September Together Retro: Ready To Launch

[noiseredux]

fast-drop is best drop.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Alright, Donkey Kong on the ColecoVision. Funny to think that this game was a launch title on a non-Nintendo system, then a Famicom launch title one year later.

It plays decently enough here. The best part is the visuals, which come pretty close to the arcade original. There's an entire stage missing, which seems to be true for all these old console ports.

There are some hit detection issues, and the controls aren't ideal. I can't fathom why Coleco went with the big ass keypad controller. Were they just straight up copying the Intellivision? Mattel at least had an excuse, as they developed a bunch of console exclusives that utilized said control scheme. But Coleco was all about porting these one- and two-button arcade classics. Donkey Kong requires one button to play, which means that I have thirteen useless buttons on the controller. Astonishing.

Same thing goes for the Atari 5200. Launches with this huge ass complex controller... and games like Space Invaders and Galaxian. Lulz.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Yeah. I love that, back in the 80s, they thought that we would want to play video games with a telephone keypad. Atari maintained this delusion through the 90s! What were they thinking?!

[BoneSnapDeez]

I wonder if they were trying to keep up with the burgeoning computer gaming market. Even the 2600 had three variations of a "keypad" controller.

Played a bit more ColecoVision today. Got through several loops of Cosmic Avenger, which is an early scrolling shmup. It's comparable to Scramble as it's essentially one long seamless stage that eventually repeats. You can fire horizontally or drop bombs in an arc. The game's an arcade port, originally by Universal, who was behind Mr. Do!. Decently fun overall.

The ColecoVision had a couple of "maze" titles at launch. Lady Bug (also by Universal) is really good. It's Pac-Man style, but there are no "looping" areas to the screen. Instead, you can trap the bad bugs by flipping gates. Enemies slowly trickle out the center of the maze, one at a time. Once all are out a vegetable appears in the middle. Touching this racks up mega points and freezes the bad bugs momentarily. Additionally, there are instant death skulls in each maze, which can also take out enemies. It's quite a busy and frantic experience; well-designed but hard. I'm kind of bad at it.

Mouse Trap is a port of an Exidy arcade game. This is an American outfit, who also developed Pepper II and Venture. Oddly enough, this is yet another maze title with a gate gimmick. Difference here is that the gates are switched on and off (as opposed to flipped) by pressing corresponding numerical buttons on the CV controller (finally, we use the keypad!). There are "power pellets" that can transform the hero mouse into a dog to defeat the enemy cats, except here they can be stored and activated later. This makes the game MUCH easier than Pac-Man, let alone Lady Bug.

Fun times, I'll keep playing this stuff. I think I can make more headway with Mouse Trap, but Lady Bug is quite the stumper.

[marurun]

Lady Bug is a winner. I think that might have been my favorite ColecoVision game.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Wife and oldest daughter are out-of-town this weekend, so I got to spend some more quality time with ColecoVision launch games. Some of these I may revisit, some not. First impressions.

Space Fury (Sega) - Great game in the arcade. It's one of those single-screen shooters where the control stick rotates you in a circle and a thrust button is used to accelerate forward. It's got a slick look and an alien that taunts you between stages. Only issue, and a big one: the controls suck on the ColecoVision. I just can't get comfortable.

Space Panic (Universal) - This is an important game, as it's usually cited as the first platformer ever. It's faded into obscurity however, probably because the CV game was the only port, and both the arcade original and port are fairly bad. It plays like a primitive Lode Runner, except the goal is to bury all enemies rather than collect treasure. One huge flaw is that each stage is covered in ladders, and you can't dig within close proximity to one. Yo have to instead lure enemies to certain designated spots, but the enemy AI is atrocious and usually just bumbles around aimlessly. And there's a time limit.

Venture (Exidy) - This is an interesting one. It's like a very stripped-down dungeon crawler, where you explore a series of caves, collect treasure, and avoid/kill enemies. There are some nice graphical touches, like the "sealing" of visited caves and a status bar displayed between each stage. Again, the controls are an issue. Nothing too specific, but this is a rather lengthy game for the time, and my hand just starts to cramp eventually. I can make it halfway or so. Just for yucks, I tried the Atari 2600 port which kind of looks like crap but plays much better.

Zaxxon (Sega) - Mind-meltingly high IQ conversion of the arcade game. This looks and plays really smoothly. I still don't care for those "empty space" segments, where it becomes hard to judge altitude, and the "boss" is a bit of a downer, but those "alien city" stretches are dope. Solid game, does the isometric thing very competently.

Anyway, I really wanna get one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Colecovision-Con ... B07KJK9KD8

[prfsnl_gmr]

Kuru Kuru Kururin is a really hard game. I thought I’d be done with it by now, but I’m barely halfway...

[Ziggy]

So I got all 120 stars in Super Mario 64. When I was younger, I use to completely dread getting 100 stars on most of the levels. But on this 120 star run, I realized that it's not nearly as hard and tedious as I remember it being. In fact, it was fun!

[BoneSnapDeez]

Alright, dragged out the ol' Intellivision. Here's the launch line-up.

ABPA Backgammon
Armor Battle
The Electric Company Math Fun
Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack

Yeah, that's relatively weak. The most video game-y of the bunch is Armor Battle, which is what I played.


So, I expected a knock-off of Atari's Combat, which is what I got. But Armor Battle is also different enough to make a playthrough worthwhile. Yes, it's a 2-player-only tank combat game. But the big difference is that each player has two tanks, control of which can be swapped via the push of a button. This is great mechanic. You'll want to keep both alive of course, of you'll have to juggle their movements so one doesn't remain a sitting duck. There are impassible barriers (like in Combat) but also terrain that effects the speed of the tanks. Finally, there are mines that can dropped discretely by the player. These are invisible until someone runs them over and then BOOM. The controls are an issue. The game uses tank controls, but somehow an even worse version of it. The control disc of the Intellivision spins your tank around. Pressing up doesn't move it forward, there's actually a separate button for that. Yeah.....


Though not a launch title, I also took this as an opportunity to play through Armor Ambush. This is one of those "M Network" games for the 2600. By Mattel, it's a simplified port (with a different title) or Armor Battle. It's alright. The graphics are kinda..... well, just look, and the controls had to be modified in a way that isn't entirely pleasing. For instance, you press down to switch tanks, which is all too easy to do by accident. It actually moves at a faster clip than the Intellivision original though, which is kinda nice.


And, finally, I played through all difficulty modes of Basic Math. It's not that great. I actually got a few problems wrong initially, as I couldn't figure out how to express the remainder when doing division. You hate to see it.

[prfsnl_gmr]

You beat Basic Math. Awesome. I’d make an “ “IQ level post”, but it sounds like you missed a few of the questions...to your credit, though, they WERE long division questions.

I’m still playing Kuru Kuru Kururin. It’s so, so hard. One of the toughest games I’ve ever played. I’ll beat this game - hopefully, tonight - but there’s no way I’m “completing” it. Getting through every level unscathed seems like an impossible task. Still, it’s really addictive, and I keep restarting levels for just one more try each time I fail...which is most of the time. (Also, I’m now playing this game on the Wii U. That version’s in English, and although it doesn’t support analog controls, I think the game nonetheless plays more comfortable with an analog stick.)

I’m also still playing Eternal Ring. It’s a really solid ARPG, but I’ve put it aside while trying to push through Kuru Kuru Kururin. I’ll push through it next, though.

After that, I’m going to tackle Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt (NDS). It is on my series “to beat” list, and playing it will allow me to say I played a launch game for each Nintendo handheld system this month.