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Post by Sarge on Jan 2, 2019 0:14:56 GMT -5
Well, I find it somewhat odd that I'm making this thread, given my gaming tastes, but here we go! To ring in the new year, we're going to visit games from yesteryear. Not just "ten years" yesteryear, though. Oh, no, we're going back to the halcyon days before the Famicom. That means anything that is considered first- and second-generation is fair game. As long as it came out before the Japanese release of the Famicom (July 15, 1983), it's fair game. Atari 2600, Colecovision, Commodore 64, even crusty stuff like the Vectrex or Odyssey 2. Dive into some stuff that most of us never touch anymore! (Personally, I'd recommend giving the Intellivision a shot. Wish I'd never sold mine; there were some really neat games on there.) (Also, do we want to allow for games that came out on older systems than the Famicom, but released after that system? That seems fair, in my mind. It still has to be HRG-compliant, though, so no new homebrew projects.)
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Post by Sarge on Jan 2, 2019 0:46:39 GMT -5
I'll start off! I remember a cousin of mine had the Atari 2600 version of Kangaroo. It's a game that I really liked, but I never could quite get through it at the time. Well, all these years of gaming certainly helped, as I got through the first loop, and almost through the second. I tried another run that was going well, but something went really strange on my PC and started lagging my inputs. I absolutely took a couple of quick deaths because of it. Anyway, the successful run gave me a score of 12,600, which I'm sure isn't all that impressive, and I was trying to up that number on the second run before my ignominious death. As you can see from the screenshot, this was a Donkey Kong-like game, and it was a darn good one. It was one of the first titles from our friends at Sun Electronics Corporation, better known as Sunsoft. The level layouts can be pretty interesting, and unlike Mario, you have a permanent offensive maneuver in the form of your boxing gloves. Punch those monkeys! You'll also collect fruit for score, but you can also ring a bell that "upgrades" the fruit for more score. Unfortunately, you have to balance this with the score timer ticking at the bottom of the screen (in this case the 1800). I don't know if you die when it runs out, but you will steadily lose points. Still, killing a monkey nets 200 points, the fruits I believe go 100, 200, then 400, and I'm not sure if they upgrade again. Anyway, I still like this game a lot, despite its simplicity. I'd probably give it a 6/10. For the time, it was probably an 8 or 9. EDIT: Let's add the original to the list, shall we? Got through three and a half loops of Donkey Kong for 2600. While that sounds impressive, there are only two stages here: the original and the girder stage. The others are nowhere to be seen. It plays okay; it's quite obviously supposed to be Donkey Kong, but it really looks pretty blah. I mean, here ya go: That's okay, I suppose, but check out the climbing sprite! Climb that ladder, you ketchup blob, you! As a game, it doesn't quite have the variety of Kangaroo on the system, and since it's cut down so much, I'm going to say... 5/10. The core is still here, but outside of nostalgia, there isn't much reason to play this version.
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Post by toei on Jan 2, 2019 3:48:15 GMT -5
I plan to join in during my next few days off (around Jan. 6). I already know what I'm starting with.
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Post by chibby on Jan 2, 2019 6:13:28 GMT -5
You know, I do have a collection of Zork text adventures for the PC that I've only spent a minimal amount of time on. This month seems as good as any to spend hours typing "East. East. South. North. West. Look. North. Look. Take leaves."
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Post by Ex on Jan 2, 2019 9:14:40 GMT -5
Nice OP Sarge , thanks for making the thread. Your ketchup blob comment made me laugh. I plan to play some games for this event. Unfortunately my available free time to do so will be in the latter half of this month. My dayjob currently has me extremely busy working on a large project, but it should be over and done with halfway through this month. Afterwards my free time should increase dramatically, and I'll have time to experiment with this theme. I think this is a great idea for a Club Retro. This should prove to be an informative and unique experience. Here are some more advanced games that fit the theme (if any of these are post 1983 my apologizes Sarge ): Atari 2600Adventure Battlezone Crypts of Chaos Dragonstomper AKA ExcaliburSecret Quest Swordquest - EarthWorld Swordquest - FireWorld Swordquest - WaterWorld Dark Cavern Dark Chambers Dark Mage Fatal Run Mines of Minos Montezuma's Revenge Pitall II - Lost Caverns Solaris Venture Wizard of Wor Wizard Yar's RevengeAtari 5200Meebzork Quest for Quintana Roo Space Dungeon Star Trek - Strategic Operations Simulator Wizard of WorColecovisionAlcazar - The Forgotten Fortress Gateway to Apshai Quest for Quintana Roo Tutankham VentureIntellivisionAdventure Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Treasure of Tarmin Swords and Serpents Tower of Doom Utopia VentureMagnavox Odyssey 2Quest for the RingsSG-1000The Black Onyx The Castle
Sindbad Mystery
There are a lot of pre-1983 RPGs and dungeon crawlers on the Apple II as well.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 2, 2019 19:08:11 GMT -5
I was hoping to break 100,000, but this will do. I used to rock at the 2600 version of Defender, and this ended up being a pretty good run in and of itself. I got to wave 15 or 16, at which point saving your people is nearly impossible as UFOs jet upwards at a ridiculous rate, meaning you have to take on the planet ravaged by mutants (that's the official story), and clearing it restores things back to normal. Of course, depending on how far in you are, you might have to clear two or three waves for that to happen. I ended up settling on a different course of action than what I used to take back in the day. I'd hide out at the top of the screen a ton (you can go off and protect yourself, and also do some sort of reset position deal). Instead, I just mostly kept flying and pounding the attack button. It almost feels like firing makes your sprite disappear and harder (impossible?) to hit. Also, learning how to deal with enemies on your tail takes a bit of getting used to as well. Overall, a fine game. Simple, but effective. I think I'll give this a 6/10 for a modern take, but I felt that score-chasing urge arise that I haven't had in a while, so it has to be doing something right even now.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 2, 2019 19:15:15 GMT -5
Any of these available to play in a browser?
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Post by Sarge on Jan 2, 2019 19:41:48 GMT -5
Don't know, honestly. I never liked playing that way, but these would be the games to do it with. That being said, the complete ROM set is like 12 MB zipped, and Stella can either be installed or extracted to a directory.
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Post by toei on Jan 2, 2019 20:31:57 GMT -5
I'm going to try beating your Defender score, although I have no prior experience with the game. Then I have a challenge for everybody here. I just need to set a decent score in that game myself, first.
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Post by toei on Jan 3, 2019 13:15:59 GMT -5
I suck at Defender. That whole free-scrolling shooter thing destabilizes me. I'm probably gonna give it try later, but for now I mostly played some Pitfall. I started to wonder if there was a particular point to it after a while or if it was just one eternal level. Turns out you're supposed to gather 32 treasures within the 20 minute time limit. It's not possible if you just stay above, where the treasures usually (always?) are - sometimes you have to get down in the tunnels, because you pass 3 screens at a time. Or something. I don't think I have patience for that, but it's pretty playable, I gotta say. Are there any earlier side-scrolling platformers? You can see how some of the obstacles and jump patterns you find in later games were already present. Searching for the tunnels that are actually useful gets boring fast, though. I can see how I might have put some time in it as a child on summer vacation in 1982 (not that I was alive then), but probably not today.
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