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Games for C64 not available for A8?


Blues76

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Actually if you go through the top 30 games in the Lemon64 list that Wongojack linked to, only 6 of them seem to exist on the Atari 8-bit too. Another 3 are recent homebrews on the C64 list, so I'll exclude those, just like the German version of Zak McKracken. That still leaves 20 out of 30 entries without Atari versions. I'm a little unsure about Last Ninja II and Alice in Wonderland, which both are mentioned on Atarimania but without any further information. Also Turrican 1 does exist in form of a homemade version on the Atari, just like Prince of Persia exists on the C64 through homebrew.

 

Now the 30 highest rated games necessarily doesn't mean tthe 30 most playable games, depending on which genres you like. Many of those 20 not present on the Atari instead are available on other formats, often in versions equal or superior to the C64, so what you and others always really are looking for are quality games that are exclusive or nearly exclusive to the C64. I'm sure such lists can be found here or elsewhere on the Internet. Some of those exclusive games may appear on a top 50 or top 100 list, but generally the really good games tended to get ported to many formats, while the quirky ones that have limited staying power are more common to find as exclusive releases from smaller software houses.

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O.k., from that Lemon's Top 100 list there are 28 games also on A8 and they're all official releases by the same companies, this is 28%:

#7 - Ultima IV;

#9 - Archon;

#19 - Bruce Lee;

#22 - Mule;

#23 - Ultima III;

#31 - Boulder Dash;

#35 - Leaderboard Golf;

#40 - Alternate Reality - The Dungeon;

#54 - Summer Games;

#55 - H.E.R.O.;

#59 - International Karate;

#63 - Silent Service;

#68 - Jumpman;

#69 - Seven Cities of Gold;

#70 - Spy VS Spy;

#72 - Wizard of War;

#73 - Montezuma's Revenge;

#77 - Boulder Dash II;

#78 - Pitsop II;

#80 - Mercenary: Escape From targ;

#81 - Lode Runner;

#83 - Fort Apocalypse;

#86 - Racing Destruction Set;

#88 - Boulder Dash Construction Kit;

#91 - Realm of Impossibility;

#97 - Head Over Heels;

#98 - Beach Head II;

#100 - Blue Max;

 

There are more that are talked but never seen like Last Ninja(s), Gunship and Winter Games that probably, at least the last two were never started on A8.

 

There are also some others that have been talked and started coded on the last years but aren't finished untill now and maybe take it some more years because todays is just for the like and fun and eachone has his own personal life.

From what I know I can say that, even some have more done than others, these can be one day on A8:

#5 - I.K. +;

#14 - Prince of Persia;

#60 - Space Taxi;

#94 - Barbarian;

#99 - Sentinel;

 

And also on the past there were some tries by particular person(s) and some gfxs, code,... of these two exists just waiting for someone(s) to use, continue and complete it:

#8 - Ultima V;

#18 - Elite;

 

:(

Edited by José Pereira
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One C-64 Shooter game that stood out to me, back in the day - was Sanxion - because of how differently the graphics were done. Gameplay wise though - it wasn't all that special.

The same can be said of the Last Ninja games - while it's graphics and music was very nice - it didn't translate into a fun game to play. You couldn't do that much in the game.

 

I tend to think that there's always the possibility of doing something different and unusual - if that is what you want to do - it might not necessarily translate into a fun playable game - but that experimentation is always possible - if you want to explore. But maybe not - as you can wind up with something that doesn't work.

 

Harvey

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Sanxion is an odd one, most people remember it more for the mix e load music / Rob Hubbards cracking music, the game itself was so so, certainly not Stavros's best which was to come in the form of Delta, a terrific shooter with superb use of border sprites and again, Robs music to make a cracking shooter. Could it be done on the Atari, I doubt it but TMR would be very much better placed to comment as he's a great C64 coder firstly and now putting his skills over various platforms including the Atari.

 

As for what is on the C64 that's not on the Atari, well as Emkay rightly said, LOTS but don't confuse quantity for quality, there's a million and one 1,99 titles from people like Gavin Raeburn who actually made a pretty damn good Wonderboy clone called The Equalizer, think he now works for Sony. But while his was a nice little game there were far too many simply awful titles which I'm more than happy to say are NOT on the Atari. There are some exceptions like Armalyte from Cyberdyne systems which I wish was on the Atari but in the end you have to blame the big boys who would not fund development on the Atari as it was 'a UK industry unknown' so very few chances were taken on it.

 

There are some great c64 titles I'd like to have seen done in the day but you know what, our home grown devs who in many cases grace this forum have done us proud, who would have thought Space Harrier on the Atari, certainly not me, Chris Butler had a damn good go on the C64 which in turn made him the go to guy for any games in the same in to the screen 3D style like Thunder Blade and Power Drift but at that time I'd have not thought it possible on my Atari and I knew from constantly asking at trade shows and the like that people like Ocean, Elite etc were unwilling to really try serious dev on the Atari, instead we either got nothing or dubious quality stuff. So these days our devs have proved it IS possible to produce these titles in great quality, just look at Pang and all the new titles since dev seriously stopped back in the day.......Bloody marvellous stuff.

 

Thanks people...

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Delta is possible on A8 and not really hard but kind of invert the way it was done on C64.

PeteD was interested but he never show or maybe didn't anything.

I had/still have all things translated to A8 and even sent them to some coders that didn't do anything just because wasn't their type of game taste.

The game on A8 is grounds and enemys in PFs vs our ship, weapons and stars that are PMGs that is mostly the inverse of C64 where only shots and stars are playfield vs grounds, our ship and enemys that are hardware sprites. And isn't even all that hard because there are only a maximum of 6 or 7 enemys maximum on screen that aren't hard to do using software sprites.

:)

Edited by José Pereira
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Could it be done on the Atari, I doubt it but TMR would be very much better placed to comment as he's a great C64 coder firstly and now putting his skills over various platforms including the Atari.

Oh, have i been summoned...? =-)

 

i reckon Delta is doable with a few concessions; sub-pixel sprite movement in the sprite X positions would need to be done differently, player and enemy bullets converted to multicolour (and the starfield done with a spare missile perhaps), colour counts reduced for enemies and, because i'm seeing it as largely software sprites with just the player craft done in hardware, 128K to make space for unrolled or possibly even compiled sprite code. Some of the "monitor spread" in the original game logic could possibly be optimised out during the resourcing process to claw a bit more space back though...

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Delta is possible on A8 and not really hard but kind of invert the way it was done on C64.

PeteD was interested but he never show or maybe didn't anything.

I had/still have all things translated to A8 and even sent them to some coders that didn't do anything just because wasn't their type of game taste.

The game on A8 is grounds and enemys in PFs vs our ship, weapons and stars that are PMGs that is mostly the inverse of C64 where only shots and stars are playfield vs grounds, our ship and enemys that are hardware sprites. And isn't even all that hard because there are only a maximum of 6 or 7 enemys maximum on screen that aren't hard to do using software sprites.

:)

My Delta stuff here following this explanation:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260104-delta-on-a8-and-all-stuff-in-case-someone-is-interested-in

:twisted:

:P

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Also Turrican 1 does exist in form of a homemade version on the Atari, just like Prince of Persia exists on the C64 through homebrew.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't there just a demo of screen scrolling with player sprite that looked like Turrican ?

 

PoP for C64 is a full game done perfectly..

I wish there was anything close to Turrican on A8....

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Nice to see C64 Delta getting some love.

 

Sure, it was very much a case of learning the attack waves, but played with lights out, music on and up loud, a superb game.

 

i'll throw in a few C64 titles i loved, which have yet to be mentioned:

 

Laser Squad, Lords Of Chaos, Master Of Magic, Platoon (tunnel sequence very atmospheric),Bubble Bobble, Bionic Commando, Last Ninja II, Quedex, Myth, Dan Dare and Dan Dare II, Buggy Boy, Ninja Spirt, Cal Games,Kikstart II, etc...

 

Not all exclusives, but often C64 had best 8 bit version...

 

 

Pal C64 Space Harrier was a very gallant effort, espically given the fact it was coded in such a short space of time, Chris went onto better it for thwe NTSC version and i would of loved to of seen what he could of done if game had had a 'special edition' for C64 GS as i never thought games like Battle Command would be possible on C64 after seeing Carrier Command go 2D.

 

 

 

Plus Trailblazer II:Cosmic Causeway seemed very inspired by Space Harrier...and bloody superb game to boot :)

 

 

A lot of the A8 games i picked up as an 800XL owner at the time, seemed coded for the 48K market, as that was where the numbers were, user base wise and i'd of prefered more was done to work with the hardware on conversions such as Rampage and Green Beret on A8 as they were sadly very lacking compared to the C64 versions, but as Mclaneinc said, likes of Ocean etc simply weren't interested in the A8.

 

You've only to look at the Lost A8 games thread to see what was annouced/advertised yet fell by the wayside.

 

 

But yes, often you have to search through a lot of rough to find the diamonds on the C64.

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?

 

You been sniffing concrete again?

On the Atari, the word "demo" seems to have a different meaning ... ;)

A "Demo" of something should show content , suitable for something that can be completed, while on the Atari "demos" show stuff that is incompletable.

Even a scoreboard added would break the "available demonstration" ....

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Having owned both an Atari 800XL and Commodore 64 in the mid to late 80's I slowly saw the software dwindle and dry up for the Atari 8-bits while the C64 titles kept marching on! Was sad. So there was a significant amount of titles that did not get released for the Atari 8 bits.

 

But I do remember that some software houses would release a flippy disk with C64 version on one side and Atari 800 on the other...

Edited by tjlazer
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Those are the top 100 C64 games? Seriously?

YMMV, but one can also adjust the number of votes required for a game to be listed. Generally I think the C64 connoisseurs are more likely to vote than casual gamers who once had a C64, which means some of the games are rated higher today than they would've been 25 years ago. But the same should be true for top lists of Atari games etc as well.

 

Personally, I have experience of 20 of the top 100 games, despite have being a C64 owner since 1986 or so. Out of those 20 that I can relate to, perhaps 15 would be on my personal "must play" list so it seems rather decent.

 

I still don't quite understand the reason behind this thread, is it to recommend games that an Atari owner might consider important enough to get a C64 in order to play, or to suggest games that someone should attempt to port to the Atari once and for all? Or both?

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Those are the top 100 C64 games? Seriously?

 

About as official as a World's Greatest Dad coffee mug, but I sure like many of the games in that top 100. The c64 version of Pirates! may still be my favorite game of all time. Many feel that the C64 versions of Wasteland and Ultima IV were the best of the ports . . . The Epyx "The Games" series get much the same praise.

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YMMV, but one can also adjust the number of votes required for a game to be listed. Generally I think the C64 connoisseurs are more likely to vote than casual gamers who once had a C64, which means some of the games are rated higher today than they would've been 25 years ago. But the same should be true for top lists of Atari games etc as well.

 

Personally, I have experience of 20 of the top 100 games, despite have being a C64 owner since 1986 or so. Out of those 20 that I can relate to, perhaps 15 would be on my personal "must play" list so it seems rather decent.

 

I still don't quite understand the reason behind this thread, is it to recommend games that an Atari owner might consider important enough to get a C64 in order to play, or to suggest games that someone should attempt to port to the Atari once and for all? Or both?

 

 

 

Carlsson, I started the thread, so I can tell you why I did.

 

In general, was out of curiosity because I never used a C64.

 

In specific (and for a personal reason), I have a C128 with disk drive I purchased (in fairly in good condition) a couple of years ago but I haven't used. I'm actually trying to organize all my "retro" computing items to streamline all my collection only to Atari 8-bit and maybe keep a couple non Atari (I'm getting rid of the ST machines for example). The only computer I used before using a PC was the Atari 8-bit, so that's the one that I'm comfortable to have if I need to choose.

 

So, while It is not a C64, I was thinking to keep the C128 if it was worth it (but of course, may be I won't, since i can just run an emulator).

 

Those were the reason for the threads.

 

I was also watching some videos on youtube, of this guy that compares video-games (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBM13bF3uFgCMVGAuAbIc4Q), in particular Atari 8-bit vs C64. I notice that there were times than that Atari 8-bit version was much better but the C-64 was not and other cases that was reverse. So then I started thinking, based on my total lack of knowledge on C64, maybe there were games (worth mentioning) that were in C64 but not in Atari.

 

Anyways, I hope that clears your questions.

 

The post by everyone has been very helpful to me.

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And today there is also my last and I think the last proposal for the A8 version of Impossible Mission: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/219010-about-impossible-mission-playing/page-2?do=findComment&comment=3654438

:P

:thumbsup:

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