Atari 50 - Anniversary compilation that also provides historical context and commentary per game

[Unofficial Who]

Sprint 8 is another title that is of historical interest only and worth looking at as a precursor to Super Sprint which was a major influence on UK games for a short time in the mid 80's. It's one that's difficult to play outside of it's original cabinet which sported a steering wheel for each player that you could spin quickly to turn.

 

It's not the first in this series (Gran Trak came before that but didn't use microprocessors) but it's the earliest version you can play commercially.

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

Fire Truck is one of those 70's games I've only seen in magazines with it's unique two player setup. 

 

Playing it (in one player mode) reminded me a lot of playing games like The Last V8, racing through the streets to get to the fire. (Spoiler, I don't think you can ever get to the fire.)

 

Even though they lack colour the graphics are pretty bold for the late 70's. I bet many of these units drove their owners mad with the constant wailing of the siren.

 

 

Simple but worth a quick go. Just don't have any dogs in the room while you play it.

[Dimahoo]

Thats how a dedication should be done. Fantastic compilation and history.

I hope DE decide to do all the arcade companies eventually.

 

I can't think of a collection thats been better done. Fair play.

 

I've twatted' Jeff to see if he'll release a Llamasoft collection. The soundtrack alone would be worth the cash!

[Unofficial Who]

1 hour ago, Dimahoo said:

Thats how a dedication should be done. Fantastic compilation and history.

 

You know what I love about this? It reminds me of the two documentaries that were bundled in one of the Back to the Future DVD collections back in the day.

 

The first was your typical making of promo thing which is fairly light.

 

But the second done over two decades later were filled with stories about the more difficult parts of making something in the creative fields.

 

This is a lot like that with more than enough time having past for some people to be pretty frank. Just finished watching Al Acorn talking about his frustration with Ray Kassar and the cancelled (or at least not supported) Cosmos handheld holographic system. Really interesting stuff. (Also David Crane pontificating about how his department didn't partake in drugs while Garry Kitchen looks like he's suppressing laughter.)

[Calashnikov]

A wee tune for people in this thread, most will likely dig. It’s Phonte from Little Brother imitating RZA from Wu-Tang Clan rapping about old school Atari games:

 

 

[Camel]

That’s amazing. It’s not a great RZA impersonation though. Prince Paul does a brilliant RZA.

[Lyrical Donut]

1 hour ago, Calashnikov said:

A wee tune for people in this thread, most will likely dig. It’s Phonte from Little Brother imitating RZA from Wu-Tang Clan rapping about old school Atari games:

 

 

 

Also:

 

 

 

[Calashnikov]

59 minutes ago, Camel said:

That’s amazing. It’s not a great RZA impersonation though. Prince Paul does a brilliant RZA.

What you talking about man? He’s presenting the original genuine article. Fuck all that Dreamcast shit.

[Dimahoo]

Haha...i've got a videogame Hip Hop track...

 

 

As featured on my old Streetbeats mixes back in the day. I mixed it with the 4 hero track "Something in the way".

[yakumo]

This has probably been mentioned but no Atari ST games, disappointed.

[Dimahoo]

Did Atari themselves release any ST games? I thought Tramiel closed them all down? I guess Warner still hold the rights.

[yakumo]

7 minutes ago, Dimahoo said:

Did Atari themselves release any ST games? I thought Tramiel closed them all down? I guess Warner still hold the rights.

Think there was actually one game and it was like some Elite rip off and was terrible apparently. Can't remember the name but yeah good point why no Atari ST games.

[SeanR]

13 minutes ago, Dimahoo said:

Did Atari themselves release any ST games? I thought Tramiel closed them all down? I guess Warner still hold the rights.

they published a few, sure.

 

9 lives and a bunch of updated arcade titles spring to mins. Who or what were ARC? The developer, or the publisher?

 

and then tengen* did a bunch

 

and infogrammes bought Atari

*atari Japan, right?

 

[Dimahoo]

Oh okay. I didn't recall many Atari branded games om the ST. I knew about Tengen - but i recall Domark doing most of the publishing?

That was all the arcade conversion stuff right? I recall most of it wasn't that great.

[Dimahoo]

Interestingly i see Digital Eclipse are based in Emeryville. Didn't the original VCS carts show Atari or Warner as being located there as well?

I'm sure i remember seeing Emeryville on the old 1st gen cart instructions - or theres some connection?

 

When i was a kid it seemed like a really weird place to call a city for what i thought was such a huge company.

[Gregory Wolfe]

28 minutes ago, Dimahoo said:

Interestingly i see Digital Eclipse are based in Emeryville. Didn't the original VCS carts show Atari or Warner as being located there as well?

I'm sure i remember seeing Emeryville on the old 1st gen cart instructions - or theres some connection?

 

When i was a kid it seemed like a really weird place to call a city for what i thought was such a huge company.

 

I seem to recall Sunnyvale, California appearing in Atari VCS literature.

[Dimahoo]

2 hours ago, Gregory Wolfe said:

 

I seem to recall Sunnyvale, California appearing in Atari VCS literature.

 

Oh....good point.

[LaveDisco]

It's just occured to me that the Atari Consoles and the Atari ST were by the same company. In my head the former was american, and the latter british and they had nothing to do with each other.

[Unofficial Who]

3 hours ago, LaveDisco said:

It's just occured to me that the Atari Consoles and the Atari ST were by the same company. In my head the former was american, and the latter british and they had nothing to do with each other.

 

The ST was pushed by Tramiel wanting to take down Commodore. And for a while it did pretty well. A little bit faster than the Amiga. MIDI out of the box. Faster clock speed. Lack of hardware scrolling didn't do it any favours though.

[smac]

Nor the sound chip.

[MattyP]

17 minutes ago, smac said:

Nor the sound chip.

And the lack of hardware sprites. Or a blitter* chip.

 

Essentially for want of a better comparison it was a bit like comparing a Spectrum with a C64 in the previous gen.

 

The ST was a touch faster the the Amiga. However the Amiga was loaded with custom hardware specifically for shifting graphics around and making nicer music.

 

*Although think the last few models of the ST did have an upgraded chipset which included a blitter.

[bignige]

53 minutes ago, MattyP said:

And the lack of hardware sprites. Or a blitter* chip.

 

Essentially for want of a better comparison it was a bit like comparing a Spectrum with a C64 in the previous gen.

 

The ST was a touch faster the the Amiga. However the Amiga was loaded with custom hardware specifically for shifting graphics around and making nicer music.

 

*Although think the last few models of the ST did have an upgraded chipset which included a blitter.

None of the above mattered when all you wanted to play was Super Sprint. There was only one choice (at the time). 

[SeanR]

13 minutes ago, bignige said:

None of the above mattered when all you wanted to play was Super Sprint. There was only one choice (at the time). 

im unbeatable on keyboard controls.

[bignige]

3 minutes ago, SeanR said:

im unbeatable on keyboard controls.

Me, my bro and best friend played this everyday for 8 ish hours everyday of the summer holidays many years ago. 

We managed to find a glitch that would continually blow up the ai car which allowed all 3 of us to collect hundreds of golden spanner’s and bonus points. 
 

It got to the point where if we wanted a challenge we would turn the TV upside down and play it that way. 

[Darwock]

I gather that a lot of the memorable games from the 2600 era have not made it on here due to licensing.

 

I remember mostly playing ‘tank pong’ and ‘invisible tank pong’, but those names are not in the list I found - were these actually sub-games on the ‘Combat’ cartridge?

 

Another game we played a lot was I think called Bi-planes, 2 players controlling planes that moved a bit like asteroids (but with constant thrust) and moving behind clouds and stuff trying to shoot each other. I didn’t see that on the list either

 

Have I just got the titles wrong, or were these not Atari games and haven’t been included?

[jonnyalpha]

I thought all of the Tank options and the plane one you mentioned were on the Combat cartridge and accessed by setting the switches to the right places. I only vaguely remember this from playing an Atari at a friends.

[Darwock]

It could well be, it was my earliest memories of gaming and we only had a loan of the machine from someone (was eventually replaced by a 48K) so I don’t really remember specifics. If it’s all part of Combat then it should all be included in this, and I’m a lot more interested.

[Gregory Wolfe]

On 14/11/2022 at 12:07, Unofficial Who said:

 

The ST was pushed by Tramiel wanting to take down Commodore. And for a while it did pretty well. A little bit faster than the Amiga. MIDI out of the box. Faster clock speed. Lack of hardware scrolling didn't do it any favours though.

 

The Amiga clockspeed was almost certainly a conscious decision to enable the genlocking capabilities of the Amiga. 7.16 Mhz, the Amiga 68000 clock speed, is exactly twice the frequency of NTSC at 3.58 Mhz. 'Faster and clock speed', in this case, are the same thing. The blitter could be used to boost Amiga performance, although not utilised by all programmers and then there's the host of custom chips to handle sound and sprites etc. I think the ST could arguably only take the Amiga on in pure 3D games where both versions are  just vanilla 68000 code.

[matt0]

Does anyone have this? How's the Tempest 2000 emulation?

[MattyP]

16 minutes ago, matt0 said:

Does anyone have this? How's the Tempest 2000 emulation?

Pretty spot on (from what I remember of the Jag version which granted was played a fair while ago!). 

 

Only thing I did notice is the Game Over screen animation runs a bit fast but game is fine. This is on a Xbox Series S.