Topic: Classic Gaming

[Xessive]

I just got back into classic gaming, mainly because I'm waiting for a few titles to come out. Emulated games are as classic as you can get! Anyway I went back to good ol' TurboGrafx-16! Been playing Shinobi (1987), and a few others. One of my favourite games of the time was Vigilante. I haven't touched this game in 10 years! And I totally forgot about this first scene!



Seeing it again just made me crack up! Ah, the simplicity and audacity of classic games

[MysterD]

Double post!

[scottws]

Actually, it was a triple post.  I found another one on the deleted topics board.

[Xessive]

My apologies.. For some reason whenever I have an image in the post it loads for a while, then it asks me to save an "index.html" file. I cancelled and clicked post again. That's probably why it doubled the post.. I logged back in and deleted the duplicate post.

[MysterD]

Actually, it was a triple post.  I found another one on the deleted topics board.

Wo0t!!! A Triple play -- and it's not baseball!
Cool!!

--MyD

[TheOtherBelmont]

Hahaha I remember that part in Vigilante, along the same lines as Bad Dudes opening on NES "Ninjas have kidnapped the president, are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"  I still like to play some ROMs here and there, I think the last one I fired up was Castlevania IV.

[poomcgoo]

I actually do rememer the Turbo Grafix 16.  I must have been like 8 or something, because I'm only 19 now and that thing's pretty fuckin' old.  I remember Bonk's Revenge -- I think that's the game that got me into videogames.  Keith Courage anyone?

[Quemaqua]

Portable SNES emulation on the PSP is where it's at, baby.

And yes, Bonk's was cool, as was Keith Courage.  I fucking loved that game.  My friend and I used to play 2-player Cadash religiously, too.  The TG16 version was way better than the Genesis version.  Oh, and how about the portable one that could play the full games?  That was boss.

[Ghandi]

You just don't see this kind of dialogue in games anymore. It's a shame. Sometimes instead of a complicated story, I just want to rescue Madonna from some damn skinheads.

[Cobra951]

Hey, you want classic gaming?  Play my game on an Atari 800 emulator.  Que, on the PSP, that means this guy.  Works really well too.  X is fire, move with the analog stick.  (Don't know why the D-pad won't work out of the box, but I'll figure that out eventually.)  Scrolling is ugly, but I think that's the notoriously slow reflesh on the PSP screen.  It's 60 fps all the way on NTSC.  I was a real stickler for that when I programmed the game.  I was able to get 18 of the little monsters running around at once (plus your character) before the screen started to flicker and stutter.  All 6502 assembly code.  Those were the good old days of gaming, and game programming.  One guy could do it all.  No need for scads of people and budgets the size of a small country's GDP.



Edit: My first real game system was the Atari VCS.  I have very fond memories of that.  I think Adventure was my favorite of all time.  It was sort of a proof of concept, which has evolved into things like TES: Oblivion over the decades.

[Quemaqua]

Did you say you programmed a game?  If I read that right, we need some details!  And that's awesome, thanks for posting it!

[nickclone]

The lack of Nin news leaves me unimpressed.

[TheOtherBelmont]

The lack of Nin news leaves me unimpressed.

Nin as in Nintendo?  This post confuses me.

[MysterD]

Nin as in Nintendo?  This post confuses me.

I doubt "Nin" means "Nine Inch Nails", in this case.

[Cobra951]

Did you say you programmed a game?  If I read that right, we need some details!  And that's awesome, thanks for posting it!

Yeah, 1983.  I programmed a couple of lesser things earlier in BASIC, including a Cribbage game which got me an Atari Star award from the APX (Atari Program Exchange).  That meant $3000 worth of their hardware and software, which I used to go from the membrane-keyboard 400 with a cassette drive to an 800 with a floppy disk, printer, and programming tools.  That's when I learned 6502 assembler.  The BASIC interpreter on the Atari computer was horrible.  The only way to get good performance out of the 8-bit 1.79-MHz system was to program in machine language.  It had a lot of graphics helper chips for the time, and the idea was to exploit them as far as possible.  In my game, I used 8 redefined character sets to animate everything from one position to the next.  The only exception to this is the player's character, which is made up of 2 overlapping sprites.  That gives you 3 colors (plus transparency).  The bullet is another sprite, and the bad guy flying off the screen is the last of 4 sprites available.  This approach allowed me to realize my goal of perfectly fluid motion, 60 Hz full-time, with lots of 2D action onscreen.

What you see there may look primitive, but if you look at the Pac-Man game that comes with that emulator, you'll see how much more graphically advanced my effort was than the norm for comparable commercial releases back then.  That was the labor of love.  I really wanted this to make a big splash.  A guy from ANTIC magazine was all praise about it, and that's where the game was showcased and sold for a while.  But as my luck usually goes, it was not meant to be.  1983 is when the bottom fell out of the videogame market.  It wasn't until a couple of years later that an unknown playing-card company called Nintendo revived it.  By then I had a "real" programming job, which I got as a result of my strength with 6502 assembler.  So it definitely was not a waste.   (I even got some royalties on the game, but not much.)

I figured out how to use the D-pad in the emulator, but it doesn't work right with the game.  I'm not sure what they're doing, because 4 directional inputs should be perfect.  (The arrows work just fine for it on the emulator for the PC.)  My movement logic is designed to keep you from getting stuck at or near intersections in the mazes.  As long as there is at least one directional component not straight into a wall, you should be moving in the most logical direction.  This has always worked flawlessly, so I just don't get it.  If you try this stuff, just use the default analog stick + X button.  (X will also start the game from the title screen.)

[Quemaqua]

Awesome.  I'm all over this soon as I get a spare moment.  Actually, Pyro is still passed out on the couch, so in theory I could probably get some time in now...

[Cobra951]

Well, if you do, beware that the philosophy is get the best score possible before you die.  I've actually completed the 3-level game, but it is very difficult even on the system (and with the controller) it was designed for.  (I tested the whole layout during development with a build which ignored collision detection on my character.)

You can shoot the baddies, but the idea is to get through with a minimum of shooting.  Each time you shoot one, you take damage yourself.  Darts are limited in quantity, and any you have leftover at the end of each level will leave you a hefty bonus in points.  Your health decreases gradually, so time is of the essence. The rings restore some.

A word about the "AI".  Monsters never turn 180 degrees in one move.  If they don't see you, they randomly choose a path at intersections (except back the way they came).  They see you by sending out a "feeler" in a straight line ahead of them once every full move.  (Every position between them and the next wall is scanned for your character's position.)  If they see you, they will stick to your tail.  Also, you drop a trail of invisible characters.  Call it a scent which they pick up on.  But the trail isn't directional, so if they pick it up in the middle somewhere, there's a 50% chanve they'll follow it in the wrong direction.  In other words, they don't cheat.  If they can't see you or smell you, they won't know where you are.  They also do not hunt with any group strategy.  They move at exactly the same speed you do.

Hardware collision detection determines when you've been hit.  One hit knocks off a quarter of your health ("strength"), and sends you back to the starting spot.  You can go through some barriers which stop the baddies.  You'll discover those soon enough.  On the 2nd and 3rd levels, there are horizontal teleporters, which they can't use either.  They also can't go through coins or rings, so you can use that to your advantage.

Edit:  If anyone cares, looks like the Atari800Win emulator is still alive here.  The zip file and xf25.zip will do.  I tried using the sourceforge Atari800 release, but that's not nearly as easy to get going as Atari800Win.

Edit 2:  I'm amazed that I found some stuff out there on my old relic.

From: Video61@webtv.net (Lance Ringquist)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: lord of the orb on cartridge
Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 17:33:19 -0500 (CDT)
Message-ID: <7154-39207B2F-44@storefull-172.iap.bryant.webtv.net>

We have just received a working prototype of the classic antic game, Lord of
the Orb. This awesome game will be availible in about 1-2 weeks,we have tested
the cartridge on a 800XL/XE Game Machine, and an 130XE. I have not had time to
test it yet on a 16k machine,or 48k machine. We will post the memory
requirements as soon as possible.
Thanks,
Lance

Video 61 & Atari Sales
22735 Congo ST NE
Stacy MN 55079

Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 20:09:57 -0500 (CDT)

I have tested this on a 400, no dice (but I also tested this on a 48k 800, and
it works just fine, I made it to the second level) Thats good for me! and it
did not crash, the second level works fine, so it should be fine on any 48k
machine.
Thanks,
Lance
_____________________________________________

From: Video61@webtv.net (Lance Ringquist)
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 11:54:06 -0500 (CDT)

Lord of the Orb is done and ready to go. It requires a 48k machine.its boxed
with doc's. To order you can call 651-462-2500, or go to our web site at,
www.atarisales.com. Just click on the ordering page for mail order
instructions.
Thanks.
Lance

http://space.atari.org/news0006.html

I also found a page, updated on June of this year, which still lists it for sale.  Ha!  I've been out of this loop for a very long time.  I never even thought of using the internet to search for activity on this, since the work predates it (in a useful form) by at least a dozen years.  [Ed on ed: Actually, that's not true.  The binary of the game came from the internet, and I've had that for a while.  (Somebody slapped that dumb intro screen on it.)  I can't read my own Atari disks without digging up generation-old hardware, hoping it still works, and then finding a way to transfer the data to a PC.  But I wasn't looking for recent or current activity on this, not expecting any at all.]

And I'm on this list.

Hey!  It's only $14.50 on disk here.  Such a bargain.   

[Quemaqua]

My God!  We know your name now!   

Seriously, that's great though.  I can't believe you released that game a year after I was born.  Oh, and don't let that make you feel old.  You're still younger than my parents.  You see, I was just born late.  I still had time to screw with the 800 here and there.  And because of that, I'm totally going to see if I can buy a copy of Lord of the Orb.  Because you know, I don't support piracy.     Plus they have Atari Lynx games!  I saved up so hard for one of those things but never did get enough cash to buy one.

[Cobra951]

It's not piracy if I give out my own game. 

I keep finding stuff.  Someone mapped the whole game.  That link came from this page, which is the most informative I've found yet (not much).  Those pix were taken from a TV or video-capture stuff.  I can tell by the color artifacting on the 40-character lines.  Some games used that artifacting to create psudo-color graphics on the 40-character display mode.

I found a better version of the game's binary here.  It doesn't have the tacked-on intro screen, and I'm hoping it doesn't have the 2 corrupted 8-bit characters on the big door at the bottom of Level 3.  There's the normal version, and what they call a cheat version, which I assume is the alternate build I talked about before (with no collision detection on the player character).  I haven't tried that one yet.

Heh.  I'm dumbfounded by all this.  It's like a time warp for me.

[Quemaqua]

Cobra, this game is pure gold.  I'm seriously addicted.  I've been playing it for like 2 hours, haha.  I got so close to beating the first level, but I haven't quite made it yet.  But yes, it's awesome and I love it.  I'm totally sticking this one on my PSP.

[Xessive]

Resurrected!!

Just thought this is the most appropriate thread for this tidbit from SEGA:

SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection

Re-live old memories and create new ones with this exceptional all-in-one package of over 40 classic titles from the golden era of the SEGA MEGA DRIVE! The most complete collection to date contains a huge range of top-quality, iconic moments in gaming history. You can now experience these fantastic single and multi-player titles in enhanced HD graphics for ultimate involvement!

FEATURES:

Exclusive Unlockable Content: Unlock arcade games and interviews with the original game developers as you earn Achievements on the Xbox 360® and Trophies on the PLAYSTATION®3.

Hi-definition Upgrade: All titles included in the collection have been converted to vivid hi-def (720p) visuals to truly enhance that classic 2D experience!

Multi-player Option: Two players can now enjoy select titles together on the same console at home.

The Most Comprehensive Collection of Classic SEGA Titles:
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Alien Storm
Altered Beast
Beyond Oasis
Bonanza Bros.
Columns
Comix Zone
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head
Dr. Robotnik's MBM
Dynamite Headdy
Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco II: The Tides of Time
E-SWAT
Fatal Labyrinth
Flicky
Gain Ground
Golden Axe I
Golden Axe II
Golden Axe III
Kid Chameleon
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
Ristar
Shining in the Darkness
Shining Force
Shining Force 2
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic and Knuckles
Sonic Spinball
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage 2
Streets of Rage 3
Super Thunder Blade
Vectorman
Vectorman 2

My favourite Shinobi game, Streets of Rage, Phatasy Star, and Shining Force!! All in one pack? In HD? Sounds pretty awesome. I wish they had HD video to show it off on the site though.

[Cobra951]

I ran across this thread the other day while searching for something.  It's been over 2 years already.  Damn.

The only thing that makes me wonder is the claim of 720p graphics.  I don't believe it.  What they're most likely doing is using an interpolating filter, perhaps in combination with good stretch filtering.  You won't get monster jaggies, but the source resolution won't be changed.  Hopefully, they're not stretching 4:3 material to 16:9 because I hate that with a passion.  Its liberal abuse on TV has hypersensitized me to it. 

Personally, I don't understand paying for these games all over again, when they are available right now on the PC.  Steve Snake's Kega Fusion emulator handles Genesis/MD and 32X, Master System, GG, and Sega CD.  It allows interpolating-filter plugins like 2xSAI, and I'm almost sure you can get the same or better graphics results this collection will allow. 

Then again, it may be perfect for PS3, for younger players who may be curious, or the rest of us who may want the convenience and an excuse (trophies/achievements) to play through some of these again.  Great list.  Even paring it down to stuff I would definitely want, I still come up with this:

Beyond Oasis
Columns
Comix Zone
Decap Attack starring Chuck D. Head
Dr. Robotnik's MBM
Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco II: The Tides of Time
Kid Chameleon
Phantasy Star II
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium
Ristar
Shining in the Darkness
Shining Force
Shining Force 2
Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master
Sonic 3D Blast
Sonic and Knuckles
Sonic Spinball
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Streets of Rage
Streets of Rage 2
Streets of Rage 3
Vectorman
Vectorman 2

But where's Revenge of Shinobi?

[Xessive]

That's what I was thinking about the 720p. I'm betting it is just a filter.

I'm using Fusion right now and everything plays and looks pretty sweet.

It's a shame that they only brought 1 Shinobi game.. I'm glad it's my favourite one but it would've been great to have Revenge of Shinobi.

Still, it does look like a sweet list.

[K-man]

Hey, you want classic gaming?  Play my game on an Atari 800 emulator.  Que, on the PSP, that means this guy.  Works really well too.  X is fire, move with the analog stick.  (Don't know why the D-pad won't work out of the box, but I'll figure that out eventually.)  Scrolling is ugly, but I think that's the notoriously slow reflesh on the PSP screen.  It's 60 fps all the way on NTSC.  I was a real stickler for that when I programmed the game.  I was able to get 18 of the little monsters running around at once (plus your character) before the screen started to flicker and stutter.  All 6502 assembly code.  Those were the good old days of gaming, and game programming.  One guy could do it all.  No need for scads of people and budgets the size of a small country's GDP.



Edit: My first real game system was the Atari VCS.  I have very fond memories of that.  I think Adventure was my favorite of all time.  It was sort of a proof of concept, which has evolved into things like TES: Oblivion over the decades.

Ohhh man my first experience with computers/video games was an Atari 800 XL that my mom and dad got for sitting through a resort presentation when I was 4.  It was just the basic computer (keyboard) with no disk drive or anything.  I had about 8 games for it I think.  Centipede, Pac Man, some spinnaker word games title, joust, star raiders, and a couple others.  I miss that thing like crazy.  I wish my parents had never parted with it, but the O key popped off and we could never get it fixed.  I'd pay a decent sum of money today to have one in good condition with the games I had as a child.

[Cobra951]

I still have my 800 and peripherals, somewhere.  The software too, including all those games.  It all still works, as far as I know.  I originally bought an Atari 400 with a whopping 8 KB of RAM.  Star Raiders is what sold me on it.  It was the Mario Galaxy of its day.  Haha!

The best emulator I think is Atari 800 Win Plus.  You'd probably need to find BIOS ROMs and such, but that's not hard.

Edit:  Oh, they have a zip there with the OS and BASIC ROMs.  So it's even easier.

[scottws]

My mom sold my old Colecovision and all the games with it for $10 at a garage sale.  I have never forgiven her.  To be fair though, both joypads were in pretty rough shape.

[Cobra951]

I never had a Colecovision.  At one time I wanted an Intellivision.  It was clearly superior to the competition, technically anyway.  I don't think it ever got the kind of games it needed for good success.  I can't tell now if it went down the tubes with everyone else around '83, or if it just didn't get enough market support even before the crash.  I skipped both these systems entirely.

According to Wikipedia, the Intellivision sold over 3 million systems and got 125 games.  So it was more than a flash in the pan.  16-bit CPU, in a game console designed in '78.  The clock was under 1 MHz, but it's still impressive.

[Quemaqua]

I miss my Vectrex.  I still have no idea what happened to it.  The fact that I don't have it anymore depresses me.

[idolminds]

I know a place that has a Vextrex for sale. If I were a richer man I'd probably buy it.

I had a Magnavox Odyssey 2 that I bought at a garage sale for $10 with a stack of games. Even had The Voice extra to do voice synth. Sadly, it was in the basement when it flooded and it got tossed.

[Quemaqua]

Man, I loved the Vectrex.  Damn it.  Another useless thing I don't need, but it would have been great for the game museum.

[gpw11]

I don't know if i've ever seen this thread before, but that was actually really interesting Cobra.  As for the Sega Compilation word is from SA that it's awesome.  They've finally gotten around to having enough games in these compilations to make the price worthwhile (for people who would want to buy them), rather than the 5 or so they used to ship with.  Personally, i wouldn't do it and i think it'd be a lot cooler if they had a Saturn or Dreamcast one, but i guess people are still willing to pay for nostalgia.

If, however, these compilations were to take on the format of something like Retro Game Challenge (or the Brain Age style challenges of the sequel), i might be all over them.

[Cobra951]

What a great idea.  The trick would be to save a virtual-machine state for where you want the challenge to begin in each old game, then somehow extract the scoring data when time's up in the challenge.  This should be very doable.

[Xessive]

Classic boss fight records! Well, for games with boss fights.

[Xessive]

I just checked out that Sega Ultimate Collection and I can confirm that the "HD" is basically just a visual smoothing filter, like 2xSAI or something.

I think I'm gonna pick it up. The biggest reason is likely because my brother and I are aching for a 2-player beat 'em up.. Heck any proper 2-player co-op game on the PS3 that doesn't involve aiming.