Thread 11925532

Previous thread: >>11917942
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 and Kung Fu Master is cool here. Later and homebrew ports for Pre-NES games on Pre-NES systems are allowed (e.g. Jr. Pac-Man was released in arcades in 1983 but the 2600 port came out in 1986)
>In this particular thread, I'm gonna trial early Famicom games. Any Famicom game before 1985 is open for discussion.
>That's it.
I'm currently holding a poll on 2600 games you'd recommend to newcomers. The results will be made into a little pastebin. If you'd like to contribute a vote or write in a game here's the link: https://strawpoll.com/XmZRQv2X3gd
I want to play Atari Star Wars, but it's pretty much impossible to play on a controller.

>pre-1985 thread
>continuously dies during American hours
What's up with that? It's the peak of the American retro videogame industry.

>>11925720
>garbage thread shilling garbage poll
>"""continuously dies""
>What's up with that?
lurk moar newfag

>>11925720
Lack of interest in their own shit. Nevermind that 99% of the posters here genuinely do not play much at all.

>>11926272
>is that...an internet LINK in a POST!?
>AAAAAAA HELP ME SHARTMART, I CAN'T POST
Bass Pro Shops, peace be upon him, will strike the OP down if you repost this.

>>11926320
>is that...COPE in a POST!?
Yes. Yes it is.

>>11926381
>shart u
Oh my Star Wars, watch out! A poll! https://strawpoll.com/e2naXxkVeyB

>DK clone
>but you are Canadian
That thing is supposed to be a parrot. Century delivers as usual.

>>11926461
Such is gaming for the britbong.
Anyway, it kinda has a certain charm. At least for me. Maybe it's the colors or the simple monophonic sounds already outdated for 1983.

>>11925720
It usually takes a day or two for posting to take off. Plus I like talking about these games with like-minded people but it's also impossible to keep a thread for one of these games alive long enough to have any meaningful posts, so I think a general is a better way to do it. Plus a good chunk of the threads have stayed up for a while with a good amount of activity (considering the games featured in the thread). Anyways, I'm gonna play some DK and maybe Rally X tonight. It's a(lways a) good day to play some arcade games.

Recently played some Space Panic (1980).
At first it looks like a bit of a stiffy game, but once you get the hang of the dual button/dig-undig system is... not bad.

>>11926402
>Oh my cope, watch out! More cope
every time

>>11926402
>>11927043
Ok. I'm sure there's a perfectly fine Zelda or Sega thread for you retards to be unwanted in.

>>11927182
But this is the most unwanted thread in the catalog.

>>11925532 (OP)
Who do you meantuion the NES in the title? It was fucking irrelevent for the vast majority of gamers who were alive in the 80s. You do know that right?

>>11925720
>American
What the fuck are you on about? Seriously what the fuck is wrong with you? Do you have any awarness of reality beyond your public school tier take on the world and your trite jingoism?

>>11927796
>But this is the most unwanted thread in the catalog.
Aside from teh NES reference its one of the few on top threads.

Favorite cabinets
space invaders
galga
spy hunter
Star wars
battlezone

>>11928362
It happens during the timeslot where most of the American continent are free and awake. Europe and Africa are sleeping and Asia is waking up or at work. American companies were in a golden age at that time, so anon wonders why that is. It's really strange that people get defensive over this, you'd expect thicker skin on here.

>>11926932
You'd think vertical Heiankyo Alien wouldn't work. The multi-floor drop enemies tend to be an issue for most people though, but you need some difficulty increase and there's not much else to change up.

>>11928421
There's a transparent thread to bait and shit on Spectrum Bongs on the catalog that is working wonders as usual, so I don't get how that question is a bridge too far. A bump is a bump though.

Checked out Taito's Lupin III game which to my knowledge is the first video game adaptation of an anime, though I could be wrong. It's a pretty basic maze game that attempts to do stealth but doesn't pull it off well. The core gameplay is fine but it's pretty simple even for 1980. I imagine most of the budget went to getting the license for the show.

>>11925720
You do realise the amiga, the spectrum, commdoore 64 etc etc all shipped before 1985 as did the NES?

I fucking love arcade machines and spent as much of my summers in arcades as I could fuck I even rember really ancient stuff like gunfight but by the early 80s space invaders was EVERYWHERE and it was Jap every fast food joint had one and home computers were everywhere.

What were your five favorite cabinets?

Defender
Star wars
Battlezone
Spyhunter
Pole Position
Galaxians

and much later
1942
Ghosts and Goblins (what a bastard game)
Operation Wolf

>>11928564
I've got a Gundam game on PC-8001 and Dora-Chan for arcade both from 1980, but the latter was unlicensed for sure. There's definitely some licensed mechanical/lightgun/pinball games, but those are "games".

>>11928587
Commodore WAS American. Aside from that something else being at its peak doesn't mean other things can't exist. Not that it is even relevant considering what was written in the post that you reply to. You are being defensive about something that isn't even implied in the slightest

Venture, Battlezone, Mouse Trap, Mappy, Marble Madness in no particular order.

Excuse the modern game, but I've been playing more solaris trying to find the optimal route

>>11928346
>>11928365
>>1192837
Beautiful.

Rolled IBM PC, but as my 2nd gen computer pick. Obviously it didn't get much yet outside of ports and simple homebrew. Think things like Maxit, a 15 puzzle with numbers instead of a picture or a single button auto-moving fixed screen shooter.

I did get to play a Sierra Hi-res adventure, but in CGA (I forgot about the composite mode). Another interesting one was Galaxy, a 1-20 player strategy game, but it was too simple and large battles just take way too long.

Picrel is Voyager 1: Sabotage of the Robot Ship. It's one of those proto-FPS games with dungeon crawler movement. It's "real-time", though your enemies don't actually move, just health recovery and the fight itself. Your goal is to either kill all the robots or destroy the generators and escape via shuttle You get a very useful map in the game, so you don't have to worry about that. Big problem with it is that moving reduces your HP and you then have to wait for it to refill which makes the game slow. There's no timer unless you destroy the generators, so it's just best practice to wait a while in front of a door.

>ran into the asteroid bug on Gyruss 5200
Apparently quite common, had to kms myself as the old adage goes.

I know Atari (to an extent, deservedly so) gets a decent amount of hate but honestly their early 80s arcade games were great. Missile Command, Battlezone, Red Baron, Asteroids ('79 but close enough), Star Wars, Tempest, Black Widow, I could go on. Pre split Atari was honestly a top 3 arcade developer in my opinion. Them, Namco, and Williams had a great selection.

>Hotel Bugs
Surreal that people independently came up with this idea for a game twice at the very least. It got cancelled before 1984, so there must've been some reason. This proto is almost finished with maybe some difficulty rebalancing (it was intended for young children) and graphical polish needed.

>>11931653
According to AtariProtos one theory is that Atari wanted to market the 5200 as an arcade system and not a family gaming console. Another theory is it got canned because of the Tramiel takeover but the prototype is from June of '83. My theory is Atari was probably gearing up to discontinue the 5200 and didn't want to invest in a children's game line for it. Either way, I wonder if it did come out would Atari try and sue Phillips because of Hotel Mario.

>>11933052
By that point the you couldn't really win such a lawsuit unless it is a near identical copy with stolen code, the issue of clones was basically settled in the 80s. The games aren't exactly competing with each other. The lawsuit would be weak and quite the stretch. The game itself would 100% be forgotten though, so neither party would even known they are being copied/are copying.

Atari dies in 1984 and Tramiel buys the home division's corpse which that game would fall under. Only issue is that it would use a license and so likely won't get sold along with it. It was never going to be a high profile release, so no one would quibble over it. Warner Communications/Time Warner's venture keeps the rights to it. At the time they were just ending a long series of lawsuits with Nintendo about the lock-out bypass and Nintendo's alleged monopoly, specifically by paying Nintendo a decent cash settlement and use of some patents. Trying to push such a weak lawsuit against Philips in the same year, whilst funny, is probably the last thing you'd want to do and might've just killed the company a bit faster.

Bumping with some 5200, Looney Tunes Hotel aside. Can't actualyl complain as I got some pretty typical games. Centipede, Gyruss, Ms. Pac-Man, Pole Position, all completely fine or at least serviceable ports of similarly fine or good arcade games. Blue-Print and Mr. Do!'s Castle being somewhat rarer arcade ports, but similarly decent.

The usual batch of protos showed up as well, with A.E. being a slightly cut-down version of the Apple II game that still looks like an Apple II game. The planned port of Stargate also looks like the original, which is good in this case, but runs like a slideshow as soon as too many enemies show up and it doesn't run fast outside of it. Probably should've cut that down a bit unlike A.E.

Picrel is another proto, Spitfire. It's a game with 3D destructible environments. You'd expect it to run badly, but it runs acceptably. Playing it is a different matter as your player ship is more a point from which shots are fired. Doesn't feel like it is moving in the world, moreso that the world is moving around it. It's like an early laserdisc game in a way, it would've probably been better to have an FPS/cockpit view. Hitting things takes some getting used to as well. It's also just not pretty to look at. Unsurprisingly it got cancelled because they couldn't figure out how to make it play well.

>>11934346
Spitfire looks pretty fucking nice even in it's clearly unfinished state. I doubt it would sell units but I'm sure it would be talked about. Slightly off topic but I recently found out the Intellivision's CPU is 16-bit which is pretty cool. I wonder if that's the reason games like Utopia are on it?

>>11934403
Nothing about that game really requires 16-bit data processing as there really isn't that much going on (also no AI really helps). Its only serious competitor was the 2600 though and that's got a quarter of the RAM (which isn't much RAM to begin with) and requires TV wrangling. Can imagine it makes it easier though.

1982 gaming

Have you played Atari today Anon?

>>11935740
I owned most of those Atari 2600 games in the mid to later 80s. I still think Yar’s Revenge, Pitfall and Berzerk are ok today.

Played some 1984 and two misdated 1985 arcade games (both released before the NES though). First the bad. Parallel Turn is a skiing game with a position system which doesn't actually matter and Progress is an outdated and simple run&gun that makes Front Line look good again. Also Poker, which is actually a multigame-casino.

For the middling. Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory just barely makes it in, it's the forgotten DECOsette sequel to Burger Time where you kick ice cream onto cones. Pinbo is a decent videopinball game focusing on jarring minigame interruptions. Pirate Ship Higemaru is a solid Pengolike. Pit & Run - F1 Race is a solid, if unimpressive looking (Taito after all), topdown racer that focuses on fuel loss with an annoying night effect.

As for the good. Got Paperboy (prefer ports honestly), Peter Pack Rat and Punch-out. I assume Paperboy and Punch-out don't need any fluffing up, though Paperboy feels a bit forgotten.

Peter Pack Rat definitely is though, having a small arcade release and only 3 ports to 3 computers 3 years later. It's a decent little platformer that relies on style over content, which is definitely degraded on the ports. You've only got 3 levels, but these expand a bit through loops. Your goal is to grab crap and stuff it in your home. Enemies can be stunned and some can be ridden. Music is very soundblasteresque (not the same synth though) and it has some good looking animation.

>>11939934
>Progress is an outdated and simple run&gun that makes Front Line look good.

Played that one sometime ago. Yeah, it's a pretty outdated game and the only positive side, imho, are the sound effects. Pretty meaty for a 1984 game.

>Peter Pack Rat definitely is though, having a small arcade release and only 3 ports to 3 computers 3 years later.

Good game and a pretty hard one. A shame that it got a limited release.

To people who've played picrel in person, what's it like? Do the gameplay and pinball segments mesh well or are they both mediocre?

>>11942789
I only played the 7800 homebrew one based on this, but I thought the way the two games meshed with each other was interesting. The pac-man part alone is brutally difficult and not made to be won without running to the pinball part. The pinball field was somewhat uninspired but it did give you that desperation to play well so that you wouldn't get raped when you got back to the regular pac-man board. I still had a hard time getting an edge with pinball powerups since they weren't easy to earn, and it gets tedious. I think the video game part had more thought put into it than the pinball field.
If I saw a real one I'd probably play a while, but I hear they're a pain to maintain so I don't have my hopes up. I recommend giving the 7800 one a shot.
As a game concept I think it has a lot of potential left. The most similar thing I recall playing recently where an actiony real-time game needs to be periodically paused to be aided by a totally different genre that also runs in real-time (as opposed to some static puzzle or basic set of inputs) is non-retro Henry Hatsworth, followed by Major Havoc on arcade. I'd also like to play Granny and the Gators someday. I know I played at least one other pinball machine with short video game segments as well, but whatever it was, it was lame. I'm interested in any similar game concepts where there are separate game genres that rely on each other and are at least somewhat passable on their own.

>>11942789
They mesh well and are both mediocre. But it's an interesting concept and as a whole a decent game. You need to be at least proficient at pinball for it to be playable. If you're gud at pinbal it's a major advantage.

Damn helicopters.

Treasure Island.
Pretty underrated DECO Cassette game, imho. The 4-directional isometric controls have a bit of an hard learning curve, but once you get to it it's a pretty good game.