What is the ultimate A8 game you have ever played?

[oky2000]

It has to at least run on a standard 130XE spec or lower, other than that can be from any year up to 2023 and it can be on any medium like cart, disk, tape.

 

Rescue on Fractalus is the game that has me covered, it's not an easy choice but all things considered the brain child of Loren Carpenter and his mainframe coding Fractalgenius being put to good use on the loan of an Atari 800 from Lucasfilm Games for a few days ultimately produced probably the best 8bit game I ever played in my life, and the Atari disk version is the one to go for. 

 

How about you?

[+cjherr]

I would call it a tie between Star Raiders and Shamus. The two games I always come back to. 

[Rybags]

Although technically very high up the scale, the Lucasfilm games never individually keep me there for hours at a time.  Koronis Rift probably more than the others has that time factor you need to put in but ultimately I found it to frustrating in that you'd get your arse kicked and not make a great deal of progress so just put it away.

 

The Alternate Reality games might just be there.  I spent more on those than any other I'd think.  In The City you had to practically double the XP for each level-up and I think I got 2 characters to Level 11 and another to 10.  I didn't have a proper copy of Dungeon so didn't get so far there.

 

In the modern day there's been games that have kept me going for a long time but still not as long as AR and I found once I'd completed them I didn't go back so much.  Examples there are RGB, Ridiculous Reality and the other I can't remember the name of but it was the one where you jumped around and cleared squares and got powerups etc, completing each puzzle before the next one.

[Zolaerla]

Overall: M.U.L.E.
RPG: Alternate Reality: The Dungeon, Ultima III
Platformer: Montezuma's Revenge
General Action: Archon
Sim: Rescue on Fractalus
Shooter: Zybex

I've done review/commentary videos on most of those... maybe I should finish my RoF video which is like 80% done...

Edited February 25, 2023 by Zolaerla

[+Stephen]

Star Raiders for the amazing replay stuffed into 8kB.  Phantasie II for the 360kB goodness of Trolkien ripoff!

 

[Keatah]

Defender: I really felt like I was in the arcade with this one.

StarRaiders: Amazing depth and replay value in 8K. Galactic chart and cockpit instruments lend a sense of complexity.

Behind Jaggi Lines: Had never played a fractal-based flight simulator style game before.
 

Runners-up

Centipede: Good arcade action.

Missile Command: Again, good arcade action.

Shamus: Just good overall fun with good mechanics.

Buried Bucks and Planetary Defense: Great addictive play.

[TGB1718]

For me always:-

 

Star Raiders

Missile Command

Sea Dragon

Pastfinder

[xrbrevin]

green beret 😛

[HiassofT]

I'm not much of a gamer nowadays but I spent endless hours playing Boulder Dash (esp with the construction kit, creating levels with one of my best friends) and Ball Blazer (lots of fun as a 2-player game) back in the 1980ies.

 

so long,

 

Hias

[+bf2k+]

Not a gamer but I occasionally play a round or two of Leader Board Golf.  7-cities in the 80's.

[Wrathchild]

For the sheer "how was so much squeezed in" it has to be Alley Cat

[oky2000]

3 hours ago, xrbrevin said:

green beret 😛

 

How did you get a picture of my cat, 'Puppy Paws Penny'? 

 

I played a lot of these games too, I didn't get to play Atari 800 games regularly before 1984 because that's when I met my friend who had an Atari 800 and hundreds of multi-game pirate game disks (and a 1050 with Happy copier etc). I was lucky I got to see so many Atari games, if I had an Atari and had to buy each game with my pocket money, as I did with my C64, I would not have got to play as many great games as if I had a friend whose Dad was a prolific pirate. He had Behind the Jaggie Lines and I was blown away immediately. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[+DarkLord]

Tough call, narrowing such a great list down to -1- game.

 

Okay, I can't. I give up. It would be between Star Raiders,

Ultima III and Archon (the first one)... 

 

If I was forced (beaten, dragged, tortured) into having to

choose one, it would probably be Ultima III.

 

[+MrFish]

13 hours ago, cjherr said:

Star Raiders

I'm kinda surprised -- given the amount of development constantly being done on the C64 -- that no one has ever ported this over, especially as the source code has been available for years now.

 

[+MrFish]

12 hours ago, Rybags said:

...and the other I can't remember the name of but it was the one where you jumped around and cleared squares and got powerups etc, completing each puzzle before the next one.

Marbled

 

[+MrFish]

5 hours ago, bf2k+ said:

Not a gamer but I occasionally play a round or two of Leader Board Golf.

Leader Board is nice; but I wish we had gotten a landlubber's version at some point.

 

[oky2000]

41 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

Tough call, narrowing such a great list down to -1- game.

 

Okay, I can't. I give up. It would be between Star Raiders,

Ultima III and Archon (the first one)... 

 

If I was forced (beaten, dragged, tortured) into having to

choose one, it would probably be Ultima III.

 

Doesn't have to be one game, I can understand that.

[oky2000]

24 minutes ago, MrFish said:

I'm kinda surprised -- given the amount of development constantly being done on the C64 -- that no one has ever ported this over, especially as the source code has been available for years now.

 

Last year I went through every 3D game on the C64 and found nothing close to even VCS Star Raiders I owned back then in quality let alone the Atari 8bit computer versions. Atari did make games for Commodore machines so I have no idea what it would have been like but the C64 pseudo bitmap mode is tricky to work with and the CPU is almost half the speed too so I guess as with RoF it's just one of those games that is much better suited to the A8 architecture. The joys of having access to five major formats of home computer whilst growing up. Star Raiders is really a game you need to be able to sit down with and play for long periods to really appreciate, it was impressive but I never really got the chance to really appreciate just how sophisticated a game was playing it in short bursts.

[Tickled_Pink]

That is actually rather tricky. You could break this down into genres and find a multitude of games that "do it".

 

I've always thought Dropzone was an amazing game and the first to truly showcase that the Atari was capable of arcade-like graphics, presentation and gameplay.

 

Rescue on Fractalus was another that I owned BITD that I played the hell out of.

 

And then you have Ultima III and Alternate Reality (I actually preferred The City to The Dungeon).

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, oky2000 said:

but the C64 pseudo bitmap mode is tricky to work with and the CPU is almost half the speed too so I guess as with RoF it's just one of those games that is much better suited to the A8 architecture.

Right... I was just thinking some C64 guru might be driven to prove it could be done by now, especially with @phaeron already having provided an A8 version using faster math routines -- with visibly improved performance.

 

[drpeter]

1 hour ago, MrFish said:

Right... I was just thinking some C64 guru might be driven to prove it could be done by now, especially with @phaeron already having provided an A8 version using faster math routines -- with visibly improved performance.

 

1 hour ago, oky2000 said:

but the C64 pseudo bitmap mode is tricky to work with and the CPU is almost half the speed too so I guess as with RoF it's just one of those games that is much better suited to the A8 architecture.

Yeah, but perhaps to an extent it's just case of a little re-designing to the platform's strengths.  The A8 simulated starfield is cool, but perhaps not essential in that neat form for game mechanics and the rest of the first-person shooter part could be done at least as well if not better with C64 sprites using not much processor time, I would have thought.

 

Speaking as one who has never owned or coded for a C64 😉

 

PS. My vote is for Star Raiders

Edited February 25, 2023 by drpeter

[+MrFish]

Although a different type of 3D game, they were able pull off a decent version of Yoomp on the C64.

 

[kconan]

I can't narrow down to one, so my top four would have to be The Eternal Dagger, Zybex, Bruce Lee, and Racing Destruction Set.

[sargie]

For me it’s Dropzone. It’s a no-excuses early 80’s arcade quality shooter. Arguably the best “Defender’ type game ever made.

 

A close second would be Encounter! Which one could argue utilizes the strengths of the A8 more than Dropzone.

 

I’d imagine if you took a poll, the result would be Star Raiders.

[Chilly Willy]

Star Raiders was great fun, and I played it a lot (still do), but I put the most time into MULE. It's especially great as a true multiplayer game. Up to four players on the 400/800, and we often colluded to make some remarkably rich colonies.

 

The game that "wowed" me the most? Probably The Eidolon. Fractal caves with cell animated enemies? One of the greats. Rescue on Fractalus would be a close second to it.