Berzerk Recharged has just been announced!

[Flyindrew]

4 minutes ago, zzip said:

I agree, if they had tied 5200 hype to Pac-man hype, that would have been something!   Maybe an ad campaign - you can buy the 2600 version now or preorder the upcoming 5200 version!   Sure that might have cut into 2600 Pac-man sales, but would have built hype around the 5200 and possibly moved more units.

 

They way it happened, I don't think they revealed the 5200 until after 2600 Pacman came out, which of course was going fuel cynical conspiracy theories that they made it bad on purpose to sell us the game twice

Yeah Coleco really seemed to know exactly where to hit Atari.   Overall, I'd say Atari had a much stronger portfolo of well-known arcade games, but Coleco kept relying on the handful of heavy hitters they got, which happened to be hot "right now"  (DK, DKjr, Zaxxon).  And then embarrassing Atari by releasing the 2600 module.   

 

The other problem for the 5200 was most of it's library was games that had already been on the 2600.   It needed some new must-play game to make people want the console now, and not "oh, I'll get around to upgrading eventually"

Call me nuts but I think Coleco owns alot of their success to their display boxes. As a 10 year old arcade abscessed kid in 1982 seeing the Coleco boxes displaying the arcade cabinet drew me to want to purchase the game. The 5200 boxes, in comparison, were, blah at the time. But comparing the actual systems, the sound on the 5200 was far superior, and the graphics appeared less choppier than the Colecovision. The other 2 areas the Colecovision had the upper hand was its initial 2600 expansion module, as well as the steering wheel add on with Turbo. Likewise, the 5200 could have done the same thing by making the system 2600 backward compatible and done their own expansion module  with their trackball and Centipede. 

[zzip]

16 minutes ago, Flyindrew said:

Call me nuts but I think Coleco owns alot of their success to their display boxes. As a 10 year old arcade abscessed kid in 1982 seeing the Coleco boxes displaying the arcade cabinet drew me to want to purchase the game.

I agree the box art has a huge impact, or else they'd sell everything in white boxes with black text,  It was cool seeing the arcade cabinets on the boxes.   

 

Although Atari's art is considered iconic enough to have a whole book written on it,  often the art on an Atari box had little to do with the game itself.  Some looked like generic sci-fi paintings that "kind of" fit the game.   If you saw the title on a shelf, you might not even realize it was an arcade port!   And the Atarisoft packaging was probably some of the worst.   Goes for uniformity with little space for artwork.

 

33 minutes ago, Flyindrew said:

But comparing the actual systems, the sound on the 5200 was far superior, and the graphics appeared less choppier than the Colecovision.

Back then, the screenshot was king-  they were plastered all over magazines, print ads and the back of every game box.  (usually the first thing we did when picking up a box in store was to flip it over and look at the screenshot)

 

But screenshots don't show flicker, choppiness, sound quality or controller responsiveness.

 

My impression was Atari's catalog was heavy on space games:  black backgrounds,  low color. while Coleco was showing off colorful stuff like Smurfs (another hot property for 82/83), BC Quest for Tires, Zaxxon (unusually detailed and colorful for a space game).  Plus I saw a bunch of amazing-looking Coleco screenshots in magazines for games that never even came out, like Dracula.   So I think it was easy to get the impression that Coleco had better graphics capabilities,   It also didn't help that many screenshots back then where mockups (on all systems),  so when you actually played the game, you'd find it didn't look as good as the screenshot.

[ledzep]

On 11/16/2023 at 9:04 AM, zzip said:

Yeah Coleco really seemed to know exactly where to hit Atari.   Overall, I'd say Atari had a much stronger portfolo of well-known arcade games, but Coleco kept relying on the handful of heavy hitters they got, which happened to be hot "right now"  (DK, DKjr, Zaxxon).  And then embarrassing Atari by releasing the 2600 module.   

 

The other problem for the 5200 was most of it's library was games that had already been on the 2600.   It needed some new must-play game to make people want the console now, and not "oh, I'll get around to upgrading eventually"

 

Ya, although I sort of remember as a kid not being floored by the Colecovision games, their arcade ports were usually games I wasn't that enthused about playing (arcade or at home).  The 5200 also shared a lot of games with the 800 computer although I think not as many kids would know that if they weren't actively thinking about computers.  I had the computer while my friend had the 5200 so I sort of slowed down my computer game cart purchases since the 5200 versions were typically better.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ColecoVision_games

 

I look at that list and I notice more what's not there in terms of arcade ports than what they had.  The ports themselves seem pretty good, I like their Defender and Star Trek: SOS, for example.

 

Except for the better sports games and Space Dungeon (and, of course, real Star Raiders) and possibly Countermeasure I don't remember much in terms of new 5200 titles not seen on the 2600, though some games were obviously superior, practically first-time-new to my eyes compared to the blocky 2600 versions.  For example, Qix and Joust and Missile Command and Galaxian.  Other games were pretty similar, Super Breakout and Space Invaders.  I think Activision also contributed to the "whatever" vibe by making their 5200 ports practically identical to the previous 2600 versions with the addition of better looking graphics.  I think that was a big mistake.

[Giles N]

On 11/16/2023 at 6:04 PM, zzip said:

The other problem for the 5200 was most of it's library was games that had already been on the 2600.   It needed some new must-play game to make people want the console now, and not "oh, I'll get around to upgrading eventually"

Yeah, and to attract third-party developers, they’d need to sell a lot of console-units to provide a big market-platform, and they’d probably sell more 5200s, if they’d produced and sold many 2600 converter-pieces for a fair price, and/or released a more pricey version of the 5200 with inbuilt 2600 backward-compatibility.

 

Guess they ‘saw it’ with the 7800, but they postponed necessary things way too long.

[zzip]

On 11/18/2023 at 5:43 AM, ledzep said:

 

Except for the better sports games and Space Dungeon (and, of course, real Star Raiders) and possibly Countermeasure I don't remember much in terms of new 5200 titles not seen on the 2600, though some games were obviously superior, practically first-time-new to my eyes compared to the blocky 2600 versions.  For example, Qix and Joust and Missile Command and Galaxian.  Other games were pretty similar, Super Breakout and Space Invaders.  I think Activision also contributed to the "whatever" vibe by making their 5200 ports practically identical to the previous 2600 versions with the addition of better looking graphics.  I think that was a big mistake.

I think it ends up being a situation similar to how in music you get 8-track / cassette / CD,   people eventually decide to upgrade and rebuy their music collection for the better quality or convenience,  but most don't rush out to do this.

 

That's why it was a problem that there was so much overlap between the 5200 vs 2600 library.   Didn't create an urgency to upgrade.    Atari was working with Lucasfilm to create Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus, and supposed to get a 5200 release in 84.  Those were the kind of unique (at the time) games the 5200 needed to move units, but that deal fell apart of the Atari sale, and the 5200 versions didn't surface until 86, long after the console was declared dead.

 

Yeah Activision's lazy ports didn't help.  I'm not sure given their history, Atari had the leverage to demand they do better ports.

[+davidcalgary29]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

I think it ends up being a situation similar to how in music you get 8-track / cassette / CD,   people eventually decide to upgrade and rebuy their music collection for the better quality or convenience,  but most don't rush out to do this.

 

That's why it was a problem that there was so much overlap between the 5200 vs 2600 library.   Didn't create an urgency to upgrade.    Atari was working with Lucasfilm to create Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus, and supposed to get a 5200 release in 84.  Those were the kind of unique (at the time) games the 5200 needed to move units, but that deal fell apart of the Atari sale, and the 5200 versions didn't surface until 86, long after the console was declared dead.

 

Yeah Activision's lazy ports didn't help.  I'm not sure given their history, Atari had the leverage to demand they do better ports.

The 5200 should really have just taken the XEGS approach and simply repackaged existing (A8 -- here, the 400) components -- making it fully compatible with the rest of the A8 line. It would have been very innovative in 1982, and probably much more successful for everyone involved in the end.

[GraffitiTavern]

'The 'Recharged' Series Proves Atari Is No Longer A Spent Force' write-up from Nintendo Life on the Recharged series

https://www.nintendolife.com/features/soapbox-the-recharged-series-proves-atari-is-no-longer-a-spent-force 

[Cris1997XX]

It's been over two months already, are people still crapping on this game or what?

[+Zeptari]

On 11/18/2023 at 5:43 AM, ledzep said:

Ya, although I sort of remember as a kid not being floored by the Colecovision games

I was the opposite. I couldn't wait to get my hands on one.I was lucky, got one for my birthday back in the day, box art was amazing..still have it!  My first "nextgen" console!! I played a lot of shooters on the Atari (Berzerk,Asteroids,River Raid..etc.)which I loved. The Coleco was special as It brought new styles of games for me to play... All of these a first for me. Montezuma's Revenge-Platform, Pitstop-Racing, Gateway to Apshai-Action RPG, 2010: The Graphic Action Game-Puzzle and Zaxxon-an isometric shooter at home! The flame for it burnt bright and short, less 3 years later I moved onto PC gaming.. But wow what a blast it was.

[+Zeptari]

On 1/7/2024 at 8:19 PM, Cris1997XX said:

It's been over two months already, are people still crapping on this game or what?

Picked it up on Xbox during the 50% off sale. I'm enjoying it.. The mission are fun, along keeping my score in the top 20 on the online leaderboards.