's "Munch-man" is a more enjoyable clone than the original "Pac-man".

 

SHOOTERS/ACTION GAMES: "Computer War" (AKA "War Games") from Thorn EMI has always been a favourite of mine and is, to me, the most action-packed game you can find on the TI. "Jawbreaker II" was a fun one that I would call 'quieter' action. "SuperFly" and "Space Bandits" from Milton Bradley can use the MBX hardware but is not a requirement; I think they are pretty enjoyable. "TI Invaders" is one of the best "Space Invaders" clones.

 

SPORTS GAMES: "Micro Tennis" (title just says "Tennis") from Microbiotics and Milton Bradley's "Championship Baseball" (needs MXB hardware) are two of the best on the TI.

 

TEXT ADVENTURES: The "Adventure" cartridge is necessary to use a bunch of games from Scott Adams. My favourites of his were "The Count" and "Mystery Fun House".

 

GRAPHICS ADVENTURES: "Return To Pirate's Isle" is the only cartridge-based one and it's good (also from Scott Adams). "Old Dark Caves" and "Legends" are RPG-type games and pretty-popular (definitely well-made, but not my type of fun).

 

FLIGHT SIMULATORS: Not Polyoptics' "SPAD XIII" is a nice representation of controlling a WWI biplane. It's the only one I know of that's not of a modern plane and is my favourite of them.

 

PLATFORMERS: "Midnite Mason", "Popeye", and "Star Runner" (also released as "TI Runner") are quite good.

 

DRIVING GAMES: There really are very-few car racing games. "Driving Demon" from FunWare is okay, but it's a top-down racer and certainly could have been better if you had a wider road. There's nothing similar to the "Pole Position", with the curving roads, that I know of.

 

MISC: "Microsurgeon" was tops; "Oh Mummy!" and "Freddy" are two of my non-cartridge faves

Edited January 11, 2014 by GratedTopping

[+arcadeshopper]

Big Foot is also one of my favorites..

 

Greg

 

TI really does have a great selection of games to choose from. Right now, I'm limited to just cartridges and cassette games, but some arcade type games that I still enjoy from time to time include:

 

Big Foot - DK/climber type game that requires some strategy and good timing, excellent speech

Burgertime - excellent, just wish the background music didn't cut in/out or restart with the sound effects

Blasto - Combat + Bomberman = more fun with two players

Car Wars - Slot car + Pac-Man = always a challenge

Centipede - excellent port, favorite of any system & love the way it plays

Congo Bongo - fun for a few minutes, great graphics and translation though

Donkey Kong - one of the greatest all around ports ever despite missing springs, play this nearly every time I boot the TI

Frogger - one of the better home versions of the game

Jungle Hunt - damn good port

Junkman Jr. - Lode Runner/Miner type game

Micro Pinball - great pinball game, although the playfield could be more interesting

Miner 2049'er - don't play it as much because I can't be fussed to remove the SS, but great game

Ms. Pac-Man - slow at first, but picks up the pace

Munch Man - great variation on the theme

Popeye - excellent port

Q*Bert - excellent port, I play this often actually

Star Runner - can't go wrong here... Lode Runner type game of course

Star Trek - loved the arcade BITD and this port is great, speech even!

Super Demon Attack - not as good as the 2600 version, but great for what it is

TI Invaders - best Space Invaders port ever, UFO bonus between stages is a cool addition!

[am1933]

Were any decent text/graphic adventures released for the machine?-Let's forget about the Scott Adams stuff for now. I already have all of the adventure series and return to pirate's isle.

I also know about the Infocom stuff.

I do see quite a bit advertised on Ebay in disk format from 3rd party developers-but is it any good, eg- intelligent parser that allows more than two word inputs.

[+Ksarul]

There were dozens of additional games written by third parties for the Adventure module--and also for Tunnels of Doom. Some were good, some were passable, and some were downright bad.

 

Note also that there were quite a few Infocom titles that were ported to the TI much later--by Barry Boone. These were only available commercially in very limited numbers. Asgard released them, but their license with Infocom required that they buy an existing package for another machine and use a TI-formatted disk in the release. This came late in the life of Infocom, and they didn't have a lot of the titles left to sell to Asgard (the rarest of the titles was Leather Goddesses of Phobos, as Chriss Bobbitt only received four copies of that one--he kept one, I bought one, a third went to Jim Horn of Disk Only Software, and I'm not sure where the fourth one went). I helped Chris in the reformatting/packaging of the Infocom titles he received (Asgard was set up in his basement, which had lots of interesting TI stuff in it)--and so far as I know, his first shipment from Infocom was also his last, as he got all of those titles they had left in the warehouse in the first lot.

 

The only really good adventure parser for the TI was the Infocom one--with the one from Scott Adams being the next best, in my opinion. Everything else was a lot more limited, at least from the standpoint of text adventures. Old Dark Caves and Legends were definitely good as RPG-style adventures.

[Omega-TI]

COMPARE MOON PATROL

 

You know some of the other 'so-called' computers REALLY SUCKED at this game....

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18vs9q_let-s-compare-moon-patrol-remade-video_videogames

[Asmusr]

I looked through the GameBase last night, here are three games that I think should be highlighted:

 

* Freddy (Arnd Russmann, 1985)

* Rock Runner (Eric LaFortune, 1990)

* War Zone II (Quinton Tormanen, 1991)

[ti99iuc]

Ohhh yess... Quinton Tormanen was one of the best programmers... all of his games are very special... there was an arkanoid clone too... backstaine...