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Dodge EmPosted on Mon, December 12 2005, by Ethan C. Nobles |  |
 | It's a pretty simple game... Just drive around and erase the dots without crashing into the other car. Is it fun? Eh, for a few minutes. ;-) This early Atari 2600 game is surprisingly fun. Sure, it might look like a primitive version of Pac-Man with laughably-simple graphics, but Dodge 'Em is an addictive and tough game which is downright enjoyable to pop in from time to time. Dodge 'Em, released in 1980, takes place on a five-lane, concentric track which is covered with dots. The player's job, of course, is to run his car over the dots. Unfortunately, there's a... [Read More] Make the first comment! |
Chat with Lance LewisPosted on Thu, December 08 2005, by Atari Fans |  |
 | This is a fun and very informative chat session we had with Atari playtester Lance Lewis. You may remember him from such games as Alien vs. Predator and the proto for Spacewar 2000. He talks about his time at Atari, the Tramiels, and the games. On December 13, 2004, The Atari Times chatroom hosted a session with Atari Jaguar tester Lance Lewis. If the name sounds familiar, you may want to play Alien vs. Predator again to refresh your memory. This chat has been re-organized into a more coherent question and answer style "interview." Thanks to those who participated and extra thanks to Lance for allowing us to bombard him with questions! (Oh, and a thanks to Darryl B. for asking Lance to chat with us!) ... [Read More] Make the first comment! |
JoustPosted on Tue, December 06 2005, by Dan Loosen | |
 | Joust is one of the silver label games, meaning it was one of the better games because it benefited from extra memory. This is one of the most fun 2600 games. The 2600 did a lot of great things... and Joust is definitely one of them. The gameplay of this particular title holds up extremely well against both the arcade and the Lynx version. Hop aboard your trusty ostrich steed and take to the sky to destroy the buzzard riders by bopping them on the heads. It's wacky, but it does work. Some stuff is missing -- namely the lava monsters and the challenge of flight that both the arcade game and Lynx game have -- but... [Read More] Make the first comment! |
JinksPosted on Mon, November 28 2005, by David Sherwin |  |
 | As it it wasn't bad enough to have this game on the 7800, now we gotta live with the 8-bit version. Bad games get ported everywhere it seems. Few things are probably more baffling to enthusiasts of Atari's 7800 console than the oddity of Jinks, a game so strange that the only thing more disorienting than playing it is, possibly, the attempt to describe it to anyone lucky enough not to have played it. Ostensibly a "modern" update of ball-and-paddle classics such as Breakout, Jinks on the 7800 is so devoid of playability that it's widely considered to be the worst of Atari's ... [Read More] 1 Comment |
Reverse Engineering RebuttalPosted on Thu, November 17 2005, by Charles F. Gray & Bob Yannes | |
 | A few months back Charles Gray and Carmel Andrews asserted that Commodore reverse engineered the Atari 8-bit line and used it to their benefit. Former Commodore engineer Bob Yannes has piped in with his side of the story... I co-wrote an article back in April 2005 called "Reverse Engineering: Commodore Reverse Engineers Atari 8-bit Hardware" motivated by Carmel Andrew's email regarding the Commodore 8-bit line of computers. "Reverse Engineering" discusses our argument that Commodore engineers did in fact dissect and analyze Atari computers and game consoles to create C... [Read More] 2 Comments |
T-MekPosted on Mon, November 14 2005, by Darryl Brundage |  |
 | Don't you wish this game had been released on the Jaguar? No? Oh, well, I always enjoyed blasting tanks on alien planets. Sure, it's a bit shallow, but you can play it networked you know. In their final years, Atari's coin-op division was known to crank out remakes of their older games (but with some new wrinkles included), like Blasteroids (which had a lot of similarities with the earlier classics of Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, and Space Duel), Off the Wall (obviously influenced by the much earlier Breakout and Super Breakout, but turned sideways and with a lot of bonuses and power-ups added), and... [Read More] 1 Comment |
Donkey KongPosted on Sat, November 05 2005, by Ethan C. Nobles |  |
 | So, the game that defined Nintendo is on the Atari 7800... It was on the 2600 and 8-bit too. Are you sure this is a Nintendo game? Donkey Kong for the Atari 7800 has taken a lot of heat over the years, but it's really not that bad of a game. However, it's hard to deny Atari kind of dropped the ball on this release for a few reasons. First of all, this game came out in 1988 - a whole six years after Nintendo of America unleashed it on arcades. Is an "old game" necessarily bad? Of course not! However, people were interested in playing platform games on the Nintendo ... [Read More] 3 Comments |
CentipedePosted on Tue, October 25 2005, by Ryan Genno |  |
 | Here's one game that truly brought the arcade experience home! This is the game that the trakball was created for! Don't miss it! During the early 1980's Atari scored big when legendary programmer Ed Logg (also well known for creating the game Asteroids) made another popular game called Centipede. The game is a fast paced shooter where you hunt down killer bugs before they take you down. If you are looking to relive the arcade experience at home at see why the 5200 is one of the best versions around. The premise in Centipede is really basic yet it works. In the ... [Read More] 2 Comments |
Atari at the BallparkPosted on Thu, October 06 2005, by Gregory D. George | |
| Playoff baseball is upon us! This year we have the Yankees, Angels, Red Sox, and White Sox in the American League and the Padres, Braves (again), Astros, and Cardinals in the National League. You can relive the games on various Atari machines, just don't expect to have real baseball players! Home Run... The most basic of baseball games.... [Read More] Make the first comment! |
Phaser PatrolPosted on Tue, September 27 2005, by Darryl Brundage | |
 | So, Star Raiders wasn't enough for you? Space Attack too boring? Starmaster was too "Activision" for you? Solaris' graphics too mindblowing? Then how about Phaser Patrol? The 2600 wasn't lacking for the space battle game, that's for sure. Think we're at the *top* of the food chain? Wrong! Just look at part of the intro of the Phaser Patrol instructions: The situation: serious trouble. The Human Federation has been caught napping. While pretending to sign a peace treaty, the devious Dracons have launched a surprise attack. And they've virtually captured the Federation's farm galaxy. Victory seems so close the Dracons can practically smell it with their h... [Read More] Make the first comment! |