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HSC15 Round 13 - War! What is it good for... Playing Atari!


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Here's a tip for you all: Once you've sent a jet or a sub after an enemy, go back to the National Map. You don't have to wait for the enemy to be neutralized before leaving the screen. This is particularly helpful on the harder skill levels. Learn how to get in and out of a given sector as quickly as possible.

:thumbsup:

War Games - ok 2nd manual read :grin: probably just my stupidity but I was spending ages lining up the crosshair over the enemy white dots etc as in Computer War when all you need to do is click on anywhere in a map sector :dunce:

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what system have you got for linking the PC to the Atari

 

My setup is as following:

 

Atari 130XE with SIO2SD and 1050. I don't own any SIO2PC, APE or similar interface.

D1 on the SIO2SD is mounted with the recommended copying program.

D2 on the SIO2SD is mounted with the disk image I'm trying to copy to disk.

 

I boot the 130XE with the 1050 turned off, and once the copying program is loaded, I disable D1 on the SIO2SD and turn on the 1050. As you note, some programs will get confused by this. Then I set D2 as the source and D1 as the destination. Most of the programs I have tried so far report an error back, some will read the D2 image quickly and go on forever writing it to disk, which however is not bootable afterwards. Sectorcopy 1.5 reads the D2 extremely slowly, about 6 seconds per sector and so far I don't know if it will write anything to the 1050, but time will tell.

 

I believe I have a bunch of random Atari 8-bit formatted floppy disks in the basement, perhaps I'm better off go rummaging through those in hope to find one with some sort of DOS to boot, so I don't have to boot from the SIO2SD.

 

Edit: Ok, so I went into the basement hoping to find a few floppy disks. It turns out I've got two disk boxes full of Atari 8-bit formatted disks which I have picked up for free at some point, plus another pile of mixed Atari and C64 disks that didn't fit the boxes. I picked out a few disks with labels that suggest they contain some sort of DOS or copying program, and I'll see if I am successful.

 

Edit 2: Nope, Computer War still crashes after a random number of minutes on my 130XE, specifically using the Transdisk version that Therealbountybob uploaded. Now that I've got a working floppy disk, I can possibly plug in my NTSC 800 to see if it is playable on that one. Very peculiar, out of all the games I tried to play on my 130XE, it is the Thorn EMI ones that keep crashing, none of the other games.

Edited by carlsson
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Hope I'm not too late, though I I think my scores are pretty sad regardless. Blew through them as fast as I could.

 

WARGAMES:

 

Skill 1: 88,130,000

Skill 2: 114,870,000

Skill 3: 205,240,000

Skill 4: 229,360,000

Skill 5: 291,610,000

Skill 6: 201,630,000

Skill 7: 223,510,000

Skill 8: 84,090,000

 

COMPUTER WAR:

 

1,941

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@carlsson possibly these Thorn games all use some OS/A stuff, they were quite early on, that might be affecting your system/hardware :ponder: at least you have emulation. A couple of bonus points for perseverance :thumbsup:

 

Having a lot of serious trouble with my abbuc game which is a shame as I've spent a year on it on and off and now it's touch and go if I can get it running properly in time :_(

 

This round closes next Sunday - 29th July 10am UK time

will start the next poll later - Mr Trust if you're quick and add some games to the games list thread they might appear in the poll ;)

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Well, finally I managed to get to use the SIO2SD (*) with my NTSC Atari 800, where the game loads and plays nicely.

 

Computer War - 2336 pts 3667 pts

post-5454-0-84953600-1532372767.jpg

 

(*) It turned out that if I hold down START button on power on, it inhibits BASIC or Memopad from starting. It gives the SIO2SD time to power on and mount its image. Then I press System Reset to load the mounted image. That is different from the 130XE where it mounts and boots from the SIO2SD directly. It makes me wonder if the SIO2SD can be used with XEGS as well, maybe I should try it later.

Edited by carlsson
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Ok, I played through the first three skill levels of WarGames as well. I thought I would lose the game on level 3, but somehow I succeeded avoiding the full blown war.

 

Skill level 1: 78,690,000 pts

Skill level 2: 106,610,000 pts

Skill level 3: 80,540,000 pts

post-5454-0-50444200-1532375160.jpg

Edited by carlsson
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Phew...thought I'm not gonna make it but I did manage to recreate my CRT gaming setup just in time, on the other side of the planet :)

WarGames is rather awesome, had a go yesterday and it's quite clever and addictive. The controls suck a bit though, lots of civilians die because of that.

I was wondering which skill level will count for final score, not sure I have time to hammer all of them.

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Phew...thought I'm not gonna make it but I did manage to recreate my CRT gaming setup just in time, on the other side of the planet :)

WarGames is rather awesome, had a go yesterday and it's quite clever and addictive. The controls suck a bit though, lots of civilians die because of that.

I was wondering which skill level will count for final score, not sure I have time to hammer all of them.

Not sure yet about the scoring will do the tables tonight and see what we have.

 

Round 14 Poll OPEN

:ahoy:

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Wargames!

 

Skill level 1: 79,500,000

Skill level 2: 87,560,000

 

Does anyone else think it's odd that there were two games released for the 8-bits based on Wargames? The "official" Wargames release from Coleco, and Computer War, which the manual and title screen state is "based on the hit movie Wargames".

 

How did that happen??

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I'm wondering too. It seems the Colecovision version of WarGames was released in 1983 and ported to the Atari 8-bit and C64 in 1984, while Computer War was released for the Atari 8-bit, VIC-20 and TI-99/4A in 1983/84. I can imagine that the rights to make games based on the movie was initially divided on video games and computers, where Coleco would get to release the console game with authentic naming while Thorn EMI got to do a home computer game inspired by the movie. Then the fact the video game market crashed forced Coleco to port their game to the two leading home computers in an extension to the license.

 

https://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue45/computerwar.php

 

It gets even more confusing if you look at the C64. There you have WarGames by Coleco allright, but also Wargames by Creative Sparks / Thorn EMI Computer Software. Visually it looks similar to Computer War, but plays like a very weak copy. I even wonder if that is a fake entry, something homebrewed once upon a time with false credits to Thorn EMI based on the fact they made a similar game for the other computers. It seems much too simplistic for being a 1984 game for the C64, in particular compared to what Thorn EMI / Creative Sparks previously released.

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Grrrhhh... I'm sulking.

 

Computer War - 814 pts

War Games - 115 270 000 (Skill 5)

 

Bot these games have proven extremely frustating in the end. WarGames is actually great and I really wanted to get into it, but for some reason playing with my Dualshock 4 is a chore. You need insta-precise responses in this game and struggling to choose the right weapon at the right time drove me mad.

 

Computer War's missile hunting is also a gameplay example wher I just never really feel in control. Chasing this doggone missile is rather tedious, the turret (?) is unresponsive and also a hit feels like it's down to luck not actuall aiming.

 

Yeah, I know, need to git gud and all that but not when I'm fighting the control schemes. Looking forward to the next round. Something simple perhaps, where pressing fire results in a shoot or jump action? ;)

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ARGH, my software crashes every time I try to collage my photos. Some improvement on Wargames:

 

Skill 2: 134,160,000

Skill 3: 216,270,000

Skill 4: 275,420,000

Skill 5: 308,540,000

Skill 6: 365,880,000

 

I loved this one on Colecovision when I was younger, though I'm not sure the controls aren't actually better on this version. I never paid a whole lot of attention to how the game actually works, though. Now, I'm seeing there's a real problem with the difficulties. The game takes 7 minutes or so, but nothing much actually happens until the last 2, at which point I'm not sure it's possible not to lose a few bases and a city or two against the final salvo, so you hit a ceiling on what you can score pretty quickly. That is, unless you're playing on Skill 7 or 8, in which case you're just getting deluged right out the gate. There's not really a sweet spot, difficulty-wise.

 

Wow! I didn't realize Computer War actually had the branding from the movie on it at one point. It's nowhere to be found on the cartridge I got. I thought it was funny how obviously inspired by the movie it was. I wonder if it was actually a regional thing, with the US versions being generic, and the UK ones being licensed.

 

youxia, believe me, you're not alone in hating the controls of Computer War.

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Sorry I've been forcing myself to fix my abbuc game rather than save us from pending Nuclear devastation, it's all about priorities :D "Ski-It" survived a bit of late night testing and even saved the high score tables so fingers crossed I don't break it again before Tuesday night's deadline :-o

 

Nice to see the comments about the games above :thumbsup:

 

We'll extend this round and the poll until 4pm UK time - the Poll is currently tied so if anyone hasn't voted please do so ;)

 

Here are the nearly final tables

Computer War
1st McKong 5,487 12pts
2nd Mr Trust 4,626 11pts
3rd carlsson 3,667 10pts
4th therealbountybob 2,056 9pts
5th graywest 1,848 8pts
6th youxia 814 7pts
7th RedThunder 205 6pts

War Games
War Games - Skill 1
1st Mr Trust 88,130,000 7pts
2nd McKong 87,040,000 6
3rd Deteacher 85,870,000 5
4th graywest 79,500,000 4
5th carlsson 78,690,000 3
6th therealbountybob 56,640,000 2
7th RedThunder 40,520,000 1

War Games - Skill 2
1st Deteacher 138,150,00 7pts
2nd McKong 137,650,00 6
3rd Mr Trust 134,160,00 5
4th carlsson 106,610,00 4
5th graywest 87,560,000 3
6th therealbountybob 51,780,000 2
7th RedThunder 10,000,000 1

War Games - Skill 3
1st Mr Trust 216,270,00 4pts
1.5th tane 187,120,00 3*

2nd Deteacher 180,060,00 3
3rd McKong 133,540,00 2
4th carlsson 80,540,000 1
*late score!

War Games - Skill 4
1st Mr Trust 275,420,00 3pts
2nd Deteacher 252,460,00 2
3rd McKong 175,050,00 1

War Games - Skill 5
1st Mr Trust 308,540,00 5pts
2nd Deteacher 216,200,00 4
3rd McKong 168,200,00 3
4th youxia 115,270,00 2
5th McKong 1,500,000 1

War Games - Skill 6
1st Mr Trust 365,880,00 4pts
2nd Deteacher 156,320,00 3
3rd McKong 133,900,00 2
4th youxia 1,000,000 1

War Games - Skill 7
1st Mr Trust 223,510,00 3pts
2nd Deteacher 220,460,00 2
3rd McKong 7,740,000 1

War Games - Skill 8
1st Mr Trust 84,090,000 3pts
2nd Deteacher 55,760,000 2
3rd McKong 1,000,000 1

We'll extend this round and the poll until 4pm UK time - the Poll is currently tied so if anyone hasn't voted please do so ;)

Edited by therealbountybob
Final Tables
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