The Atari XEGS

Started by TL, June 06, 2013, 20:57:12 PM

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TrekMD

Ah, Food Fight!  That's a fun game.  I have it on my 7800!

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TL

Quote from: "TrekMD"Ah, Food Fight!  That's a fun game.  I have it on my 7800!

Funny enough all those games I just posted are on the 7800 too!

TrekMD

Yes they are.  I do have them all too.  :) 

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MadCommodore

The problem was the XEGS was it was just an Atari 800XL (as is the Atari 65XE) in a swanky new case format, and the Atari 800XL is not much better than the Atari 800 from 1979 (it has a few more screen modes that are of bugger all use battling the 'all 16 colours on screen' ease of the rival CPC and C64 machines but it does have 256 instead of 128 colours).

Was never going to compete with even the best programmed C64 games most of the time (be it games like Salamander or Rocket Ranger).

Having said that it did have access to some wonderful games, like Rescue on Fractalus, Star Raiders 1 and 2 and Gyrus etc. The bundled games were probably the worst possible choices they could have made. Had they bundled Rescue on Fractalus and stuck it next to an NES with the usual type of tile based 2D 3rd party games it would have made the XEGS look superior to the NES.

However games like Popeye or Donkey Kong do highlight the low sophistication of available screen modes and the Atari version of sprites.

It's a cool machine though, and with the right games it would be just as enjoyable as an NES or SMS at the time. It is a victim of its time though, by the time the XE machines and XEGS console came out EU and US software houses had long since abandoned writing high quality (technically speaking) games and moved on. The Atari 8 bits are powerful but very awkward to program to a level that matched 3rd generation C64 and CPC titles pushing those rivals to the max.

onthinice

You make some very good points MadCommodore. I have wanted one but agree it is not much better then the older Atari computers.

zapiy

Agreed, for me I see no reason to add one to my collection other than the fact they look cool lol..

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

MadCommodore

Anything with a detachable keyboard looks awesome I think, I would buy one for the styling because unlike the disastrous C64 GS games console (which covered over the disk drive and cassette port and the internal keyboard connector still on the motherboard) it can still be used in the same way as an Atari 65XE.

Being honest the keyboard is quite poor being the same as on the XE computers, but I would love to modify one with a cart port on one of the sides, front or back (so you can put a monitor on top of it) and try and hack together an Atari 800XL keyboard into the external keyboard casing :)

To be fair if you compare Uridium on the NES with the unofficial Atari XE version called Oxygene, just depends how much time you are prepared to spend on the machine but it can be expanded nicely (I think you can still use an Atari touchpad with Technicolour Dream 256 colour paint package for example). Sadly in the EU console did very badly before the 16bit models were released and the US only had eyes for the NES at the time.

zapiy

Good point about the detachable keyboard pal. Do you own one?

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

TrekMD

It's been a while since something got posted here.  I found this video today by accident with 10 games that are listed as the best for the system.  Anyone with a XEGS want to comment?


Going to the final frontier, gaming...


TrekMD

Here's a video from the guys from Into the Vertical Blank that looks at some Atari 8bit Re-pro Prototype Carts: Tower Toppler, Super Pac-man, Berzerk, & Xenophobe.


Going to the final frontier, gaming...