Lunar Lander Beyond (by Atari) - (in VCS Store)

[justclaws]

The Lunar Lander edition of Atari Podcast is linked here, in the series.

 

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

Lunar Lander Beyond is now up on the Atari VCS store priced £24.99. I've just picked it up and unfortunately no Classic Joystick support on this. The game looks and plays great on the Atari VCS though so not really a problem and i suppose we where lucky to even get the game in the first place 🙂

[yorxs]

I picked this up for $29.99 USD to make sure I support releases on the VCS. Much like the VCS itself Lunar Lander Beyond is too expensive for what you get. While the cinematics and story do take the game to a level beyond the Recharged series games, the game play itself seems very much like it could be Lunar Lander Recharged.  

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

42 minutes ago, yorxs said:

I picked this up for $29.99 USD to make sure I support releases on the VCS. Much like the VCS itself Lunar Lander Beyond is too expensive for what you get.

The Atari VCS 800 is worth every penny and often goes on sale so can be picked up for next to nothing if you live in the states and considering it doubles as a very capable mini PC that can be easily upgraded you get a good deal for not much expense. Your comment seems.. almost troll like, and pretty ignorant towards the Atari VCS and its users. If you don't think Lunar Lander Beyond is worth the price tag well you could have easily waited for the game to go on sale on either the Atari VCS store or Steam etc no one forced you to buy the game to support the Atari VCS 🙂.

 

I'm personally good with the price of Lunar Lander Beyond i think its very very fair, your getting a lot of game here for the money. I've purchased it on the Atari VCS, Steam, Switch and I'm currently playing it portable on my Lenovo Legion Go today but its also installed on my Steam Deck and ROG Ally to check out later.  

[Bill Loguidice]

7 hours ago, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

The Atari VCS 800 is worth every penny and often goes on sale so can be picked up for next to nothing if you live in the states and considering it doubles as a very capable mini PC that can be easily upgraded you get a good deal for not much expense. Your comment seems.. almost troll like, and pretty ignorant towards the Atari VCS and its users. If you don't think Lunar Lander Beyond is worth the price tag well you could have easily waited for the game to go on sale on either the Atari VCS store or Steam etc no one forced you to buy the game to support the Atari VCS 🙂.

 

I'm personally good with the price of Lunar Lander Beyond i think its very very fair, your getting a lot of game here for the money. I've purchased it on the Atari VCS, Steam, Switch and I'm currently playing it portable on my Lenovo Legion Go today but its also installed on my Steam Deck and ROG Ally to check out later.  

I'm sorry, but I agree with him and don't think it's trolling. I'm glad you and some others like the VCS 800, but it's not something good for casual usage. You have to want to tinker and be a particular type of Atari fan to get the most out of the system for the price. For 99%+ of consumers, they're better off with standard consoles and/or PCs that have far more content and are far easier to work with.

As for the game, I'm definitely interested (not for my VCS 800, of course), but will wait for an eventual sale. I don't personally consider it a $30 value, but I'll definitely get it when it comes more into line with what I would like to pay.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I'm sorry, but I agree with him and don't think it's trolling. I'm glad you and some others like the VCS 800, but it's not something good for casual usage. You have to want to tinker and be a particular type of Atari fan to get the most out of the system for the price

No tinkering this end. I have 5 Atari VCS's in at the moment all work just fine. I don't have the time to tinker with stuff these days either, the Atari VCS 800 just works. I turn it on and it boots into Atari OS and if i want i can boot it to PC mode for a huge library of games at my disposal to. Sure the out of the box experience can be hit or miss if the console will update or not without flashing but after that it really just works, if it doesn't work you should reach out to customer support. 

 

I would say his comment is troll like in nature, read it back. Everyone is entitled to there opinion of Lunar Lander Beyond of course but to the have an unnecessary dig at the Atari VCS 800 in the same thread is just uncalled for, there's a topic within this forum where you can yell and scream about how much you hate the Atari VCS just no need to try and do a double combo in the same topic. Anyway back to Lunar Lander Beyond 🙂

[zzip]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

You have to want to tinker and be a particular type of Atari fan to get the most out of the system for the price.

Tinkering is a tradition for Atari computer owners though    

 

9 hours ago, yorxs said:

I picked this up for $29.99 USD to make sure I support releases on the VCS. Much like the VCS itself Lunar Lander Beyond is too expensive for what you get. While the cinematics and story do take the game to a level beyond the Recharged series games, the game play itself seems very much like it could be Lunar Lander Recharged.  

I was never really convinced on this game from the trailers,  I thought I might pick it up anyway, but $30 is a bit steep to take a chance.   I'll pass for now.    

 

Atari seems to believe in the game though since they prominently featured it at Pax and what not and are charging a higher price than many of their other releases.    Maybe if I see others having a blast with it, I'll get it.

 

[+jeremiahjt]

I went ahead and pulled the trigger. I bought it for the VCS 800 of course. I have to say, it is still early, but I like it so far.

 

I try not to use the Stabilizer, but it makes it so much easier.

[agradeneu]

1 hour ago, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

No tinkering this end. I have 5 Atari VCS's in at the moment all work just fine. I don't have the time to tinker with stuff these days either, the Atari VCS 800 just works. I turn it on and it boots into Atari OS and if i want i can boot it to PC mode for a huge library of games at my disposal to. Sure the out of the box experience can be hit or miss if the console will update or not without flashing but after that it really just works, if it doesn't work you should reach out to customer support. 

 

I would say his comment is troll like in nature, read it back. Everyone is entitled to there opinion of Lunar Lander Beyond of course but to the have an unnecessary dig at the Atari VCS 800 in the same thread is just uncalled for, there's a topic within this forum where you can yell and scream about how much you hate the Atari VCS just no need to try and do a double combo in the same topic. Anyway back to Lunar Lander Beyond 🙂

Well, he paid money for the game and the system, he probably has the right to say his opinion then? 

 

 

[scifidude79]

It's nice to see this got a release. I picked it up on the VCS, of course. I did that for two reasons. First, I bought it on there to support the VCS. Second, I was one of the people saying it needed to come out on the VCS, so it wouldn't have been right to buy it on anything else, since Atari obviously listened to us. A lot of companies are deaf to what their customers want, so I like to reward those companies that actually listen.

 

As for the game, it's super fun and frustrating as heck. But, that's how you know it's Lunar Lander. 😂 The graphics are top notch, as is the sound design. The fact that it's fully voice acted is also a nice touch. I too would have liked classic joystick support, but I suspect that wasn't added due to the classic joystick not having enough buttons for the game. But, I also have no issues using the modern controller. I'm just glad this game came out on the VCS.

 

As for the price, I personally think it's worth it for what you get. As I said, it's got voice acting, that's not cheap to produce. Neither is that animated intro. The graphics are also higher quality than games like the Recharged series. But, I can also see the point of view of the people who say it's too expensive. For one thing, it's one of the three highest priced games in the VCS store. It's tied with the Atari 50 collection and Days of Doom. And, with Atari 50, you not only get a lot of games, but you also get the wonderful timeline history of Atari which, in my opinion, is worth $30 on its own. And, of course, Days of Doom is an RPG. A lot of people probably equate Lunar Lander Beyond more to the Recharged games, which are $10. Thus, they probably think 3X that is high for what you get. Though, to put it into perspective, I was happy to get two XBOX games on sale for $35 on Steam last weekend. Yes, those were AAA titles and one was an ultimate collection with most of the DLC, but $30 is still inexpensive next to games on other systems. And then, after paying $60 to $70 for a game, you find out it's not a complete release when they start releasing DLC. Compared to that, the VCS formula of releasing complete games for a decent price is one of the most attractive things about the system, in my opinion. Right now, a lot of big companies are doing some shady stuff with their games, and consumers are eating them up, (yes, I'm one of them) so there's no reason to stop. Compared to them, I like Atari's way of doing things a lot better.

[RollOut]

23 minutes ago, scifidude79 said:

I too would have liked classic joystick support, but I suspect that wasn't added due to the classic joystick not having enough buttons for the game. 

I'm in the same boat missing the classic controller support. I agree that it's probably the limited number of buttons, but it's still a little disappointing because the gameplay seems perfectly suited for the classic controller.

 

That said, I had a good first impression of the game. So far, I've only played for a little bit (damn life getting in the way of more Atari time), but I like the graphics and I'm a fan of the general aesthetics (it's got a cool look to it). It also looks like their's a bit of depth to the game, and I see myself playing a lot of this in the future. Taking the good with the bad, I'm really glad Atari came through and ported this to the VCS.

[zzip]

41 minutes ago, scifidude79 said:

As for the price, I personally think it's worth it for what you get. As I said, it's got voice acting, that's not cheap to produce. Neither is that animated intro. The graphics are also higher quality than games like the Recharged series. But, I can also see the point of view of the people who say it's too expensive. For one thing, it's one of the three highest priced games in the VCS store. It's tied with the Atari 50 collection and Days of Doom. And, with Atari 50, you not only get a lot of games, but you also get the wonderful timeline history of Atari which, in my opinion, is worth $30 on its own. And, of course, Days of Doom is an RPG. A lot of people probably equate Lunar Lander Beyond more to the Recharged games, which are $10. Thus, they probably think 3X that is high for what you get.

The main issue for me is it looks like a game that has very little to do with classic Lunar Landar at all- it just uses the name.   And whatever the game is, I can't tell from the trailers whether I'd enjoy it at all.   So $30 is too much for a game that is a complete risk for me.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

There's still hope that Lunar Lander Beyond will get Classic Joystick support added at a later date on the Atari VCS 800. Davpa did say on his last Twitch stream when he was playing the game that even though contracts for the game have ended he might still be able to get joystick support added if someone can figure it out it'll get done. I personally don't mind this game not having Classic Joystick, I'm actually enjoying it as it is and I'm really impressed by how well the Atari VCS 800 port runs! I've been playing a fair bit of the game across multiple platforms and it certainly has more frame rate issues on the Nintendo Switch than anything else. I've had a few issues with the Steam Deck version crashing but the little Atari VCS seems to handle the game very well and my Lenovo Legion Go handles it like its running a little calculator game. I honestly didn't expect to like Lunar Lander Beyond so much, the demo gave a bad impression but its actually pretty fun and challenging the further in you get and certainly worth the low price. I've actually payed more money recently for rubbish aftermarket games on other systems that have very little content to offer, Lunar Lander Beyond is a big game and the price is fair for a modern game.

[Bill Loguidice]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

The main issue for me is it looks like a game that has very little to do with classic Lunar Landar at all- it just uses the name.   And whatever the game is, I can't tell from the trailers whether I'd enjoy it at all.   So $30 is too much for a game that is a complete risk for me.

I haven't tried it, but it seems more like a Thrust-style game from what I've seen. I don't think that's a bad thing personally as I tend to like those types of games, but I suppose it would have been nice to have a modern reimagined Lunar Lander game if they could figure out how to update it sufficiently while keeping the core mechanic.

[zzip]

12 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

but I suppose it would have been nice to have a modern reimagined Lunar Lander game if they could figure out how to update it sufficiently while keeping the core mechanic.

Maybe a 3D version?  And not just limit to the moon-  high gravity / low gravity planets.   Planets like Mars where the atmosphere is too thin to slow you down adequately and you need to deploy a tricky exotic landing system similar to what NASA has used.   Could be a fun physics simulator.

Edited April 25 by zzip

[stirrell]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

The main issue for me is it looks like a game that has very little to do with classic Lunar Landar at all- it just uses the name.   And whatever the game is, I can't tell from the trailers whether I'd enjoy it at all.   So $30 is too much for a game that is a complete risk for me.

Not sure if you have a Windows PC that can run it but there is a demo of you wanted to be able to kick the tires. I actually ran the demo in PC mode on the VCS.

[scifidude79]

13 hours ago, zzip said:

The main issue for me is it looks like a game that has very little to do with classic Lunar Landar at all- it just uses the name.   And whatever the game is, I can't tell from the trailers whether I'd enjoy it at all.   So $30 is too much for a game that is a complete risk for me.

Yeah, it is quite different. I mean, there are elements of the classic game play, but with a lot of newer stuff added too. I can definitely understand being hesitant.

 

If you game on PC at all, the Steam version has a free demo. That might be worth a look before you spend your hard earned money on it.

[marss]

 

[agradeneu]

On 4/25/2024 at 7:27 PM, Bill Loguidice said:

I haven't tried it, but it seems more like a Thrust-style game from what I've seen. I don't think that's a bad thing personally as I tend to like those types of games, but I suppose it would have been nice to have a modern reimagined Lunar Lander game if they could figure out how to update it sufficiently while keeping the core mechanic.

LL was the first "Thrust" style game ever?! I always thought it was the granddaddy.

[Bill Loguidice]

14 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

LL was the first "Thrust" style game ever?! I always thought it was the granddaddy.

Absolutely, but I'd say that a Thrust-style game is rather more mobile. I consider Lunar Lander more about precision, whereas Thrust-style games favor mobility with a lower emphasis on precision.

[+jeremiahjt]

3 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Absolutely, but I'd say that a Thrust-style game is rather more mobile. I consider Lunar Lander more about precision, whereas Thrust-style games favor mobility with a lower emphasis on precision.

So where would Gravitar fall?

[stirrell]

4 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:

So where would Gravitar fall?

In my case, it is hurtling out of control into a vector wall. Over and over again.

[agradeneu]

57 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Absolutely, but I'd say that a Thrust-style game is rather more mobile. I consider Lunar Lander more about precision, whereas Thrust-style games favor mobility with a lower emphasis on precision.

I played the demo, its pretty slow and heavy.

[MrBeefy]

On 4/26/2024 at 2:08 PM, Bill Loguidice said:

Absolutely, but I'd say that a Thrust-style game is rather more mobile. I consider Lunar Lander more about precision, whereas Thrust-style games favor mobility with a lower emphasis on precision.

That's a problem with some of these older games/concepts. In order to evolve you have to move away from the original gameplay. Which risks alienating the only audience you know you have. Sticking with the formula very possibly could keep you locked in that niche. 

 

Here's a couple of reviews for any fence sitters wanting to hear other experiences.

https://purenintendo.com/review-lunar-lander-beyond-nintendo-switch/

 

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/switch-eshop/lunar-lander-beyond#

[zzip]

1 hour ago, MrBeefy said:

That's a problem with some of these older games/concepts. In order to evolve you have to move away from the original gameplay. Which risks alienating the only audience you know you have. Sticking with the formula very possibly could keep you locked in that niche. 

Atari has a lot of games that are single concept "Sky Diver", "Missile Command", "Lunar Lander" that aren't really great for building franchises around,    I would think it would make more sense to build a space franchise around say "Star Raiders" and maybe make this game fit inside that Universe instead of the Lunar Lander Universe?