www.atarimania.com Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 Yes, you read that right! John Hardie strikes again (ha, ha) with this unreleased sports game from 1980: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-baseball_41578.html We're very excited to bring you this title as the only screenshot of this program appears to be in this 1979 catalog: https://archive.org/details/AtariTouchTheFutureCatalog/page/n1/mode/2up No idea why the game was canned... Maybe because Sears had produced a similar title? 8 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 Without having played it, it does look a bit primitive. I used to play Star League Baseball a fair bit, pretty good game http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-star-league-baseball_4985.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
José Pereira Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 Gamestar's games seems very professional and on A8 some clever use of colour, char mode instead of bitmap to have a 5th colour,... But sadly (quoting MobyGames): "A short-lived branch of the Activision/Mediagenic tree that specialized in sports games." https://www.mobygames.com/company/1418/gamestar-inc/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnusfalkirk Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 (edited) Personally I prefer the MicroLeague Baseball game, you can find them here: http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari_search_109.105.99.114.111.32.108.101.97.103.117.101.32.98.97.115.101.98.97.108.108._8_G.html Edited June 27 by magnusfalkirk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 I never realised they were related to Activision. Seems they gave us the same treatment as most of the rest of the industry by the mid 80s, some games there that might have been appreciated on the A8. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdefabri Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 1 hour ago, Rybags said: I never realised they were related to Activision. Seems they gave us the same treatment as most of the rest of the industry by the mid 80s, some games there that might have been appreciated on the A8. I've never heard that - I'm not saying it's not true, but I would be surprised. Gamestar was born out of Arcade Plus IIRC (Ghost Hunter, Arcade Pro Football which I believe was an early version of Starbowl Football). Not 100% sure, but I recall this back in the day that Arcade Plus changed their name and became Gamestar. It's possible they were acquired later, but I believe the Activision association is more with Accolade (Bob Whitehead at both companies). I remember playing a super primitive baseball game that I think became the Sears title. Written by David Bohlke...I had a lot of fun with it. http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-baseball_37662.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 2 hours ago, Rybags said: I never realised they were related to Activision. Seems they gave us the same treatment as most of the rest of the industry by the mid 80s, some games there that might have been appreciated on the A8. I didn't either, but if you read the trivia section of that Mobygames page, it says they started off as independent, and were later purchased by Activision prior to changing their name to Mediagenic. Seems like that happened around 1988 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 (edited) 4 hours ago, www.atarimania.com said: Yes, you read that right! John Hardie strikes again (ha, ha) with this unreleased sports game from 1980: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-baseball_41578.html We're very excited to bring you this title as the only screenshot of this program appears to be in this 1979 catalog: https://archive.org/details/AtariTouchTheFutureCatalog/page/n1/mode/2up No idea why the game was canned... Maybe because Sears had produced a similar title? Well, turns out to be quite CIO-friendly, but GOSUB-intensive with a flow that (at times) seems improvised. Consequently, it benefits greatly from modern Basic interpreters (like Altirra Basic 1.58) AND running pretty well on XEP-80 (and XEP-80 II, I would say): Above is with latest SDX XEP drivers and ANTIC DMA=off (true "console" mode). XEP ULTRA drivers (from Altirra) seem stuck on left-margin when showing the pitcher's ball trajectory to home). Can't see any reason why it could not be revised to handle a 64 or 80 characters playfield, because there is still enough 6502 horse-power with ANTIC=OFF. Rev.B of this title could very well be the very first XEP80 / XEP80II-based modern title, too! Very interesting use of plain text-mode!! Edited June 27 by Faicuai 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted June 27 Share Posted June 27 (edited) @Faicuai beat me to it. Thank you John, smiling again. Edited June 27 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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