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Classic Arcade To Atari 2600 Conversions Rated
Thanks to PeekNPoke for its reviews of the best and worst of classic arcade game conversions on the Atari 2600. The piece looks at which early '80s conversions came off well, and notes Missile Command as one of the best ("Plays even better than the game it tries to emulate, and works very well with the standard joystick"), and Pac Man as less promising ("Usually voted as one of the worst arcade conversions on any system ever, and it is not hard to see why.") Which arcade conversions were you eagerly awaiting, only to find them ruined by classic hardware restrictions?
I know the Atari 2600 pac-man game was pretty bad, I owned it at one point.
Unfortunately, classic arcade game to home conversions still leave something to be desired. I recently purchased Midway Arcade Treasures, and the steering on some of the games is incredibly touchy... Although I can't really complain when I get 24 great games for $25... (I recommend it! An awesome bundle of games, even supports more than 2 players in the games that originally did!)
On a more nostalgic note... One of my fonder memories of my Sega Genesis was of the version of Ms Pac-Man available for it. It had all sorts of strange mazes, along with an editor! I wish the Pac-Man Collection for GBA would've had something like that instead of Pac-Attack... Pac-Attack is like Tetris meets Puyo Puyo meets a fresh pile of puppy crap. (although the puzzle mode is kind of enjoyable)
Had I been told it was crappy, I would not have spent so much time on it !
McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
Would have been nice to see a conversion for the 2600, however it may have ended up a bit like the first game mentioned here.
I think it was Test Drive. It was always excellent at the arcades. Basically you start off, and you have two roads to choose from, straight on for a really basic course, and take a slip road on the right for the 'stunt' course.
:-) Are those three green blocks a tree? Ah, yes...
When this game made it to consoles, it totally blew. Not just because you had no wheel, but because the graphics were insanely poor.
As an aside, I'm actually amazed they thought ANY games were good on the Atari 2600. You had to have a serious power of imagination to play ANY game on that thing...
ET sold the system on it's own
Even back in the day, it was obvious to this youngster that if you wanted decent arcade conversions, you needed a ColecoVision. I mean, for arcade games that were brought to the two systems, compare the quality, e.g.
-Donkey Kong
-Frogger
-Q*Bert
-Burgertime.
These were all huge titles that looked and played great on Coleco. However, the 2600 renditions are a sad thing to behold. Check out these screen shots of 2600 Burgertime vs. Coleco Burgertime.
Stargate (aka Defender II)
Jungle Hunt
Pengo
Mr. Do's Castle
Kangaroo
to name a few...
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
Why do I have a problem with the "(c) 1999" in this "screenshot" from Pac Man? (from the article) pacman.gif
I'd have to say Space Invaders was one of the better conversions too. It looked and played like the arcade game (unlike Pac Man which had hideous noises and had him moving backward and such when you changed directions).
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
only to find them ruined by classic hardware restrictions?
Actually, I believe someone demonstrated that the Atari 2600 hardware was capable of running an perfect port of the arcade version of Pac-Man by writing one for it. The problem was with the original programmers, not the hardware.
I actually have played the new 2600 Pac-Man on Stella and am wondering (I admit i haven't really done any research on this) if it could actually fit "hardware-wise" on an actual cartridge and released in 1982. Aren't you less limited programing for an emulator rather than the acutal hardware? I really don't know. But when i'm playing it (the better pac-man rom) I think "Sure, now with unlimited RAM, Storage, and a processor thousands of times as fast, I can play neer arcade perfect pacman, programed for 2600 hardware". But could you actually produce a cartridge and connect it to an old 2600 VCS and play it?
I know he's being funny, but there's some truth to that.
Ok, I was 8 years old at the time. It was 1982 and it was a time where i first saw the game Donkey Kong at a Pizza Hut, and was amazed because it looked just like a cartoon. I think I would have played anything at the time as long as it could be classed as a video game. This was an age when arcades were leaps and bounds ahead of the consoles.
It was a time when there really weren't many video game magazines. You have to admit that before EGM (you couldn't find "Joystick" at your local supermarket), nobody was really reviewing video games, there was no set standard. Video games back then were a fad like break dancing and the rubiks cube.
I actually got my Atari in 83 when it was in the clearance bin at a Venture department store. There was no way my parents would have put up with today's 200 dollar must have console and 4 year upgrade system that the industry has us to believe is the norm of consumer spending. Chances are, if you were a child of the early 80s you had ATARI, and maybe Colicovision/Intellevision or a home computer if you were lucky. But at the time atari was home video games. And we would have played anything put in front of us. Yeah, I had an Atari because it was cheep, and i played the hell out of it. I got the games that went on the clearance bin, PAC-MAN was one of them. It had a maze, 4 ghosts, power-pellets and a pacman. At the time, it was all the consumer wanted. I don't remember anyone complaining at the time.
Nowadays, it's easy to think of the horrible business mistakes that Atari made, and the landfill of pac-man/ET games, and the complete shovelware that caused the video game crash in early/mid 80's. At the time, I didn't even realize there was a crash. Today is so different, where the video game industry is judged against the movie industry, that it's really easy to come up with snotty reviews against the games that are being released for the holidays. Today, it is more than normal to buy a game based on what some "expert" says about it on some website or magazine, in fact it's a necessity. But back in the day, all you needed to sell spaceman was to produce the maze, ghosts and pacman and put it out on the market before the competition.
I know I'm kind of rambeling on, I guess the point is... If you wrote an article in 1982 about the horrible translation of pac-man for the atari 2600, no one would have any idea of what you are talking about.
I'm surprised that no one mentioned the 2600 version of Berzerk.
more information from the author of this hack: here.
1983, Ha. I wasn't even born until 1983. My Christmas gift for 1988 was an Atari 2600 Jr. (basically a repackaged Atari 2600) and a 13" color TV.
I think that definitely ranks up there for lameness.
Although I never played the re-make of Pitfall,(I cant even recall what gaming console it was out on.)it was my favroite game out at the time. Man, this makes me want to break out the old 2600 and see if it still works.
HaHaHaHaHa