Discussion : Atari 2600 multiplayer games

Started by davyk, March 27, 2021, 10:58:22 AM

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davyk

I'm linking my latest article to this thread.

https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/atari-2600-on-the-couch-10-atari-2600-games-for-same-room-multiplayer/

Any comments, questions, suggestions welcome here.  There are other 2600 games such as Sky Diver, Video Olympics and some modes in Breakout that have 2 player simultaneous modes. Any others?


onthinice

Great article on Atari 2600 multiplayer games. It has been a long time since I played a 2600 multiplayer game. I do remember   most Mattel sports games and Armor Ambush were better with a friend. Being Star Wars fans my friends and I enjoyed playing Star Wars Jedi Arena together.

TrekMD

Warlords allows for 4 players at the same time, as does Medievel Mayhem, which is the hombrew version of the same game.

Going to the final frontier, gaming...


davyk


davyk

Quote from: onthinice on March 28, 2021, 19:22:05 PM
Great article on Atari 2600 multiplayer games. It has been a long time since I played a 2600 multiplayer game. I do remember   most Mattel sports games and Armor Ambush were better with a friend. Being Star Wars fans my friends and I enjoyed playing Star Wars Jedi Arena together.

That Jedi Arena game has paddle control doesn't it? Never played it. Was always intrigued by it though.

I think there's another paddle game that has 3 player support. One player had a joystick and the other 2 had paddles. It had 1, 2 and 3 player modes..it was a Parker Bros game called GI Joe: Cobra Strike. Never played it either but it sounds interesting too.

poundlander

Good overview of multiplayer.  I have a QuadTari for development and this helps get a feel for what's possible :)
Please check out my party favors at https://theloon.itch.io/
Downloadable Atari 2600 games such as Upp Plus Plus, Nitebear on Sleepystreet, Stranglehand and more!

davyk

Nice!

I wanted to show as many different gameplay styles as possible in the article.  4 player joystick games opens up a pile of possibilities. 

Not without its challenges though since the console itself only supports 2 player sprites and 2 missile sprites. But I guess they can be multiplexed? Or if players don't inhabit the same scanline then you could manage it without having to do that. I'm guessing that's how Warlords does it since the player shields are limited in where they can be on screen. That explains why there is no flicker on Warlords even though there are 4 players on screen at once.

zapiy

Great article mate, unlike many here the A2600 has never been a major goto console in my gaming timeline, however it was a very interesting read.

Maybe I need to venture onto the system more.

Own: Jaguar, Lynx, Dreamcast, Saturn, MegaDrive, MegaCD, 32X, GameGear, PS3, PS, PSP, Wii, GameCube, N64, DS, GBA, GBC, GBP, GB,  Xbox, 3DO, CDi,  WonderSwan, WonderSwan Colour NGPC

davyk

It's easy to check out. The emulator called Stella is quite simply superb. If you were able to get a set of paddle controllers that work with a PC and Stella then you could recreate the entire experience and not bother with the orginal hardware. It really is that good - you can even recreate fuzzy CRT images etc.

TrekMD


Going to the final frontier, gaming...