Second Generation Appreciation Thread

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah the homebrews on the Flashback are the most interesting thing to me. Fun fact: many Coleco homebrews are ports of SG-1000 games due to similarities in hardware.

I would like to see a Flashback 2 as well. Hard to tell who technically holds the licenses of all these games. I know Gorf and Spy Hunter are both Midway games, Turbo is a Sega game, and I believe SNK (or whatever SNK turned into) holds the rights to Mr. Do!...

I would like to pick up a Turbo cart eventually. I believe it's only on ColecoVision and Intellivision (and arcade, of course). Berzerk, which you mentioned earlier, was ported to Atari 2600, 5200, and Vectrex. No compilation releases that I know of.

I'm kinda interested in checking out some of the other Vectrex ports of arcade games - like Scramble, Pole Position, and Armor Attack...

[ExedExes]

Turbo was to receive a 2600 port but the programmer got hit by a car, pushing the development time even further, after already being held up changing the control scheme from paddles to joystick.

The original arcade Turbo is easily one of my top games, as far as enjoyment and scoring well on. In my teens I even won a score tournament playing the real machine at the local rec center. My personal best currently stands at 25,201.

[Gunstar Green]

Turbo was to receive a 2600 port but the programmer got hit by a car

Well that was an unfortunate coincidence.

[ExedExes]

A bad one at that. It looked very good. There are quite a few arcade ports that translated well to the 2600. Frogger comes to mind.

[samsonlonghair]

The arcades of this era truly stand out. I can still enjoy a good game of Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, or Missile Command.

How are you playing these today? I highly recommend the Atari Anthology and Namco Museum 50th Anniversary, among others.

No, I'm going down to my local arcade.

I already own twelve different versions of Namco Museum. Thanks. It's not the same thing. At some point I came to the realization that all these Atari Anthologies and Namco Museums are just emulated shells of their former glory.

I go to my local arcade. I ask the sketchy dude with the facial tattoos for change from the cash register. Then I walk to the machine with cigarette burns, wipe the pizza grease off the joystick, drop a quarter in the coin mech, and I play a mother effing arcade game.

Twenty-five cents is pretty cheap to save the universe, don'tcha think?

[Gunstar Green]

A bad one at that. It looked very good. There are quite a few arcade ports that translated well to the 2600. Frogger comes to mind.

Berzerk is one of the shining examples even though the mazes have been simplified. It's the version of the game most people know and love these days.

Space Invaders doesn't have accurate graphics but is arguably an improvement over the arcade with all of the different modes.

I recently got my hands on Spy Hunter because I love getting different versions of Spy Hunter and while it's certainly not anywhere near the arcade it's an impressive effort. It's one of those games that you awkwardly need two controllers for (like Stargate/Defender II which is an AMAZING port for the 2600) but it works well enough and plays nicely.

[samsonlonghair]

A bad one at that. It looked very good. There are quite a few arcade ports that translated well to the 2600. Frogger comes to mind.

Space Invaders doesn't have accurate graphics but is arguably an improvement over the arcade with all of the different modes.

Have you ever played Space Invaders in the arcade? No home port has ever come remotely close.

[Gunstar Green]

I have. I really love the 2600 version though. Much of that may be the fact that it's what I grew up with.

[samsonlonghair]

Well, I can't argue with nostalgia. You're bound to love what you grew up with.

[ExedExes]

That and the Atari 2600 port had over *100* variations. Unheard of in 1980.

One arcade port that I "inherited" back in the day was Sega's Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom. I learned to become REAL good at that game. Even today I can still play it for a long time.

Another game I found out about recently has been Data Age's Encounter at L5. On the surface it may not seem like much, a typical vertical space shooter, but it uses the paddles to provide movement and firing by holding in the button. Check out some of the gameplay (Classic Game Room review) here.