zaxxon sucks so bad...

[Jinks]

Why does zaxxon have a fun factor of 0 on the atari computers? It looks great scrolls smooth but plays so fast it is almost unplayable and not enjoyable at all...

The coleco version has it about right and beats it in every way but scrolling is jerky..

Actually most great looking atari 8 bit games they must have forgot to play test as are not fun at all...

Dropzone too fast, airball sucks really annoying sounds and play, etc..At least they got the chiptunes hammering away to robot dance to before you press start for frown face..just a rant guys.. there are tons of great games as well. Just makes me mad playing tons of great looking a8 games that the controlls are laggy or the speed is too fast or difficulty level turned way up within 5 seconds dead..

[+David_P]

Dropzone was made on a PAL system, so your NTSC computer is running it about 20% faster.

 

EDIT to add: "Then in 1987 or 1988 I saw a double page ad for it in a U.S. magazine and bought a copy to run on a U.S. machine. It didn't look or play too good because it was tuned for a European machine, and it looked real bad, almost embarrassing." - taken from http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/MACLEAN.HTM

[kiwilove]

Zaxxon was always an arcade favourite of mine - especially since I'm appreciative of really nice graphics in any videogame. Expecting a home version to be anything close to the coin-op in graphics and/or playability is like asking for the impossible to be done?

Looking at the various versions done on different systems/computers - it seems the Synapse C64 version is the best that was done. I did play it - and it was as accurate as you could get for any home system - and is probably the best?

There's actually a 2nd C-64 version - in which the graphics could be said to be a little more accurate than the Synapse version - but overall it's not done as nice. I haven't played this - but the Synapse version seems to be better in smoothness, playability, etc.

To be fair - this was never going to be an easy game to convert - so it needed someone who would be up for it. Ron Fortier's previous effort - Bruce Lee - was not in the same department category. Someone who's use to the shooter format and manipulating many objects on screen in a scrolling format.

And it's still a headache to try doing a conversion of it today - probably ending up with a version that looks more like the Synapse C64 version is possible? The Zaxxon coin-op hardware is much more sophisticated than the Atari home computer hardware - in terms of number of colours, resolution, hardware sprites and so on. I think the Zaxxon coin-op actually does a transformation, orientation with the graphics background? The technical difficulty involved - shows up in the Super Zaxxon conversion which was done differently than the Zaxxon conversion.

It really needed a programmer who could take up the challenge of seemingly doing the impossible with the hardware available - like making use of multiplexing as such - for sprites and missiles.

Apparently bitmapped graphics are in use - whereas characters are used in the Zaxxon Atari conversion.

I'm not a technical guy - able to quote the exact details, etc.

 

I too was disappointed with the Coleco conversion of Zaxxon. Going by the Coleco advertising you are led to think that the Coleco hardware is actually pretty good? Donkey Kong being an example of this? I never got to see Donkey Kong running on a Coleco console - but finally managed to see Zaxxon running on one. The jerky scrolling confirms how lacking the hardware is - and the rest of the game is likewise lacking.

 

It's worth noting that Sega went all out - in providing R-Type for it's Master System - I don't know how big this cart is - but it's a faithful rendition of R-Type. And Zaxxon has always been absent from the Master System lineup - was it's absence a testimony as to how difficult it is to write a competent home version of this coin-op title?

 

I did see a very nice Zaxxon coin-op machine - and it was running in a suburban corner store - not only did it have a very nice monitor, but that the scrolling seemed to be in some kind of slow mode, that that machine was set to? I'd guess there was a way to choose the slower scrolling option?

 

Running Mame is about the best way to feeding your Zaxxon fixation.

 

Harvey

Edited September 20, 2016 by kiwilove

[Keatah]

I liked your post because of the last line. "Running Mame is about the best way to feeding your Zaxxon fixation."

 

And if anyone thinks Zaxxon is fast, try SuperZaxxon! It's fast to the point of being ridiculous and simply no fun. Even good players find it tedious and fatiguing, let alone frustrating.

[BillyHW]

OMG Super Zaxxon is impossibly fast.

 

Early 80s systems had lots of hardware deficiencies...so I'm not sure it's fair to pick on the ColecoVision just because of its lack of hardware scrolling. Everyone knew this. Every system has its strengths and weaknesses. The Coleco was able to replicate single-screen arcade games quite faithfully for the time.

 

Zaxxon was available for the SG-1000 so I think that cart may have been backward compatible on the SMS in those countries where it was released. Also, by the time the SMS came out, Zaxxon was old news. There was a version of "Zaxxon" for the 3D glasses on SMS.

[kiwilove]

I played Super Zaxxon in the arcade in Hull - and it was one very tough game. I would play it each time I was in the area and I would be the only one who'll play that machine there. I eventually got to play through it - and I wonder if there was a dip switch to choose slower scrolling? Probably not?

 

While Zaxxon graphics may be 'old' - I don't doubt for one minute how nice it would look - if it was given it's due treatment for an authentic home version. I don't know if the SMS hardware could produce something nice or not? I haven't seen video of the 3D SMS version, so I have no idea if it was a total failure?

 

I think the Zaxxon coin-op used rotational hardware - with Mame, you can have a look at the graphics via the Functional Key - I forget which key allows you to view the graphics.

 

The only other coin-op game that has a similar view, is Viewpoint - a NeoGeo game - but it never played like Zaxxon

[Ely]

I played Super Zaxxon in the arcade in Hull

I know it was 30+ years ago, but I don't suppose you remember where in Hull you used to play Super Zaxxon?

[kiwilove]

Yeah I have a pretty bad memory going back that far. It was in the City centre area - of which I can't remember that much of. It wasn't that small - so maybe a medium sized arcade area? I can't remember what other games were there - maybe I went there about 6? or so times, I spent 10 months there.

I had my Atari 800 and visited Harry Staff at Bransholme - and I stayed in a flat at Holderness Road. He had a disk drive and could dup tapes on his stereo tape machine.

 

While I did do stop overs in London and LA on the way to/fro - I couldn't check out much. Got to see the Vectrex running and did not see much in the way of coin-ops.

[Ely]

I only really started to going to Hull City Centre regularly in September 1987 when I started College. And the only arcade I remember in the centre was called Sunspot, I wrote about it brief in an article I did for Way of the Rodent about 10+ years ago. Does that name ring any bells?

[kiwilove]

Yeah, I was there in 1983 - and Sunspot does sound like it - with large tinted windows - carpet and fruit machines present.

It was in Boots I saw Zaxxon running on Coleco - can't remember if it was in London or Hull that I saw it so.

 

University is a place where coin-ops seem a likely place to have one. That must be where one acquaintance I knew got his Xevious skills from - around 1986-7 maybe one such machine (or more) would be at the Otago University. I had him videotaped playing various coin-op games as reference material for Hawkquest development. I wasn't that good at Xevious - not able to get much past the mothership - nor could get far into other coin-ops too.

[+save2600]

Re: A8 Zaxxon, couldn't it be disassembled and re-tuned for NTSC so that it was more playable at least?

[+orpheuswaking]

Somewhere around here there is a fixed version of Dropzone that runs at normal speed on a NTSC machine. I grew up in the UK and remember playing Dropzone and it being one of my favorite games. When I moved to the US and purchased a NTSC machine and started playing I thought I misremembered how good it was. Not understanding at that time the differences.

 

Once I got the fixed version I was much happier.

[+Cafeman]

I like this homebrewed version of Fortier's Zaxxon ... Tep392 ported the 32k version to 5200, but also fixed the collision bug which causes many unfair deaths. There is a lot of discussion of A8 Zaxxon in this thread -

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/237758-zaxxon-conversion/page-1?hl=%20zaxxon

 

Anyway, I never found 5200 Zaxxon or the 16k Zaxxon very fun. It wasn't horrible. It did scroll a bit too fast. The 32k sized 'full' game on A8 is much better because it has more coin-op elements such as rising missiles and the height-scaling ships in space. But I didn't know it existed until the 2000's !

 

When I attended Pittsburgh's Replay FX show a month or two ago, with about 700-800 machines on the floor, I kept returning to Zaxxon. Love the coin-op version, with the flight stick. Every time I go to Kennywood, I hit the arcade and play its Zaxxon for a round or two.

 

I played Super Zaxxon back around 1984 when it was new. What a tease - it had awesome visuals, but it scrolled so fast you could not shoot anything and it was a scramble to merely survive.

[Mclaneinc]

I love MAME but its also a bitter pill these days, adding all the computer stuff to the Arcade stuff was a DUMB idea, not only is it hard to keep up to date but not every one likes both sides of mame and as its not been masked off its pretty difficult to separate the arcade from the computer stuff. But the biggest negative I have of MAME is that its supporting stuff that will never be fully playable because either its mechanical or you need a PC that isn't presently out there to run it all BUT for me and more on topic is that it handles the older games VERY well so Zaxxon, Pac Man, Space Invaders and gems like Astro fighter can be played near perfectly and when the Atari Port is lacking in stuff (like the speech in Gorf etc) you can fire it up in mame and lose hours playing it as it was meant to be played. Don't get me wrong, some ports on the Atari are really nice but MAME just gives you the real deal.

 

As for Zaxxon on the 8bit, its pretty but the OP nails its re its playability, Dropzone has been explained and laggy controls are a pain but all power to those that were tasked with porting an arcade game to the Atari, it was a big ask in some cases.

[tep392]

Somewhere around here there is a fixed version of Dropzone that runs at normal speed on a NTSC machine. I grew up in the UK and remember playing Dropzone and it being one of my favorite games. When I moved to the US and purchased a NTSC machine and started playing I thought I misremembered how good it was. Not understanding at that time the differences.

 

Once I got the fixed version I was much happier.

Try this one. It's runs at the correct speed for NTSC and had the PAL colours changed to NTSC colors.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/188807-dropzone-for-ntsc/?p=3311602

[+FujiSkunk]

I suspect Zaxxon and other early Sega arcade games didn't make it to the SMS during its heyday simply because Sega wasn't interested at the time in looking back. Zaxxon did get an SMS sequel, Zaxxon 3D, which makes use of the 3D glasses but ironically looks more like the 2600 and Intellivision ports of the original in the process.

 

I think it is more interesting that Zaxxon and other such games didn't make it to the Genesis or Saturn. Arcade nostalgia had kicked in by then, starting with the Williams collection that made waves on the PlayStation but also saw release on the Saturn, Genesis and SNES. Sega even got on board, releasing a (not very well done) collection of Atari arcade ports for the Genesis and then turning their later arcade games into the "Sega Ages" series on the Saturn. That would have been the perfect opportunity for them to market some earlier Sega exclusives on their consoles, but apparently no one in the company got that idea, or didn't see any value in it. Nintendo still couldn't be bothered with the early arcade nostalgia market at that point either, so I guess it's understandable.

[+Stephen]

Coleco scrolling was usually terrible, but Atarisoft's version of Defender is amazing on that system.

[+therealbountybob]

I quite like our Zaxxon (and Super Zaxxon) thought I'm on a PAL system... there must be a bunch of games where often NTSC is too fast making them unplayable or PAL is too slow making them too easy. Many of the recent abbuc and "homebrew" games are taking account of this

[Tempest]

I grew up with the 8-bit version and didn't get to see a real Zaxxon arcade machine until much later in life. To me the arcade version seemed slow since I was so used to playing the ungodly fast Atari version. The Atari version always did seem like it was more luck than skill since it scrolled so fast and the collision detection was iffy. But even with the fixed collision detection I have trouble getting through to the end now. Super Zaxxon is even worse on the Atari IMHO, and not at all fun to play (could we fix the nasty colors please?). Oddly enough I enjoy the Apple II versions of these games since they look reasonably decent and are much slower paced.

[+Cafeman]

I suspect Zaxxon and other early Sega arcade games didn't make it to the SMS during its heyday simply because Sega wasn't interested at the time in looking back. Zaxxon did get an SMS sequel, Zaxxon 3D, which makes uses of the 3D glasses but ironically looks more like the 2600 and Intellivision ports of the original in the process.

 

I think it is more interesting that Zaxxon and other such games didn't make it to the Genesis or Saturn.

 

Agreed. I missed Zaxxon and I felt I never really got enough opportunities to play it. I was extremely pleased that the coin-op version was on Sonic's compilation of SEGA games, on my X360.

[kiwilove]

With Mame - it seems that you're best to keep a certain version intact and regard that as your favourite collection of Mame. These days it's much easier and quicker to download a complete Mame collection of ROMs etc whereas in past years it was too costly and difficult to download such a large file or files.

 

One thing about the original Defender coin-op that sticks out to me - is that it originally had separate buttons for the joystick movements - and I think that when a joystick was added to it, it lost a special feeling to that game. Of course, it was so much harder to use buttons than a joystick.

I had been too critical of the Atari 8-bit conversion because it does reproduce much of the coin-op otherwise. Someone who hasn't played the coin-op would think the Atari 8-bit version was top notch.

Except that Dropzone appeared and raised the state of the graphics (Dropzone is Defender in it's gameplay) - with smooth horizontal scrolling - adding more detail - and having a maniac mode with fast smooth graphics. One prototype game that has been lost? Would be Archer's version of Defender which he showed around - before work started on Dropzone.

I'd imagine it would have been far better than the Atari 8-bit Defender game. I'll guess he may have added smooth scrolling and smooth movement throughout the gameplay?

 

Those who haven't played the Zaxxon coin-op - likewise may have received the Atari Zaxxon positively. Which is OK - as it still involved a good effort. But to see how it could be a little better still? Try out the Synapse C64 version. Maybe someday someone may take that kind of project on?

The same can be said of Xevious - maybe? Like Galaga - I'll say that Zaxxon and Xevious could be candidates for revised versions - for those who want to take up the challenge, and a challenge they are.

If Galaga is truly undoable - ie. impossible because of hardware limitations - then maybe a cloned game which bears a striking similarity but reconfigured so as to be possible with the Atari 8-bit hardware.

The same could be done with Zaxxon and Xevious - changed so that the final result would not appear to be flawed because the impossible elements are not present. As long as the end result is playable and fun - that is the most important thing to have.

 

Harvey

[fujidude]

I played the coin-op Zaxxon when it was first released. I remember how much it impressed me with its pseudo 3D. Unfortunately my recollections are not nearly detailed enough to actually remember the feel of play, speed etc. as compared to ports for home systems. I just remember how cool it seemed!

[Dmitry]

Yeah, dropzone was rated really high, but I recently tried it and did not like it at all.

 

This may be the reason then, I wasn't getting the proper experience.

[kiwilove]

Yeah, dropzone was rated really high, but I recently tried it and did not like it at all.

 

This may be the reason then, I wasn't getting the proper experience.

I would rate it as the top game of it's genre. If you're not into so-called spacey shooters (well, we use to use that term over in these parts) and have ultra fast reflexes - then it's not your cup of tea.

But you can also look at the programming side - in which everything is fast and smooth - and the game is responsive. Even in it's maniac phase - when you lose all your men, it is survivable - if you're good enough.

 

I haven't played this game in decades - and have yet to see something that comes close to this - but maybe I'm wrong about this?

 

Harvey

[Keatah]

With Mame - it seems that you're best to keep a certain version intact and regard that as your favourite collection of Mame. These days it's much easier and quicker to download a complete Mame collection of ROMs etc whereas in past years it was too costly and difficult to download such a large file or files.

 

Over the years I tend to migrate bit by bit to higher versions. Particularly when bugs are fixed or accuracy is improved in my select list of favorites.

 

I don't baggie chase each release. And I only run my favorite games on whatever version works best. Each game has its own clickable icon so that I can avoid that godawful mess of a user interface. Single per-game icons go a long way toward hiding the bloated mess that mame has become. What a fuckup if I ever saw one.

 

Single per-game icons allow me to tweak each game to the best it can possibly be, one on one. And they allow for good organization exactly to my liking. I also don't clutter up the front lines with gigs of roms - thus eliminating even more burdensome front ends and all that.

 

This way I can play any game instantly. Perfectly tuned. And in style!

Edited September 21, 2016 by Keatah