The butchering of KARATEKA

[MarkR]

I'm in the process of significantly expanding my Atari 7800 and XE pages at the moment and have been re-emersing myself in the world of late 1980s Atari games. One thing that I just can't get over was how BADLY KARATEKA was butchered on the Atari 7800.

 

Just a caveat: I originally bought the 7800 in 1988 because I saw that it had KARATEKA. I loved that game on the Apple II and didn't have a computer so I was thrilled when I saw KARATEKA on the back of the 7800's box. It was the second game I bought for the system - I purchased Xevious first because KARATEKA was out of stock at the time.

 

When I brought it home, words could not express my disgust. The controls were horrid. The cool elements of the game were missing. The graphics and sound were awful - even for a relatively simple game like KARATEKA. It just sucked beyond words. And it was brutally hard. I still will never know what happened at the end because it was so damn hard with that control mechanism.

 

Why did this game bite so badly on the 7800? Was it Ibid Inc's fault? Or what Atari deliberately trying to cripple the 7800 and its software so that consumers would look at the XE Game System? In 1987, a lot of games appeared on the 7800 which were also on the XE - and considerably better. I just picked up the XE cartridge of KARATEKA tonight and it's awesome - it destroys the 7800 version. I noticed a similar trend with SUMMER GAMES (which has all the events on the XE but is missing some on the 7800) and FIGHT NIGHT. Even though the 7800 was a newer, more powerful system, Atari seemed to want to have customers that would also buy XE peripherals as well as games.

 

It's a shame Atari released such an awful conversion.Mark's Classic Gaming Page

[Tempest]

From what I was told Karateka was programmed in FORTH (ick!) by a programmer that either wasn't very good or rushed for time. He was also responsible for butchering Hat Trick, Choplifter, and one other game (One on One maybe?). He was constantly late on meeting deadlines and maybe he just didn't care. Why they didn't keep the control scheme from the Apple IIe I'll never know.

 

BTW, how does the XE handle Karateka with only one button?

 

Oh and for something really scary, here's a Karateka prototype! (http://www.msu.edu/user/reicher6/prototypes/otherprotos/karateka.htm)

 

Tempest

[Gunstar]

while I totally agree with you about Karateka(I loved my Atari 8-bit version, why did they change the control scheme?!?!? ) and Fight Night, I thought One on One was far better than the 8-bit version (especially the wood floor!) and I like Hat trick very much too (although the only other version I ever saw was the actual arcade machine).

The 8-bit version of Karateka was the same as the Apple IIe (as far as I remember-I only played the Apple version once), hold down the button for kicking and tap it for punching...8-bit Karateka was just as good, if not better than the Apple version, although I'm refering to the original Broderbund disk version, I've never tried the XE cart-I would assume it's the same, just put on cart. Of course that's when using a joystick on both Apple and Atari; Atari Karateka also had the option to use the keyboard, but I forget how (never really used it that way), I assume it would have been the same as the Apple version too. But, yeah, the 7800 version was also destroyed graphically and had a lot cut out too. It's a real shame (although not the reason I bought a 7800 like you Tempest-I already had the awsome 8-bit version).

 

[ 01-14-2002: Message edited by: Gunstar ]

[bcprs1]

Karateka was one of the first games I got for the system. I actually kinda like the game. The only thing that kills it for me is the awful response time.

Btw, I have beat the game. All that happens at the end is that you are standing next to the girl (can't remember her name) while the screen flashes a bunch of colors.

[Gunstar]

quote:

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Originally posted by Secret Quest:

Karateka was one of the first games I got for the system. I actually kinda like the game. The only thing that kills it for me is the awful response time.

Btw, I have beat the game. All that happens at the end is that you are standing next to the girl (can't remember her name) while the screen flashes a bunch of colors.

---

 

I suppose it wouldn't have seemed so bad if I hadn't tried other versions befroe it...if you have a chance, play one of the computer versions(I believe it was out for all the 8-bit computers:Apple II series, Atari 800/xl/xe series and Commodore 64/128), you'll then see why we think the 7800 version sucks...

[MarkR]

No kidding about that. I played the Apple II version first and thought it was awesome. The idea of playing this great COMPUTER game on a gaming console was just awesome. The 7800 version was really was crap.

 

By contrast, the Atari XE cartridge I got yesterday seems to have all the Karateka elements I loved at the time. All the animated cut scenes are there. The hawk looks like a hawk. The number of guys you fight is dependent upon how far you can run in between battles. I've seen the gate and I'm sure other elements will also be around.

 

Why oh why did the 7800 version have the suck so bad? I mean - it wasn't as though the 7800 wasn't capable of playing a game like Karateka. Look at ALIEN BRIGADE. It's graphics blew away KARATEKA on any platform.