Flashback 2 Reviews

[Jacob Rose]

- Say something about the difficulty buttons.  I can't tell if they're pressed or not, and I sure don't recall what they were used for in most games.

 

They should click and set in or out (b or a). I just don't think the ammount (distance) it remains locked in is that much.

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Sounds like a job for our good friend the LED. Hmm, but semiotically, does a lit "difficulty" button mean it's more or less difficult?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Sounds like a job for our good friend the LED. Hmm, but semiotically, does a lit "difficulty" button mean it's more or less difficult?

Depends on the color of the LED.

 

Green: lit = less difficulty

Red: lit = more difficulty

[Rob Mitchell]

Aww, crap. Looks like the "vector" version of Lunar Lander on the box was just a tease.

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Bummer. Impressive number of characters in the display at the top of the screen, though.

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I thought it was all about the gameplay! Actually I've been waiting for this game for 28 years (ever since I saw the disappointing B side of Starship!) !

 

So who programmed this jewel??

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Lord Helmet]

My short review is posted here:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...ic=73788&st=100

 

I guess I put it in the wrong thread initially

[Nall3k]

Thanks for the links.

[ZylonBane]

Sounds like a job for our good friend the LED. Hmm, but semiotically, does a lit "difficulty" button mean it's more or less difficult?

More difficult. Since they're clearly labeled "DIFFICULTY", it's natural to think of a lit LED as indicating that difficultness has been activated.

[Rob Mitchell]

I'm planning to buy one .. after the sound glitch is fixed .. and will hack as hack allows.

 

But my question is: Can the games be dumped? I would like to put Caverns of Mars and Lunar Lander on my Cuttle Cart2!

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Lord Helmet]

Just FYI for the people that are worried about the sound issue. I picked up a second one to ship to another AtariAge member that wanted one with the sound bug. I tested it for him to be sure it was buggy, which it was, so I would say that right now if you buy one, you will most likely get one with the bug.

 

Has anyone gotten one without the sound bug yet?

[Lord Thag]

I just bought one. Two thumbs up in my book. There are a few (minor) design issues that could be improved, but this thing is a HELL of a deal for $30. The sticks are wonderful, there's a ton of new/prototype games you can't get anywhere else, and it's a sexy looking little item to boot.

 

Now make us a FB 3.0 with a cart slot and $10 add on games on cart, and we'll be well on our way to retro nirvana!

[ZylonBane]

Local Wal-Mart finally got them in, so picked up one tonight (there were only 4 left!). Long story short, it's good all around, except--

 

Most of the new games are, to be blunt, bad. The programming is horrible. Yars' Return, Asteroids Deluxe, Space Duel, Caverns of Mars, and Lunar Lander all suffer from horrible flicker and jumping displays, and IIRC, not a single one of them can be started by pressing the joystick button. Space Duel is especially atrocious, with the screen constantly jumping up/down and objects jumping left/right. On Lunar Lander and Caverns of Mars, the entire playfield flickers constantly, for no apparent reason. I've played alpha binaries off the Stella list that were more solidly coded than this trash. It's like the last decade of advances in 2600 programming never happened.

 

By all means get the Flashback 2, but DON'T get it for the new stuff.

[Rob Mitchell]

I've played alpha binaries off the Stella list that were more solidly coded than this trash. It's like the last decade of advances in 2600 programming never happened.

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Yikes! Well those alpha binaries are what I want for my Cuttle Cart2!

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Feralstorm]

Sounds like maybe someone needs to turn Nukey Shay loose on the source code of some/all of those new games.

 

Haven't gotten a FB2 yet, but I'm guessing short schedules are to blame for any shortfalls. Atari needs to start the coders going a few extra months in advance perhaps.

[atwwong]

I haven't been able to try out the FB2 yet, but I have some 20/20 hindsight suggestions from all the comments/reviews that I have been reading. I know the project has been a lot of work and effort for Curt and the others, and I'm sure it is a great product. I still can't wait to get my hands on a few of them!

 

IMHO more production QA could have been done. For example, immediate testing of the very first batch of production units (read the first ten) and comparing how the binaries run on the FB2 to an original VCS 2600. Then some QA teams could have worked together to fix any problems; delay the release a month or so and get out a 100% Atari-on-a-chip with 100% legacy support without original VCS 2600 joysticks falling out of the FB2, legacy paddles fitting, etc. Yes, picky, picky, but I can dream. And again I'm basing this on what I've been reading.

 

For the VSYNC or screen rolling problems, a possible solution would be similar to the problems I initially had with Haunted Adventure. Nukey helped me solve the rolling by removing several lines from the bottom of the playfield and tweaking the scanlines a bit.

 

I don't know how feasible this would be (read cost in time and $ to Atari) to make changes to the unit design and games now, but the Quadrun sound problem was apparently fixed for future units. Maybe there will be a FB2.5 or maybe for the FB3? Anyways, just my two cents.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Yikes!  Well those alpha binaries are what I want for my Cuttle Cart2!

Really? Well, I could create an extra flickery version of Thrust just for you.

 

IMO there is no excuse for unnecessary flicker and screen jumping during the game. Well, except time and money for a paid job.

[DEBRO]

Hi there,

 

This pretty much sums up how I feel too. I was fortunate enough to get a FB2 while I was on vacation so I could see what every one was talking about.

 

I haven't been able to try out the FB2 yet, but I have some 20/20 hindsight suggestions from all the comments/reviews that I have been reading.  I know the project has been a lot of work and effort for Curt and the others, and I'm sure it is a great product.  I still can't wait to get my hands on a few of them! 

I agree. I think it's a great product and great that Atari would even consider doing something like this. Curt I want to thank you and your team for all your hard work. I know you all were pushed to the limit.

 

IMHO more production QA could have been done.  For example, immediate testing of the very first batch of production units (read the first ten) and comparing how the binaries run on the FB2 to an original VCS 2600.  Then some QA teams could have worked together to fix any problems; delay the release a month or so and get out a 100% Atari-on-a-chip with 100% legacy support without original VCS 2600 joysticks falling out of the FB2, legacy paddles fitting, etc.  Yes, picky, picky, but I can dream.  And again I'm basing this on what I've been reading.

This is what I'd say to anyone that may get into a venture like this. Make it known that you want to see your work on the unit before production. I've worked with Activision and Atari and wish I would had done this.

 

After getting the AARE for the PC I saw that my game wasn't represented correct. In the version they had I had NTSC and PAL support via the difficulty switch. The PC version starts up with PAL support so the colors are off. Didn't seem like that big of a deal right? Just flip the difficulty switch for NTSC. Well, doing that changed the colors but it made the game unplayable. The bottom half of the screen was cut off because they designed the emulator to fit the PAL version in the screen

 

I played Atari Climber on the FB2 and noticed some little quirks too. There are no HMOVE lines on the left side of the screen so it looks like the girders don't start all the way to the left. I blanked the left side of the screen like Activision did with their games. I also noticed that there may be a time when the ball is moved into an unreachable area. It can fall in the zone that was suppose to be blacked out by the HMOVE lines. The climber can't move in this area because I restricted him not too. Also when this happens the ball's size changes to 4x it's original size. I'm going through my code trying to find how this could happen but I haven't found it yet.

 

If I had put in the agreement that I wanted to test the game before the final production run then these could have been caught. I blame no one but me for this. I don't think anyone could have QA this to find these things like me. For that...I'm sorry.

 

Most of the new games are, to be blunt, bad. The programming is horrible.

I must admit when I played these games for the first time I was a bit disappointed. After I sent my rant to a couple of friends they helped me cool down and see another side to this. (You know who you are...thank you)

 

These games were written by people who don't share the same passion for the VCS that we do. To them it may have been just another job. To Curt's credit, he approached the homebrew community first about doing these games. He knew that they would take the time and care to do these games right. When no one jumped and the chance then the jobs were outsourced.

 

I'd still like to state that I like the unit and thank you Curt for all your work. It was great working with you. Hopefully we can do it again.

[Lord Helmet]

The VSYNC stuff is really evident on Asteroids Deluxe (a game I was really looking forward to). The screen is so jumpy it makes me think that the game wasn't even tested.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

After getting the AARE for the PC I saw that my game wasn't represented correct.

Ouch, that must be pretty disappointing. I would have been terribly () annoyed if someone at "Atari" had mutilated my game like this. Especially because quality was one of my major concerns and the main reason why the deal failed.

 

Now I start to think, maybe it's better, that Thrust didn't make it.

 

IMO its not your fault, Dennis. At least the more obvious bugs should have been caught by QA. FB 2.1 maybe?

[Songbird]

These games were written by people who don't share the same passion for the VCS that we do. To them it may have been just another job. To Curt's credit, he approached the homebrew community first about doing these games. He knew that they would take the time and care to do these games right. When no one jumped and the chance then the jobs were outsourced.

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Well, now I'm curious why the homebrewers passed on this opportunity...

 

Regardless, screens should not be jumpy in ANY of the final games. Flicker I can tolerate, but games should not roll or otherwise have an unstable display. If they did, they should have been dropped in favor of a classic game which would not have those problems.

 

I understand Curt's desire to have "something old, something new" on this unit to appeal to all kinds of Atari fans, past and present, and my hat is off to him and anyone who helped make this awesome hardware a reality. But it does bother me that some of these new hacks/homebrews have VSYNC problems when we could have had more "classic" ROMs which would have worked with zero problems.

 

I'm still getting one, by the way... just hoping that FB3 will remedy/avoid these kinds of problems.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Well, now I'm curious why the homebrewers passed on this opportunity...

The reasons for me: Too little money (and everything belongs to "Atari") for too much work in too little time.

 

I probably could have done something like what is on FB2 now, but the quality would have suffered too much. And it wouldn't have been fun to work in such a close schedule. Even if "Atari" would have offered way more money.

[Songbird]

Well, now I'm curious why the homebrewers passed on this opportunity...

The reasons for me: Too little money (and everything belongs to "Atari") for too much work in too little time.

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That's what I was guessing... and I can understand that a developer would not want to give up future rights to an original game he created unless a lot of money was offered. But what's surprising is that no one wanted to work on hacks of existing games, which would hopefully be a lot less work and you don't have rights to the original game anyway, so nothing lost there.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

But what's surprising is that no one wanted to work on hacks of existing games, which would hopefully be a lot less work and you don't have rights to the original game anyway, so nothing lost there.

Actually I worked on a hack, but it was canceled due to license problems.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

 

Well, now I'm curious why the homebrewers passed on this opportunity...

 

Can't speak for the others, but with the proposed deadlines I saw no chance to deliver a quality game meeting *my standards*, especially considering that I have a regular full-time job and only could've worked on it in my spare-time. If I had been given 5-6 months, I could've done a proper Lunar Lander or Caverns of Mars conversion, no problem.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[DEBRO]

Can't speak for the others, but with the proposed deadlines I saw no chance to deliver a quality game meeting *my standards*, especially considering that I have a regular full-time job and only could've worked on it in my spare-time. If I had been given 5-6 moths, I could've done a proper Lunar Lander or Caverns of Mars conversion, no problem.

Well you spoke for me This is why I passed on CoM. That's the one I really wanted to do.

[ZylonBane]

I firmly believe that the Thrust core could have done an excellent job of Caverns of Mars.

[keilbaca]

The VSYNC stuff is really evident on Asteroids Deluxe (a game I was really looking forward to). The screen is so jumpy it makes me think that the game wasn't even tested.

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I was really looking forward to that... oh well I'll try it out tomorrow.

 

Hopefully it won't happen on my flatscreen 21" tv, it plays pal games fine, and it plays the intro to nukey's pac-man 8k fine as well. SOOO, hopefully it won't jump.