2600 Tempest?

[atarimastermarty]

I was playing Tempest on my computer, and started wondering. Were they ever going to make a Tempest for the 2600? And if so how would they do it, wouldn't it be impossible. I mean after all Tempest is a 3-D game, and you couldn't make a 3-d game on the 2600. If they did attempt to make one how would they do it. Anyone know?

[+Mitch]

Yep, there's a proto for the 2600 version of Tempest. Have fun.

 

Mitch

http://atari7800.atari.org

[Adrian M]

The game truly is horrible! I'm glad Atari didn't get around to releasing this for the 2600!

[NE146]

well.. of course it's horrible. It's not finished.

 

Who knows how good they could have gotten it though. Obviously it would be far from the real thing but it possibly could have been made playable enough to be a nifty addition to the catalog

[ATARIPITBULL]

I dont think it would have looked good on the 2600, but how many other games has atari made that looks as good as the arcade game.

[Inky]

My 2 cents would probably be no on this one. Whereas Crytal Castles worked, that was a 3/4 perspective that required no scaling, whereas Tempest is basically first person and scaling of the enemies is vital. I just don't think the 2600 could have handled it any better. Maybe it could have with the supercharger however.

 

I am impressed with the job Atari did on Sinistar. That was a darn good attempt. Xevious could have been a bit better as well, but still not bad. Needed the Andor Genesis mother ship though.

[Albert]

Some games should just not be attempted on the 2600. One of these games is Tempest. I'm not sure whether I should commend Atari for attempting this conversion, or shake my head wondering how much money they wasted on pointless endeavors like this. It seems like Atari was hellbent to do as many arcade conversions as possible, at the expense of creating original games that didn't suck. While some of their arcade ports are quite good given the 2600's capabilities, I think they relied too much on porting arcade games.

 

I just took a look at all the Silver Label titles, and the vast majority of them are ports of arcade games. Not including the RealSports titles, the only other original titles in that list are Asterix (Taz), Atari Video Cube (Rubik's Cube), E.T., Gremlins, Krull, Obelix, Quadrun, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Swordquest games. Heck, and most of those are licenses of movies or other properties!

 

Oops, I'm getting off topic. End rant.

 

..Al

[Tempest]

I think someone once told me that Atari never really intended to release Tempest for the 2600. It was just a ploy so they could say Tempest was in development. What's there isn't so bad. A little more tweaking and the game could have been playable. I wonder if they were actually going to add more level shapes?

 

Tempest

[rasty]

Actually, I think that a 2D version of tempest for the 2600 would be both feasible and enjoyable: just make the levels a 2d series of vertical "tunnels" (maybe 6 in order to have enough sprites to fill them all), put the player at the bottom and let the baddies descend from the top. Even the trail some enemies leave behind them could be reproduced, imo... with some limitations on the enemy movements, but still better than what was coming out of the "official" 2600 tempest!

 

Reviewers would have complained about the graphical inaccuracies, but in the long run we would have been left with a fun game, at least!

 

rasty.-

 

[ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: rasty ]

[GrizzLee]

quote:

---

Actually, I think that a 2D version of tempest for the 2600 would be both feasible and

enjoyable: just make the levels a 2d series of vertical "tunnels" (maybe 6 in order to have

enough sprites to fill them all), put the player at the bottom and let the baddies descend from

the top. Even the trail some enemies leave behind them could be reproduced, imo... with some

limitations on the enemy movements, but still better than what was coming out of the "official"

2600 tempest!

---

 

 

This has actually been done. Try out Trumoil. A pretty good game. Another game that is done pretty good along the same lines as Tempest is Beam Rider.

 

Trumoil is better at capturing the speed and frantic pace of Tempest IMHO.

 

-Lee

[rasty]

Thanks Lee... in fact these games are actually fun to play and, especially Turmoil, built around the 2600's capabilities.

And now I feel the urgent need to play some Turmoil!!!

 

rasty.-

[atarimastermarty]

They could have made it 2-d, but there's a problem there. If it's 2-d how would the bombs come shooting up at you. It wouldn't look like the arcade at all. But hey, Warlords looked very unsimilar to the arcade but the plot andgameplay was there, so it was god. They couldv'e done that with temest but it wouldn't be the same thing but basically same game play.

[rasty]

Of course if would not LOOK much like the arcade, but at least play well (maybe!)

And most important, a 2D layout would open to clear graphics! Something very important, imo...

 

rasty.-

[Cassidy Nolen]

Personally,

 

I kinda like the version. I am going to make the cartridge (if I can ever get time) and it will probably see some play time.

 

 

Cassidy

(Of course, I still like playing Computer Space)

[NE146]

Play time? Isn't there only about 5 minutes (at MOST) of quality playing time you can probably get out of the existing game?..

[ubersaurus]

I want to play computer space! Unfortunate it's unemulatable.

[uosipa llamxew]

...

Edited September 23, 2005 by mojofltr

[Albert]

quote:

---

Originally posted by MoJoFLTR:

Take a look at Gyruss. It has it's similarities to Tempest, and if some sort Tempest playfield was drawn in the background, and the graphics sprites were changed slightly, you might have something of a playable Tempest.

---

 

I agree that Gyruss is a pretty good conversion given the 2600's capabilities. However, the tubes in Tempest really present a unique challenge. The prototype that's floating around is using the playfield graphics for the tubes, and with a horizontal resolution of 40 pixels there's not really much you can do to make it look anything like the arcade. As it is, you can see how they alternate between solid colors and black, since you wouldn't be able to draw tube outlines with pixels that fat.

 

I bet you could draw lines at a higher resolution, but they'd probably flicker like crazy. But still, that would probably be preferrable to what the prototype looks like. I would love to see someone give it a go, but those evil vector games really do present special challenges.

 

..Al

[Cassidy Nolen]

quote

I want to play computer space!  

 

Stop by for a brew, and we will fire it up!

Of course, you would have to be somewhere near DC! (I do plan on bringing it to the Philly Classic this year......)

 

Cassidy

[NE146]

quote

That doesn't mean Tempest can be done, since the lines that have to be drawn aren't as simple as the 3d perspective lines of the trench  

 

quote

The prototype that's floating around is using the playfield graphics for the tubes, and with a horizontal resolution of 40 pixels there's not really much you can do to make it look anything like the arcade. As it is, you can see how they alternate between solid colors and black, since you wouldn't be able to draw tube outlines with pixels that fat.  

 

What's all this talk about "drawing lines" for the tubes? Of course the 2600 couldn't really do the nice lines for the tubes, but if we're going as far as speculating that a 2D Tempest would suffice then come on... what's wrong with how the proto does it?

 

 

Yes, we all know the particular one above looks like a pair of blue underwear (heheh) but just from that initial stage alone, you could imagine several other shapes that could be drawn similarly and provide some kind of indication of the "tube graphics" that a 2600 version of Tempest would display. Am I wrong?

 

Sure, it would be BUTT UGLY and severly limited , but what the heck, it's the 2600. What do you expect? That doesn't mean that a Tempest would be impossible. Just from the Proto alone, you could definitely see possibilities that would make a 2600 Tempest just as good if not better than several of the other existing 2600 arcade ports.

[ubersaurus]

That's it, I'm at the PhillyClassic. I've wanted to see one of these since I read about it nigh on 8 years ago.

[Jess Ragan]

I would have used the flat trapezoidal shape if I had translated the game to the 2600. If it worked for Activision's Beamrider, it could have worked for Tempest as well.

It's really a shame about the Tempest prototype, though. It seems to have most of the enemies from the arcade game, but the gameplay is hideously imprecise and frustrating. I could have put up with the pantyshot background if the gameplay had been a lot smoother and more fair, rather than pelting you with choppily moving bullets. But since the gameplay is awful too, me thinks I'll stick with Solaris.

 

JR

[Atari-Jess]

This talk about arcade conversions reminds me when I first seen donkey kong for 2600, I thought that there were 2 versions the coleco version and the atari version as the coleco version came with the coleco clone, I had figured that perhaps the Atari version was better. then i seen pacman. man was i upset. all this had me reminded from playing that damn tempest proto a month or so ago. either way im not sure id like to really see a 2600 tempest

[mos6507]

A game that I never thought was possible on the 2600 was Star Wars: The Arcade Game, but it's a really excellent port. Barely any playfield is used in that game.

 

That doesn't mean Tempest can be done, since the lines that have to be drawn aren't as simple as the 3d perspective lines of the trench et. al. (lines like those can be done with HMOVE on the missiles and ball) in SW:TAG, but I think that with flicker, it might have been possible to do a subset of the tempest tube backgrounds, maybe also if the sprites were interlaced so you had a dotted-line effect.

 

But it would have probably taken a lot more ROM space. 16K at lest.