The Atari 2600 VCS Thread

Started by TL, February 20, 2013, 20:48:48 PM

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TrekMD

That game demonstrates how "little" things changed for the 2600 from the time it launched to the time it ended its commercial life.  ;)

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


TL

I still have no idea how he did that game without extra hardware. I love that review but the video used in it doesn't show the best bits of the game well enough like the tunnel sequence with the laser gates, the 3D Defender like planet missions and 3D Galaxians style shoot outs. I believe it is one of the very few 32k 2600 games released but there are no extra chips or on cart RAM or anything.

Rogue Trooper

Quote from: "The Laird"I still have no idea how he did that game without extra hardware. I love that review but the video used in it doesn't show the best bits of the game well enough like the tunnel sequence with the laser gates, the 3D Defender like planet missions and 3D Galaxians style shoot outs. I believe it is one of the very few 32k 2600 games released but there are no extra chips or on cart RAM or anything.

The speed alone blew me away and all that in 32K...strewth, you look at todays coders, wahhhh need more Ram, more storage space etc.

:-)

TL


TL

Anyone seen this?



A real wood Atari 2600 handheld!  :16:

More images and the story about it HERE!

onthinice


TrekMD

I'd never seen that particular one but I've seen others.  These are all so cool!

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


TL

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"
Quote from: "The Laird"My favourite game for the 2600 is still Solaris and I also think it's by far the most impressive commercial game for the machine. Star Raiders programmer Doug Neubauer did wonders with this game. I still remember the first time I showed the game to a Master System owning friend back in the day and he couldn't believe it was running on the 2600, he was utterly stunned by it. I also remember my dad coming in the room when I was playing it and saying what system is this on, it doesn't look like an Atari game!

Here is a great review of it from Classic Game Room:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY2LrUjSpN0

Despite this game coming up in 'conversation' over the years, i've (until now) never seen anything on it. Wasn't expecting that nuch to be honest, but jaw dropped once video started.

That looks fantastic (for an early 8 Bit era game), must have required some mind-boggling coding tricks to get that from aging hardware like the 2600.

Doug actually did a couple more games after this using the same engine, Super Football and Radar Lock. Both of them are very impressive too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxCXWt0GnhM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4RguF-vcg4

TrekMD

Super Football is definitely a remarkable game on the 2600.  Very impressive work and quite different from other football games on the 2600.  Radar Lock is another excellent 2600 game.

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


TL

It's amazing what they did with some of the later Atari 2600 game. Road Runner is another great achievement as it actually features multiple levels of parallax scrolling in the background!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1ipBZGrxiY

TrekMD

That game also has a very nice title screen!

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


TL

New Atari 2600 reviews from UK magazine The Games Machine:


Rogue Trooper

And ditto here.great to see Laird digging through the mag scans from TGM DVD disc i sent and putting the good stuff up for everyone.

Another big parcel en route tommorrow for you Laird, expect to see scans from the goodies up on here for everyone to have a look at in due course.

TL

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"And ditto here.great to see Laird digging through the mag scans from TGM DVD disc i sent and putting the good stuff up for everyone.

Another big parcel en route tommorrow for you Laird, expect to see scans from the goodies up on here for everyone to have a look at in due course.

I don't have a TGM DVD, just a few odd pages.

Rogue Trooper

Quote from: "The Laird"
Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"And ditto here.great to see Laird digging through the mag scans from TGM DVD disc i sent and putting the good stuff up for everyone.

Another big parcel en route tommorrow for you Laird, expect to see scans from the goodies up on here for everyone to have a look at in due course.

I don't have a TGM DVD, just a few odd pages.

Could have sworn i'd sent you TGM DVD in 1 of the many parcels gone your way, lol or did i just take pages from it and put on memory card i wonder?.hmnnn might have done as postage is a killer these days.

Do you want the DVD? if so, will have to be in future parcel, just sealed yours up, lol.


So far you've had following mag scan DVD's off me, right? (plus small rain forest worth of pages from various magazines)

ACE
Amiga format.
The One
C.U
Page 6
Computer Gamer
TV Gamer
Computer zone
Mean Machines:Sega
Sega saturn Magazine
C+VG
Mean Machines
Atari User
Raze
YS
Zzap 64
CU:Amiga

That'd just leave Zero and TGM for future