Holy crap, Amidar for the Atari 2600 is so bad

[Jess Ragan]

So, so very bad. It barely functions as any kind of game, let alone a port of the arcade game Amidar. I tried playing it on an emulator recently, thinking "Oh well hey, it can't be as bad as everyone's been saying," and no, they were absolutely right on the money with this one. It feels so woefully primitive and retrograde, like it was excreted from the robo-buttocks of the robot from Lost in Space, then poured into a cartridge. I have a hard time believing this game was written for the Atari 2600. It feels like the target hardware was a single vacuum tube, or a banana with a resistor stuck in it. At least Pac-Man, for all its arcade inaccuracy, tried to give us gameplay to go with those blocky mazes and flickery ghosts and weird, unpleasant noises coming out of the 2600. Amidar is just so painful to play, and it looks like it's causing the Atari 2600 intense pain to create, as though it was about to burst into flames to prevent itself from bringing this soulless monstrosity to life. It's like arcade Amidar if it had been written on punch cards. Everything's so blocky, so ugly, and yet the Atari 2600 runs it like it's about to have a nervous breakdown. Why so much flicker? Why are the sprites so indistinct and so far from the original? Why are the pigs who were turned into piggy banks now chickens who weren't in the arcade game? I think the guy who made it just shook his Atari 2600 violently until a game fell out.

[+LS650]

I don't mind blocky or ugly, but it's so slow!  Your character moves like he's stuck in molasses.

[+jeremiahjt]

I like Amidar.

[+SpiceWare]

1 hour ago, LS650 said:

I don't mind blocky or ugly, but it's so slow!  Your character moves like he's stuck in molasses.

 

You might like to check out @Thomas Jentzsch's Amidar DS hack, which speeds it up.

[BassGuitari]

I should give Amidar a spin. It's probably been eons since I even fired it up, and I didn't really get into it the last time I did, but I don't remember it being that bad.

 

 

[glazball]

Amidar is certainly not the sharpest looking game on the 2600, but it plays alright.  I've always enjoyed it at least.  You can certainly do worse, even among the Parker Brothers catalog.  I think Reactor is a MUCH poorer game all-around, but people here seem to love it.

[bigfriendly]

I hadn't played it in over 40 years and it's a lot worse than what I remembered. Yes, your character makes a slug look quick.

[BONEMAN]

8 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

I like Amidar.

I like it too

[Living Room Arcade]

Have you tried Spiderdroid by Froggo and Demolition Herby by Telesys?  They're Amidar clones.  

 Notice the download and play options for each!  

 

BTW, do you use Stella?  With Stella, you can change the emulation speed, make any game play faster or slower!

In Stella, go to Options > Emulation Settings and find the speed adjustment

and in your case, since you think the game is too slow, set it to more than 100%.  

 

One other thing.  If you're using Stella, you can turn on phosphor effect to help reduce flicker. 

In Stella, go to Options > Video & Audio > TV Effects and look for the phosphor adjustment

Try the default value of 50% or play with this setting to find the best reduction of flicker.  

Use the hot keys ALT-P to turn phosphor on/off on the fly.

Edited March 5 by Living Room Arcade

[Jess Ragan]

Spider-Droid is the Froggo clone of Amidar with slightly changed graphics. Demolition Herby is unique, and does scratch an Amidar or Qix itch.