ti99iuc Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 I must say that I had completely missed the release of this conversion of our beloved Parsec on Intellivision. Boy is it a good conversion! Have you guys seen it? It's fast and even includes synthesized voice Of course, it does not surpass our original version which is still the best, however, when I think of the converted version on Atari2600 or even on Spectrum, this one is (in my opinion) really well done! A real package is selling on eBay from this seller: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?item=126511550374&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l161211&_ssn=r34r0r4v3 here a YT video with the gameplay: 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 looks better then what I did for the Atari 2600 Parsec. Free download here. the guy who sold my original Parsec 2600 (sold a whole 25 copies) wanted me to also make a Intellivision version at the time but I just didn't want to learn a new system after spending almost a year on this one program. Except, $75 a cart! maybe I'd been convinced for that much. 😁 2 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 Done by someone who obvious cares about the source material. A lot of important details kept, a few new twists (looks like a smart bomb on the saucer level as they all come out nearly at once,) though I never saw the ship come close to over-heating. I also never thought about Parsec having a theme. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted June 15 Share Posted June 15 34 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said: Done by someone who obvious cares about the source material. A lot of important details kept, a few new twists (looks like a smart bomb on the saucer level as they all come out nearly at once,) though I never saw the ship come close to over-heating. I also never thought about Parsec having a theme. I took out the over heating thing in my Parsec 2600 too. I always felt it took away more from the game play than it added. after all you were already dealing with the faster ships and more hits why also have over heating too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 2 hours ago, hloberg said: after all you were already dealing with the faster ships and more hits why also have over heating too. Ah, someone else who does not believe in the no-win scenario, I see. I don't like to lose.mp4 1 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrospect Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 I think the over-heating feature was to stop people having the ability to just keep fire held down, move up and down and obliterate the enemy too easily ... particularly the asteriods. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrodroid Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 This is an extremely impressive port! Really nice attention to detail, really feels like the original for the most part. Any details on the author or dev process anywhere? (IMHO the overheating is a critical aspect to adding difficulty to the game) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 well, the over-heating is a personal taste thing. but another reason I left it out, and why I couldn't do scrolling too, you only got 20% of a vertical scan for actual code in the Atari 2600. the other 80% is just displaying the screen so things had to go to just keep the screen from rolling or grinding to a halt. I can't tell you how many months I spent on trying to get scrolling to work but there just wasn't enough horsepower. goes to show how much more powerful the intelivision was over the 2600. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrodroid Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 2 minutes ago, hloberg said: well, the over-heating is a personal taste thing. but another reason I left it out, and why I couldn't do scrolling too, you only got 20% of a vertical scan for actual code in the Atari 2600. the other 80% is just displaying the screen so things had to go to just keep the screen from rolling or grinding to a halt. I can't tell you how many months I spent on trying to get scrolling to work but there just wasn't enough horsepower. goes to show how much more powerful the intelivision was over the 2600. Oh, I totally get why some people would absolutely detest the over-heating. That's kind of the point. lol. I read "Racing the Beam" back when it was published, very impressive what you folks have achieved within those limitations. It's amazing the creativity that can be unlocked when you are presented with what on the surface is a just a bunch of crushing limitations. Kudos! 4 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 17 minutes ago, retrodroid said: This is an extremely impressive port! Really nice attention to detail, really feels like the original for the most part. Any details on the author or dev process anywhere? (IMHO the overheating is a critical aspect to adding difficulty to the game) I 'think' this guy is the original programmer: @sharkcharmer now Atari bought Intellivsion may we could get him to create some more of his Parsec? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unhuman Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 Is it just me that thinks this just has a bad smell? The graphics on intellivision are not high enough to display the same as the TI. The ground here looks correct. The game actually looks like it was stolen from a TI and laid on top of the intellivision rendering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toucan Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 On 6/15/2024 at 7:00 PM, OLD CS1 said: Done by someone who obvious cares about the source material. A lot of important details kept, a few new twists (looks like a smart bomb on the saucer level as they all come out nearly at once,) though I never saw the ship come close to over-heating. I also never thought about Parsec having a theme. That was one of my favorite aspects. The title screen music. I wonder if it played in the background during gameplay what that would be like (at a low volume of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toucan Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 Interestingly, this was something that could have been back in the early 80s. Here's a message I got from Erik Olson a number of years ago: Quote About mid-85 I think it was, TI closed 1 of their 2 Lubbock buildings that had a lot of the old 4A folks still in it. That was the great dumpster dive of all time. No software, or 4A stuff (the remaining 4A hardware in labs was sold to employees at that time) just hardware like CC-40s, speak & spells, printers and college lab type stuff. Lots of 99er magazines. Also another Intellivision. The Intellivisions were in a lab which I visited once. They were reverse engineering it to see about making Parsec and other games for it. When they cleaned up the remaains, somebody sent me a standard working Intellivision as a present. The dumpstered Intellivison had parts missing and wires hanging off! For years after that Radio Shack sold the surplus Intellivision sound & speech parts (General Instruments chips) just like they sold surplus TI keyboards and power supplies. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 (edited) 7 hours ago, unhuman said: Is it just me that thinks this just has a bad smell? The graphics on intellivision are not high enough to display the same as the TI. The ground here looks correct. The game actually looks like it was stolen from a TI and laid on top of the intellivision rendering. It's a remake of an old game for another platform. We see that a lot - both ways. As long as this is not trying to make big money (covering costs can sometimes seem a bit high), it has to be okay. - That's more or less been established, though sometimes Taito and others doesn't like you making a clone. Just stand down. Or make it your own from the get go. BITD TI did Blasto, Cars Wars, Munch Man, TI Invaders, Parsec etc. - all being blatant copies of existing games. "Copying" across platforms has existed since before I was born. 😉 Edited June 18 by sometimes99er 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FarmerPotato Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 On 6/17/2024 at 9:53 PM, Toucan said: Interestingly, this was something that could have been back in the early 80s. Here's a message I got from Erik Olson a number of years ago: I wonder if @urbite can relate anything about TI's looking into Intellivision ports of TI games? The wired-up Intellivision was in the West Building on Loop 289, near the Pyramid. (Now the West Building property is a science museum.) I found the half-stripped PCB in the dumpster when the building closed in 1985. I would guess that all the bodge wire was to reverse-engineer the Intellivision or to hook up a ROM emulator. Teenage me got a de-solder bulb from Radio Shack and removed as many components as possible. That was my first supply of TTL chips. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 10 hours ago, sometimes99er said: BITD TI did Blasto, Cars Wars, Munch Man, TI Invaders, Parsec etc. - all being blatant copies of existing games. "Copying" across platforms has existed since before I was born. What did Parsec copy? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted June 18 Share Posted June 18 As I showed in the game competition thread a few days ago, a copy may sometimes look much better than the original (TI Invaders vs. Space Invaders). 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 BTW, did you know someone once made a fairly OK copy of Parsec for the Atari 8bit line? It's not bad. Not as good as the intellivison, graphics a meh but plays decent. And didn't someone try a new Parsec for the PC with modern graphics once? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mizapf Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 I'd fancy a Parsec version in first-person view. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 1 hour ago, hloberg said: And didn't someone try a new Parsec for the PC with modern graphics once? Yes! I was very excited about this project. https://web.archive.org/web/20000229104933/http://www.parsec.org/ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted June 19 Share Posted June 19 2 hours ago, OLD CS1 said: Yes! I was very excited about this project. https://web.archive.org/web/20000229104933/http://www.parsec.org/ I watched that back in the day, and I feel like I played it, but it wasn't related to the TI Parsec in any way I could see. For the play part I might be confusing it with the Sinistar remake, which also didn't feel much like the original. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toucan Posted June 20 Share Posted June 20 (edited) On 6/18/2024 at 4:54 AM, sometimes99er said: It's a remake of an old game for another platform. We see that a lot - both ways. As long as this is not trying to make big money (covering costs can sometimes seem a bit high), it has to be okay. - That's more or less been established, though sometimes Taito and others doesn't like you making a clone. Just stand down. Or make it your own from the get go. BITD TI did Blasto, Cars Wars, Munch Man, TI Invaders, Parsec etc. - all being blatant copies of existing games. "Copying" across platforms has existed since before I was born. 😉 I'm not sure Blasto was a copy of anything, but rather a port of the Blasto arcade game. Same with Hustle (Gremlin arcade game) Edited June 20 by Toucan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hloberg Posted June 20 Share Posted June 20 sure don't remember either those in the arcade. must been before my time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retrospect Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 On 6/19/2024 at 4:19 PM, hloberg said: BTW, did you know someone once made a fairly OK copy of Parsec for the Atari 8bit line? It's not bad. Not as good as the intellivison, graphics a meh but plays decent. And didn't someone try a new Parsec for the PC with modern graphics once? The PC parsec game is not related, it's literally called Parsec because of space terminology, in the same way our Parsec was. You can see this because of the slogan "there is no safe distance" and I think " Parsec " is a measurement of distance. The Atari 8 bit version I've seen, and thought it to be okay ... there's also a game called Parsec for the C64. Not sure if this is related or not? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edweird13 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 @PacManPlus did KiloParsec for the Atari 7800 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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