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A Black Falcon

A Black Falcon

Member
I got an Atari 5200 a few days ago. Yes, the system with the infamously bad controller. Well, so far I'd say my suspicions that as usual the hate is overblown are mostly accurate. Now, I did want to like the system going in, but so far I mostly do. The controller IS a bit uncomfortable, and IS fragile and the poor things die all the time (I had to buy two controllers and combine the good parts to get one fully working one; hopefully someday I can repair the other one too, but at least I have one good controller...), but it looks nice and isn't THAT bad, I've used worse before I am sure. The games that make use of the analog stick well control well, while other titles are mixed. Games which don't make use of analog often control a bit slower than they would on other controllers, because you've got to move the stick around after every move you make with it because it doesn't fully autocenter. That it might be the first console with a pause button, and it's on the controller and not the console as the later Sega Master System and Atari 7800 would do, and that the modifier buttons (select, reset, pause) are on the controller and not the system (unlike the 2600) is also fantastic.

As for the games, I have 16, all purchased locally. There are only a few more I've seen nearby, so I doubt I'll be getting many more games for a while. Heh, I already have more games for this than the 7800, though I've had it for much less time... (I only have 15 7800 games, haven't gotten a new one in a year. Of course my 7800 barely working is part of why.)

5200 Games
--
Astro Chase - Decent space shooter. You fly around a medium-sized scrolling area, shooting missiles before they hit the earth. There are also alien ships which try to kill you. There are lots of planets and rocks you can bounce off and that get in the way. I wish the controls were fully analog instead of just 8-direction, that would be great. Hitting things is hard sometimes because you can only move or shoot in 8 directions. Dual-stick firing, for independent firing and movement, would also be very nice. Still though, fun game, I'm glad to have seen it.

Berzerk - Decent port of the arcade game. Visuals are good, controls okay though they take getting used to and control a bit slower than they would on a gamepad. This is also the only 5200 game I have with voice samples; they're a nice addition.

Centipede - Good arcade port with okay graphics and nice analog controls.

Defender - Great port with very good graphics, good controls, and great gameplay! One of the best 5200 games I have. It's easier than the arcade game but is pretty great.

Galaxian - Another great one, 5200 Galaxian is quite fun. I've always overlooked Galaxian in favor of Galaga, but this is a pretty good game. This game is fast and tough and controls reasonably well. I also like the scrolling starfield background they added, it's a nice touch.

Joust - Decent port of an arcade game I've never loved. This is the only 5200 game I have with two player co-op, but that'd require two working controllers. :p

Kangaroo - Platformer. Up is jump, which is a pretty terrible idea -- why do both buttons punch? With a jump button this would be good, but with up for jump it's quite frustrating. Still this is an okay game, but better controls would have been great. Even on controllers with good reaction times, up for jump is bad... but on this? Ugh.

Missile Command - Another good arcade port of a great classic. Graphics are ugly, but controls are great, the stick is a good mouse replacement.

Pac-Man - Great-looking and fast-playing port of Pac-Man, but the controls will take time to get used to, it's easy to miss turns thanks to the stick.

Pengo - Okay port of an okay arcade game. Controls work fine.

Pole Position - This game looks only okay, but has great analog controls and good audio. One of the better 5200 games I have, this game's lots of fun thanks to the controls.

Popeye - Parker Bros. port of a Nintendo arcade game. I haven't played Popeye much, but it's no Donkey Kong... levels drag on way too long, and I REALLY wish you could jump! Decent to good game, though.

Qix - Low-rez but good port of this great arcade classic. Fine controls.

Space Invaders - Somewhat messed-up port of Space Invaders. The graphics are bland and gameplay is a bit easy thanks to the aliens always coming in one row at a time from the side.

Super Breakout - The original pack-in, this game has good analog controls but very bland graphics.

Super Cobra - A scrolling shooter! This is a port of Konami's followup to Scramble. The controls here get a lot of hate, but bah, it's pretty fun. I've gotten to stage 5 so far. You have to go through lots of VERY narrow caves, so you have to be fast with this slow-moving stick, admittedly, but it does work. The graphics are decent to good for the time and gameplay is challenging and fun. Very hard but I want to play more to get farther.


Expect me to make a thread sometime in the coming weeks which is basically this but with a lot more detail.
 
J

Jaeger

Member
So, what are you Holy Grail gaming related items? That you have or don't have. Doesn't matter. I would love to get my hands on at least ONE of these someday;

Famicom Titler
Sharp X68000
Nintendo 64DD Complete Set
Chikyukaihougun ZAS
Summer Carnival '92 Recca
Twin Famicom CIB
Neo Geo AES CIB
One of those damn BVM/PVM Broadcast Monitors!

There's many more.
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
Definitely a 64DD + games, as N64 is my all time favourite console.

Next would probably be a Satellaview with the BS Zelda games installed on one of those carts.

The Zelda Adventure sets are damn near impossible to find, and I'd buy the shit out of them, price be damned:

zelda_adventure_sets_qfq9u.jpg


And finally:

Anth0ny said:
Yeah, I can't even imagine collecting any of the bigger stuff, like an arcade cabinet. Luckily, I don't really have any huge attachment to any single arcade cabinet in particular. the only thing that would come close is this, I guess:

oGHyHQr.jpg


It prints pictures. Of POKEMON.

can't emulate that.
Click to expand...

There's more (limited edition consoles), but I'll stop there =)
 
A

Anth0ny

Member
theSlacker said:
There is a chain of gas stations around me that had the sound for collecting a ring in Sonic as their "ring up an item" sound. Loved going to them.
Click to expand...

Same. I thought I was hearing things, but then I heard it again. Definitely straight out of the Genesis Sonics.

pretty random
 
K

Khaz

Member
Did you guys know you could use operators with the eBay search engine?

- Brackets ( ) means OR, will show the results from either term you put in between. Like combining multiple searches.
- The minus sign means NOT, removes ads that contains a term.
- Both can be combined to make NOR: -(pou,stache) removes ads that contains either pou or stache.
- There no wildcard * anymore. alternate spellings and plurals need to be put explicitly, using brackets.

The exact term, including spaces is searched or omitted when put in brackets! you can use it to find any ad with the words "final" and "fantasy" in it but not combined together like "final fantasy". If you put too much stuff between (), the search engine shows no result. Just take out one term and put it in another (). The search limit is the size of the box, not the size of the brackets.

Here is an example of a search:

Code: 
(rockman,rock man,megaman,mega man) (3,III,three) -(nes,snes,famicom,super nintendo) -(magnet,keyring,amiibo,no,only,ohne,nur,sans,que)

Will bring you Mega Man X3 or Zero 3 from any region and any console except the NES and SNES, and will filter out trinkets listings and most of the non-CIB. I could have used only one pair of negative brackets, this is just for readability.
 
N

NormalFish

Banned
Wow, good to know. Wonder if I can use that to make a more accurate search for japanese games (since so many people don't tag it with region)
 
S

sixteen-bit

Member
Khaz said:
Did you guys know you could use operators with the eBay search engine?

- Brackets ( ) means OR, will show the results from either term you put in between. Like combining multiple searches.
- The minus sign means NOT, removes ads that contains a term.
- Both can be combined to make NOR: -(pou,stache) removes ads that contains either pou or stache.
- There no wildcard * anymore. alternate spellings and plurals need to be put explicitly, using brackets.

The exact term, including spaces is searched or omitted when put in brackets! you can use it to find any ad with the words "final" and "fantasy" in it but not combined together like "final fantasy". If you put too much stuff between (), the search engine shows no result. Just take out one term and put it in another (). The search limit is the size of the box, not the size of the brackets.

Here is an example of a search:

Code: 
(rockman,rock man,megaman,mega man) (3,III,three) -(nes,snes,famicom,super nintendo) -(magnet,keyring,amiibo,no,only,ohne,nur,sans,que)

Will bring you Mega Man X3 or Zero 3 from any region and any console except the NES and SNES, and will filter out trinkets listings and most of the non-CIB. I could have used only one pair of negative brackets, this is just for readability.
Click to expand...

helpful stuff to narrow the search but sometimes i like finding mislabeld stuff for cheap too
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Jaeger said:
So, what are you Holy Grail gaming related items? That you have or don't have. Doesn't matter. I would love to get my hands on at least ONE of these someday;

Famicom Titler
Sharp X68000
Nintendo 64DD Complete Set
Chikyukaihougun ZAS
Summer Carnival '92 Recca
Twin Famicom CIB
Neo Geo AES CIB
One of those damn BVM/PVM Broadcast Monitors!

There's many more.
Click to expand...


I did pick up one of my holy grails, Valkyrie Profile, a few months back. Haven't opened it or anything, but uh... yeah. Finally got it, and I definitely will play it eventually.


I've still got a few games out there that qualify for holy grail status for me:

Snatcher
Suikoden II
Dragon Force

but most of all, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs. It's my favorite beat-em-up ever, and I'd kill to get the PCB for it.
 
K

Khaz

Member
soxinthebox said:
Don't have a Mega Drive so that doesn't really change the price, cheers for the suggestions though since those look pretty neat.
Click to expand...

Just keep looking, people like trying to sell stuff for crazy prices on ebay but once in a while someone with some sense puts a more sensible price. make a good custom search and use the ebay email alerts and you should find one in no time.
 
d00d3n

d00d3n

Member
I found this youtube video about how they did graphics on NES/C64 (among other examples) really interesting. Gives plenty of visual examples which make it easy to understand.
 
S

Shadow Hog

Member
d00d3n said:
I found this youtube video about how they did graphics on NES/C64 (among other examples) really interesting. Gives plenty of visual examples which make it easy to understand.
Click to expand...
Well, that's certainly a fascinating bit of information about the C64, as I wasn't aware of how that particular system worked. I'm a bit more familiar with the NES's limitations, though, so to expand on what he said:

The NES does indeed use a cell-based system, but only for the background. Technically all graphics for the console are made out of 8x8 tiles, but the color cells in question are actually 16x16. Also, each cell gets to use one of four 3-color palettes (with all four sharing a common "transparent" color).

You get two screens' worth of memory to play with there; they can be laid next to each other on either axis and scrolled between smoothly. Whichever axis you didn't use would loop (eg: if you laid screen A and screen B next to each other horizontally, then decided to scroll the camera upward, the bottom of the relevant screen would appear at the top). This is why so many NES games only scroll on one axis ever - because if they scrolled on the other, it'd just wrap around.

super_mario_bros_3_00btsp0.png


Some games got around this, although the results were often rather noticeably ugly. For instance, Super Mario Bros. 3 here opted to scroll smoothly vertically. Horizontally, it would just wrap the data that was already there and you'd be stuck running across the first screen forever; instead, it rotates in new tiles and cell coloration data on-the-fly as the tile to change from old to new is halfway off the whichever edge of the screen you're heading. That's why there's garbage data on the left side of this image - the cell holding the data for that bush on the right was still being rendered on the left side of the screen, due to how the screen wrapping works, so when the tree data was put in, it got put there on both sides, even though it only makes visual sense on the right side. (Most screens of this game actually show they hid this visual glitching with a solid bar of color on the leftmost side of the screen - using sprites, I think.)

There was also apparently a mapping that allowed for four screens' worth of data, and the ability to scroll smoothly on both axes at once. This was not common, since it cost extra to manufacture.

As noted in the video, sprites don't adhere to the cell system at all, but the downside is that you can only have 64 of them total, and even then only 8 per scanline. Each one can use one of four 3-color palettes, which are actually totally distinct from the four 3-color palettes the BG uses. Unlike the BG palettes, the "transparent" color here really does mean transparent (as you'd probably have expected), not "use a common BG color".

They actually don't have to be only 8x8 like he implied, though; you can combine two consecutive tiles in CHR into one single 8x16 sprite, which only counts against your hard 64-sprite limit once (as opposed to counting twice if you made the same arrangement of tiles out of two 8x8 sprites). Most later NES games abused the heck out of this, because they needed more action on the screen to stay appealing to a consumer base that was being wowed by the Genesis and SNES, which both had higher sprite counts (and sprite sizes) to work with natively.

The tradeoff with using 8x16 sprites instead of 8x8 is really technical and one that players won't care about but programmers might find interesting - as noted, you'd have to put those tiles into consecutive memory locations in CHR. So, if your sprite just so happened to use the same 8x8 tile as another sprite did, and you wanted to reuse that here to save space in CHR? Tough beans, you can't do it like that; both tiles in the 8x16 sprite have to be consecutive, so guess you've gotta have it in there twice now. This meant you could feasibly quickly fill up CHR with too much duplicate data, if your sprite artist wasn't particularly on top of things. Also meant you might occasionally have to put in a blank tile just to keep the 8x16 train rolling, essentially wasting a precious spot in CHR, and still having this count against you on the whole "8 per scanline" issue even though the tile is entirely transparent (see Castlevania's whip, apparently).

I know that's a lot to take in, and I'm not very good at being terse so it's probably wordier than it needs to be. Still, for a guy like me who's always kinda wanted to try making a game sometime, it's fascinating stuff to read about, and makes me appreciate just what sort of limitations really were being worked under all the more. (It also makes it all the more annoying when new games claim to adhere to the NES's strict limitations but very clearly don't - usually they get the sprite part down well enough, maybe ignoring the scanline limitation since that one sucked anyway, but noticeably aren't paying any attention to the BG cell limitations and have 5 or more colors in a single 16x16 tile.)
 
d00d3n

d00d3n

Member
Shadow Hog said:
Well, that's certainly a fascinating bit of information about the C64, as I wasn't aware of how that particular system worked. I'm a bit more familiar with the NES's limitations, though, so to expand on what he said:

The NES does indeed use a cell-based system, but only for the background. Technically all graphics for the console are made out of 8x8 tiles, but the color cells in question are actually 16x16. Also, each cell gets to use one of four 3-color palettes (with all four sharing a common "transparent" color).

You get two screens' worth of memory to play with there; they can be laid next to each other on either axis and scrolled between smoothly. Whichever axis you didn't use would loop (eg: if you laid screen A and screen B next to each other horizontally, then decided to scroll the camera upward, the bottom of the relevant screen would appear at the top). This is why so many NES games only scroll on one axis ever - because if they scrolled on the other, it'd just wrap around.

super_mario_bros_3_00btsp0.png


Some games got around this, although the results were often rather noticeably ugly. For instance, Super Mario Bros. 3 here opted to scroll smoothly vertically. Horizontally, it would just wrap the data that was already there and you'd be stuck running across the first screen forever; instead, it rotates in new tiles and cell coloration data on-the-fly as the tile to change from old to new is halfway off the whichever edge of the screen you're heading. That's why there's garbage data on the left side of this image - the cell holding the data for that bush on the right was still being rendered on the left side of the screen, due to how the screen wrapping works, so when the tree data was put in, it got put there on both sides, even though it only makes visual sense on the right side. (Most screens of this game actually show they hid this visual glitching with a solid bar of color on the leftmost side of the screen - using sprites, I think.)

There was also apparently a mapping that allowed for four screens' worth of data, and the ability to scroll smoothly on both axes at once. This was not common, since it cost extra to manufacture.

As noted in the video, sprites don't adhere to the cell system at all, but the downside is that you can only have 64 of them total, and even then only 8 per scanline. Each one can use one of four 3-color palettes, which are actually totally distinct from the four 3-color palettes the BG uses. Unlike the BG palettes, the "transparent" color here really does mean transparent (as you'd probably have expected), not "use a common BG color".

They actually don't have to be only 8x8 like he implied, though; you can combine two consecutive tiles in CHR into one single 8x16 sprite, which only counts against your hard 64-sprite limit once (as opposed to counting twice if you made the same arrangement of tiles out of two 8x8 sprites). Most later NES games abused the heck out of this, because they needed more action on the screen to stay appealing to a consumer base that was being wowed by the Genesis and SNES, which both had higher sprite counts (and sprite sizes) to work with natively.

The tradeoff with using 8x16 sprites instead of 8x8 is really technical and one that players won't care about but programmers might find interesting - as noted, you'd have to put those tiles into consecutive memory locations in CHR. So, if your sprite just so happened to use the same 8x8 tile as another sprite did, and you wanted to reuse that here to save space in CHR? Tough beans, you can't do it like that; both tiles in the 8x16 sprite have to be consecutive, so guess you've gotta have it in there twice now. This meant you could feasibly quickly fill up CHR with too much duplicate data, if your sprite artist wasn't particularly on top of things. Also meant you might occasionally have to put in a blank tile just to keep the 8x16 train rolling, essentially wasting a precious spot in CHR, and still having this count against you on the whole "8 per scanline" issue even though the tile is entirely transparent (see Castlevania's whip, apparently).

I know that's a lot to take in, and I'm not very good at being terse so it's probably wordier than it needs to be. Still, for a guy like me who's always kinda wanted to try making a game sometime, it's fascinating stuff to read about, and makes me appreciate just what sort of limitations really were being worked under all the more. (It also makes it all the more annoying when new games claim to adhere to the NES's strict limitations but very clearly don't - usually they get the sprite part down well enough, maybe ignoring the scanline limitation since that one sucked anyway, but noticeably aren't paying any attention to the BG cell limitations and have 5 or more colors in a single 16x16 tile.)
Click to expand...

Thanks! Very interesting additional info compared with the video there.
 
C

CrazedProfessional

Member
Can I just say how well built the PC-Engine is? It's small, compact and easily competes with SNES and Genesis games. It's near perfect in design besides the lack of a second controller port and well ahead of its time with the CD add-on but its size and the Hu-Cards were just some amazing tech for 1989. It's a shame NEC fucked it all up with the American release, I would've left the design untouched if I released it in North America.
 
C

CrazedProfessional

Member
sixteen-bit said:
Not sure they could've even if they wanted too due to FCC regulations for electronics shielding. That's why the NA Genesis 1 is like twice as heavy as a JP Maga Drive 1 due to all that extra metal inside.
Click to expand...

Even if they raised the height a little bit to put a metal box over the innards, the design would still be small and extremely refined.
 
P

Peltz

Member
Anth0ny said:
just did this. made so much space. feels good.
Click to expand...

I organized all of my games yesterday. It took over 2 hours, but I finally feel like my collection is more presentable now.

It's so hard to enjoy your games when they're buried behind other games. Now, everything is at my fingertips and all in one "layer" on my shelves. It looks so beautiful.
 
R

RadarScope1

Member
Yeah, like, what tech startup did this guy found and sell? With the addition on the house, I'm guessing the total cost of all that has to be above seven figures.
 
S

sixteen-bit

Member
RadarScope1 said:
Yeah, like, what tech startup did this guy found and sell? With the addition on the house, I'm guessing the total cost of all that has to be above seven figures.
Click to expand...

One of his videos he mentioned going hard in the stock market. He said he got burned out tho so maybe he's doing the early retirement thing.
 
P

Peltz

Member
RadarScope1 said:
Give us some pics!
Click to expand...

Well okay if you insist :) It's going to look so meager compared to Last Gamer's collection, but it's my humble little slice of heaven. Bear in mind, I managed to fit all of this in a tiny broom closet that converted into a little gaming library so sorry it all looks so cramped. But I think it's a good effort for a small NYC apartment.


11145891_10101159736081500_6792123407098518730_o.jpg


11119658_10101159736086490_7099297464644015120_o.jpg


11886141_10101159704943900_623370252986928324_o.jpg


11896317_10101159704938910_2345847121532677364_o.jpg


11856428_10101159704923940_8340948429289257062_o.jpg


11921892_10101159703876040_995761480310977517_o.jpg


11895234_10101159740787070_6677948913383716368_o.jpg


11864966_10101159699609590_9200311091057560576_o.jpg


11942338_10101159699589630_158891192079824536_o.jpg


11027483_10101159699409990_5101198009221825575_o.jpg


11924370_10101159699405000_8782801377620561482_o.jpg


11872161_10101159699245320_3856899459612700535_o.jpg


11879197_10101159699240330_2750578718068411859_o.jpg


11893828_10101159725128450_7000757554031312831_o.jpg


11942287_10101159725123460_6262785114923901854_o.jpg


11942158_10101159725118470_4166161975983401308_o.jpg


11895120_10101159725113480_5214036500152368666_o.jpg


11056549_10101159737289080_6630806350432457913_o.jpg


[/QUOTE]

Eventually I'll redo this in alphabetical order so it looks more proper. There's so little room left though that I had to send my DC and most of my OG Xbox collection to storage (for now) and have been nearly 100% digital on PS3, Vita, and PS4 to save space.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
That's reason I've been going to digital as well. I'll leave the rest for my retro stuff. Games are patched to heck anyway these days.
 
P

Peltz

Member
entrement said:
That's reason I've been going to digital as well. I'll leave the rest for my retro stuff. Games are patched to heck anyway these days.
Click to expand...

I generally try to go physical only with Nintendo stuff these days, and digital with everything else. There's something about Nintendo's box art that is still really cool in the modern era. I felt the same way last gen too: Wii and DS boxes are cool.
 
T

Teknoman

Member
Peltz said:
Well okay if you insist :) It's going to look so meager compared to Last Gamer's collection, but it's my humble little slice of heaven. Bear in mind, I managed to fit all of this in a tiny broom closet that converted into a little gaming library so sorry it all looks so cramped. But I think it's a good effort for a small NYC apartment.
Click to expand...

Eventually I'll redo this in alphabetical order so it looks more proper. There's so little room left though that I had to send my DC and most of my OG Xbox collection to storage (for now) and have been nearly 100% digital on PS3, Vita, and PS4 to save space.[/QUOTE]

Great Battle series player! More people need to try those SFC Great Battle SD games.
 
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