Arcade Quality?

[JB]

I have had a 5200 for about a week (getting ready for Adventure II!), and I do like the arcade port of QIX, but one problem with a lot of arcade ports is that the orientation of the screen is wrong, and the games stretch and squash the visuals to fit rather than displaying a smaller version with the right aspect ratio (but not filling all the space). Either the system doesn't have resolution to spare (which I'm not familiar enough with the 5200 to say) or the designers just didn't think it through. So games like Pac-Man and Pengo are squashed unpleasantly. But Centipede, Berzerk, Missile Command, Choplifter, etc - the games that were landscape to begin with - are fine, and so far, the ones I've played have been really good ports.

Yah. Attitude at the time was that you needed to fill the screen.

The option of a vertical status bar to compensate for aspect ratio wasn't technically feasable at the time, if I'm not mistaken.

 

 

Qix was a resolution issue though, I believe.

I seem to recall the arcade version as having a fairly high resolution for the time.

[simbalion]

I have had a 5200 for about a week (getting ready for Adventure II!), and I do like the arcade port of QIX, but one problem with a lot of arcade ports is that the orientation of the screen is wrong, and the games stretch and squash the visuals to fit rather than displaying a smaller version with the right aspect ratio (but not filling all the space). Either the system doesn't have resolution to spare (which I'm not familiar enough with the 5200 to say) or the designers just didn't think it through. So games like Pac-Man and Pengo are squashed unpleasantly. But Centipede, Berzerk, Missile Command, Choplifter, etc - the games that were landscape to begin with - are fine, and so far, the ones I've played have been really good ports.

Yah. Attitude at the time was that you needed to fill the screen.

The option of a vertical status bar to compensate for aspect ratio wasn't technically feasable at the time, if I'm not mistaken.

 

 

Qix was a resolution issue though, I believe.

I seem to recall the arcade version as having a fairly high resolution for the time.

987574[/snapback]

 

It seems like alot of the earlier arcade games used an "upright" positioned CRT. Especially Midway. Williams seems to be the earliest to use the landscape type with the horizontal monitor. Now I guess the prototype Super Pac-Man for the 5200 DOES have a correct screen ratio. Would have been cool if they had released that.