Previous thread: >>11796119
Rules of the thread are simple:
>You can only talk about games and systems made before the US release of the NES (1985). Everything before it from the CRT Amusement Device to stuff like Marble Madness is cool here. Later and homebrew ports for Pre-NES games can be discussed too (e.g. Jr. Pac-Man was released in arcades in 1983 but the 2600 port came out in 1986).
>That's it.
The journey for 166k in arcade Donkey Kong has only just begun, wish me luck lads. Also, if you're like me and weren't around when these games were popular, what got you into it? For me it was Classic Game Room.

>>11823645 (OP)
Colecoanon here, I've been playing some of the SGM ports via emulation; pretty fun! There's even a bootleg Mario Bros port!

>>11823747
Huh I didn't know you could emulate SGM. Is it its own emulator or is it connected to something like Gearcoleco? I've heard of it on Atariage but I've never really looked into it.

Which one do you like more Anon, Battlezone or Robot Tank? Although I enjoy both, Battlezone feels more gamey than Robot Tank. RT feels more like a simulator game with the day/night cycles, weather, individual parts of your tank getting damaged and it does a great job at it considering it's on the 2600, but BZ feels "snappier" to me. Both are great games though.

if you get #1 on the high score table you can draw a penis instead of entering initials :DD

>>11824901
This game is awesome, too bad it's so difficult to play on controller. With how many excellent trackball games there are I should probably invest in getting one.

People always talk about the bad ports from the Pre-NES days, but what about the good ports? I think DK on Atari 8-bit is probably the best port of the game that I've played, the level progression is the same, the difficulty is similar, the only thing it doesn't have is the graphics are different.

Has anyone gotten any high score PBs lately? I'm still struggling on getting my DK PB on arcade.

>>11824883
I definitely prefer Battlezone. I got some decent scores playing both last year.
Robot Tank had a lot of promise at first, as I'm a fan of what Enduro did to add some depth to Pole Position type racing games and I always thought Battlezone had room to grow. However, the gimmicky weather is just relentless, and the more I played it the less I liked it. I could get through 4 or 5 squads but it just didn't feel worth trying to get further. The game seemingly offers no advantage for fighting in adverse conditions, and no real punishment for just waiting it out besides your own time and patience. Between the stretches of endless shitty weather, and the obnoxious permanent damage penalties that make you limp along because you don't want to cheat yourself the extra points by putting yourself out of your misery, it's like the game didn't want to be played. The core enemy and aiming mechanics just felt less enjoyable to me than Battlezone as well.
I consider Red Baron more of a successor to Battlezone but it didn't get the color port treatment, at least not that I'm aware of.

>I consider Red Baron more of a successor to Battlezone
Red Baron is awesome, it's one of the few arcade games I wanna play in person one day. The adaptive difficulty is neat for 1981 too.

>>11830106
Vector games are so cool in person

>>11830110
I own a Vectrex (in storage though) and yeah emulation doesn't do it justice. God I'd pay decent money for a Vectrex system like the 2600+ but it has a mini vector display.

The Incredible Wizard for Bally Home Library Computer/Bally Professional Arcade/Bally Computer System/Astrocade is a pretty cool home conversion of Wizard of War. Bally sold the home port rights to the game to other publishers, so their own console received a "clone" game. Interesting how the game presentation had to be simplified, despite the arcade hardware of Wizard of Wor being essentially an upgraded Astrocade hardware.

>>11830204
>Bally sold the home port rights to the game to other publishers, so their own console received a "clone" game.
Reminds me of how Parker Bros released Atari's Star Wars Arcade Game on Atari systems kek. I need to set up Astrocade emulation I've heard it was a surprisingly powerful system for the time.

>>11826452
>>11824883
Battlezone is great.

Anything on the Coleco is worth it. Beamrider is good on 2600 great on Coleco. Ms Pac Man on 5200 is arcade like. (5200 games can be great, just ignore the hardware)

I'd recommend giving BurgerTime on INTV some time, it's the best pre NES port of it.

>>11830375
Astrocade is the PS5 of the 70s. It grossly outperformed Atari 2600 in 1978, but Bally noped out of the home console market almost immediately after releasing the platform, so it got very few official licensed games. Thankfully it had several BASIC programming cartridges, so people who actually bought the console started to release homebrew games on cassettes pretty soon, with some user groups making it through the 80s. Unfortunately, no emulators support loading games from cassette tape. It also used a rotary joystick as its default controller, so replicating its controls in emulation can be tricky.

>>11830483
I got it to run finally and at first I kind of felt like it was just okay. The games looked nice but nothing to write home about. Then I heard the Let it Be demo and it suddenly all clicked. I forgot it was announced in 1977 because it felt like a system from the early 80s (which if we account for Moore's Law that's a huge compliment). I definitely see why it could be called a 1970s PS5 because the Let it Be demo sounded great for that hardware (even if the demo was from the mid 80s). Unfortunately the games don't have the same feeling as 2600 games, but that's bias on my part so I can't knock any points off for that. Very impressive console.

I talked about it a little last thread, but what games would you consider perfect for getting people into PreNES /vr/? I'm thinking about making a pastebin or something for that if there's enough interest (probably won't be, but that's not stopped these threads from being made).

>>11832327
One of those recommendation infographics could be cool.
IMO arcade vs 2nd gen console can have drastically different points of interest though, personally I would make one with a more clear purpose, the most common ones I see being
>GOOD GAMES BEFORE 1985
which would for me be mostly arcade with the odd console exclusive or superior port
vs
>SO YOU THINK THERE WERE NO GO GOOD CONSOLE GAMES BEFORE NES? THINK AGAIN IDIOT
which would be the interesting points of gen 2 and 2.5-early 3rd gen plus some of the better ports like Joust

>>11832354
Oh and sorry for leaving PC games out, I don't know shit about pre-1985 computers except the ones that play cartridges like Atari 800 and TI99

>>11832354
I think both could work. My initial idea was to get a list of the top 5-10 games for the major systems (Arcade, 2600, the vision systems) based on what anons say, then some misc systems (Vectrex, Odyssey 2, Astrocade). Maybe list good console ports for the arcade games (CV Donkey Kong, 2600 and 5200 Berzerk, INTV Burgertime for example) but have the console sections primarily focus on original games. Whatever helps expose more people to pre-gen 3 games I'm on board with.

I recommend Ms. Candyman, a homebrew cartridge game for Astrocade from 1983. An interesting take on dot gobbling, it gets intense really fast. Death animations with your corpse getting driven away are funny.

>>11830483
>Unfortunately, no emulators support loading games from cassette tape.
Also, disregard what I typed here. MAME supports loading AstroBASIC tapes, it just misses the more high end Blue RAM BASIC.

>Play BÖC's Fire of Unknown Origin on vinyl
>Emulate (or play on real hardware) the hottest 2600 releases of 1981-1982
>Experience true happiness
I think a good side project for the game recommendation pastebin would be a list of albums to enjoy while playing Pre-NES games.

>>11834714
Based
Would the music be restricted to preNES as well? I'm partial to early Smash Mouth for Atari sessions but for most people that would be anachronistic, and more modern music could become a /mu/ shitfest. ELO and Black Sabbath would probably be more appropriate picks from my retro game playlist.
Activision Anthology on PS2 had a decent set of tracks that seemed about right for the time, it was comfy.

>>11834817
For consistency I think it should stick to Pre-NES, however maybe some modern music as honorable mentions will be fine. Also should I make some pills now or save it for the next thread?

>>11834905
take them now

>>11835964
Acetylcholinesterase drugs don't hurt for the first decade.

Star Jacker.
This one is a good game, imo. Played it yesterday on MAME 0.36 and reached 50000 points.
Played it today on Arcade64 0.278 and i noticed they have moved the audio pitch to an higher level.
Maybe it's more accurate to original hardware sound, but it sounds distorted.

Not really pre-1985, if we considering it as a standalone game instead of an upgrade of Do, Run! Run!, but Super Pierrot is a pretty nice game.

>>11835964
Kek this is what I get for phoneposting. I'll set up the polls today.

>>11836606
Strawpoll for Atari 2600 games has been created. I'm gonna wait a bit before doing Intellivision then Colecovision polls so each system has some spotlight time. https://strawpoll.com/XmZRQv2X3gd

>>11836957
Fuck I noticed there's a typo in the description, I hate migraines.

>>11836958
>I hate migraines.
Stop running away from fate.

Share your best Pre-NES arcade game strats. I never get the hammer in DK after the barrel level unless I absolutely have to. In my opinion the time bonus is more valuable in the long run.

>>11823645 (OP)
So which games of that era are actually worth playing today not for the sake of historical/cultural significance or nostalgia?

I guess another way to put it is which games of that era do something that more modern games have not improved upon in a way that essentially supplants the more rudimentary iterations?

>>11838816
It depends on what you're looking for. Platformers? DK and DKjr are still great miniature obstacle courses that take skill to play. Maze games? Ms. Pacman is still one of the best in the genre in my opinion. Stuff like shmups and racing games? Unless you like the old ones then there's really no reason to play them anymore. I have no nostalgic ties to these games since I'm a zoomer, but I think they're all still very playable. Yeah they're no gen 4+ games, but with a little bit of expectation management and playing with a goal in mind (getting a high score, good time, etc) then they become super addicting. It's like silent films, yeah the newer stuff is better but it doesn't mean the old stuff is bad.

Never had an Atari growing up. Joust looks like fun. What are some other fun 2600 games?

>>11839056
Battlezone, Asteroids, Pitfall 1 and 2 (2 is more like an open world adventure game), Berzerk, Ms. Pacman (this is a good port unlike Pac-Man proper), Space Invaders, Yars' Revenge, River Raid, H.E.R.O., Activision Boxing is a personal favorite, there's a lot of good games on the system and the complete romset is like 6mb so I'd recommend looking up some manuals and trying some out. I'd ignore the early sports games like Golf though. Golf is absolutely dogshit.

>>11839078
Thanks dude, those all look like solid fun recs. I'll give them all a spin tomorrow. Hope you have a good day anon.

Have you played Atari today Anon?

New month, new MAME. Don't normally update every month (unless the SL CHD doesn't get an update), but I was taking a break anyway. There are some newly emulated pre-NES games (and NEW POKER!!!!).

First of Nintendo's Block Fever is now emulated. Colour overlay is toggleable. It's a breakout clone with 3 gamemodes available. Mode A has flashing bricks in multiple set-ups (if you beat a level), hitting them has the field drop a set amount of lines (DIP available). Mode B just has the field scroll horizontally and Mode C is just basic breakout.

Unlike most classic breakouts I played, the paddle shrinking is also tied to amount of blocks hit, rather than hitting the top of the field. That does make it a bit harder as that happens way earlier. It also doesn't seem to have an unstuck function so you can keep a ball in the corner and take a piss without having to pause.

Trapeze/Trampoline is the 2nd which is a slightly more abstract form of breakout. The sequel to Circus, but now with the eponymous objects instead of a seesaw. Never got a release in the US, but Taito licensed it.

It's a fine improvement, but it seems like the strategy for points is to simply get to the trapeze and get into a rhythm to jump to another which gives you a good amount of points and seems rather forgiving (you will be thrown off if you wait too long). You can essentially just ignore most of the screen once you got that down.

Emulation seems fine except that your dude sometimes can fall through the floor (and reappear at the top) without dying.

GTI Double or Nothing Draw POKER!!!!
It's poker. It's got a double up feature. It's entirely nothing special for 1983. It will blow out your speakers or headset when you insert a coin.

That's all the functional pre-nes stuff they added/promoted.

Played some more Arcadia today and as usual the bulk of the decent stuff were the ports of tertiary arcade games. Namely Funky Fish and R2D Tank. Not exactly games I'd though I'd ever see officially ported to console. Licensed Bandai games and sports games continue to disappoint, but that's timeless.

As for something "original". Hobo is a frogger-em-up where a down on his luck not-Mario has to cross the street, trespass and trainsurf his way to ???. The climbing scene is finicky until you figure out it wants you to stand slightly to the right of the fence. 3 scenes each with a unique death, though only the first 2 have some effort in them. Very Spectrumesque.

>>11841771
Based MAME for not forgetting PreNES. I do have to ask do you play these paddle games with a mouse or controller? I've yet to find a good solution to play these games.

>>11842946
Mouse is generally the best alternative if it works imo. I'm not too averse on just playing them with a keyboard/d-pad if the game isn't too fast and plays decently with digital input (moves incrementally instead of full direction), but the early games get quite fast with small paddles so you'd want something analog. I feel most controller sticks have too small a travel.

If I drive for you, you get your money. You tell me where we start, where we're going, where we're going afterwards. I give you five minutes when we get there. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours. No matter what. Anything a minute on either side of that and you're on your own. I don't sit in while you're running it down. I don't carry a gun. I drive.

>>11843889
For 1976 the scaling in this looks awesome.

>>11843889
I still would like to play the German original, but iirc that was TTL and it's a rare cabinet. Not that the games differ much anyway.

>>11844105
I can't even find gameplay footage. The screenshots (picrel) look impressive for early 1976, though I imagine a good chunk of it is overlays like Night Driver. I wonder if FPGA will eventually make it possible to simulate TTL games? I still don't fully understand it but doesn't it emulate CPUs and stuff? Would it be possible to emulate transistors and shit? Sorry if I sound retarded, like I said I have no idea how it works.

>>11839056
You have to play Adventure. Also I will never stop weakly defending E.T. (I think it's fun)

How many of you fags have played Space Invaders recently? Post your scores. MAME is acceptable.

>>11844120
You can just "reproduce" what the TTL does in software which is "traditional" emulation (iirc IBM described it like that in the 60s even). You can "emulate" the original Magnavox Odyssey which is also TTL. Quite a few computers are also simulated, some not even TTL.

The problem is that it is more involved to dump and emulate as it is "unique". Basically the process of dumping here means recreating the machine rather than just dumping a ROM. Sure, a new machine in MAME will need to have hardware emulated, but this generally doesn't apply to just the 1 machine and is re-usable unlike with a TTL machine where the parts are the "ROM" so to speak. I don't think MAME wants to just go the old way of recreating by eye or description as some older simulators did, which is genuinely doable, but not "accurate".

It's also a low # release only found in Germany from the mid 70s, which is probably just as important a factor.

Played some 1984 arcade games. A decently divided set too. Some Mahjong, some secondary conversion kits, some olympic-em-ups and even a few I'd recommend. Seeing a barely legally distinct Br'er Rabbit (Jack Rabbit) arcade game was surprising, but Italy is a Donald Duck comic country after all.

Hole Land is a decent Spanish fixed shooter. The eponymous holes allow the enemies to hide as they come down all the while a volcano or two are spitting rocks that will temporarily take you out. If an enemy gets to the bottom, they'll move around near you and you'll have to jump over them. The 3rd stage is different in that formations of enemies will come at you followed by a boss that requires shooting out all of its teeth to beat.

Picrel is Itazura Tenshi, a multidirectional "shooter" where you do more evading to get a bow than actually shoot. Your goal is to form links between stars to make a constellation. Some enemies will actively hurt that process (and you if you hit them). The girl in the topright looks very Lemmingesque.

I played some 2600 Missile Command and I had a blast. Even with digital controls it was still great. The 5200 version however is just okay. The analog controls were way too sensitive to be enjoyable (at least on an emulator, might be better on real hardware).

Have any of you guys gotten a perfect score in Pitfall 2? I scored 198800 over a year ago, on original hardware, just 200 points short. Haven't played it since then.

Enjoying Doraemon on SCV now that I have it working (usually have to hit reset after loading it to get it to start though). It's not entirely straightforward but you can definitely pick up on what it wants you to do as part of the story before too long. Basically you gather parts for your time traveling rocket sled (never watched that anime), then rescue people when it all goes to shit, and so on. It has levels kind of like Donkey Kong where each stage is a different and you feel proud when you finally make it through a full cycle.

>>11834905
>Also should I make some pills now or save it for the next thread?
>>11835964
>take them now
I don't get it. Are you preparing as infographic on based and redpill games?>>11835971
>Acetylcholinesterase drugs don't hurt for the first decade.
Or are you asking /vr/ for medical advice on what drugs to abuse?

>>11836958
>I hate migraines.
Vaxxed?

>>11846093
never played pitfall 2 desu
>>11845818

Are there any preNES systems that natively used, or could use a composite video connection?

>>11849937
Many American computers had composite outputs since they usually supported standalone monitors in addition to TVs over RF. The OG IBM PC had composite output for CGA graphics. Commodore 64 also notably had native S-Video output over non-standard RCA jacks.