What I’m Playing Right Now #16
November 2, 2024 4 Comments
November is here, and the start of one of the busiest seasons for games I’m dying to play I’ve ever had since starting this blog. The lineup for Atari 50’s second DLC pack has been announced. I don’t want to say I’m disappointed in it, but I was really hoping for more never-before-ported arcade games. It’s mostly Mattel-developed Atari 2600 games that likely offer a hint of what the NEXT Gold Master Series release will be. Hopefully they get some licenses if Intellivision is up next after Tetris, and all indications are that it will be. While sports leagues are out of the question, stuff like He-Man, Dungeons & Dragons, and Kool-Aid Man don’t belong as post-review bonuses. Anyway, here’s what’s included. Unless otherwise stated, everything is for the Atari 2600.
- Air Raiders
- Antbear (Never Released Prototype)
- Armor Ambush
- Astroblast
- Frogs & Flies
- International Soccer
- Dark Cavern
- Star Strike
- Super Challenge Baseball
- Super Challenge Football
- Swordfight (Never Released Prototype)
- Sea Battle (Never Released Prototype)
- Tower of Mystery (Never Released Prototype)
- Video Pinball
- Basketball
- Hardball (Atari 8-Bit PC)
- Final Legacy (Atari 5200, Never Released Prototype)
- Xari Arena (Atari 8-bit)
- Desert Falcon (Atari 7800)
Surely the Kool-Aid people and Atari can come to some kind of a deal, because I actually gave the 2600 Kool-Aid Man a YES! in The Games They Couldn’t Include Part Two. Tower of Mystery is the most exciting of the new games. To put it in perspective, I don’t even have the ROM for it. This is a NEWLY DUMPED ROM that started development as a port of Intellivision’s Advanced Dungeons & Dragons series. There’s something about newly discovered/finished prototypes from long before I was born finally coming out that puts a tear in my eye. The other big announcement is Tetris Forever added two more games: two completely different MS-DOS versions of Tetris. A few people have asked if I plan on ranking the games included. I am not. I think the YES!/NO! system will be good enough. Not that I think “Tetris is Tetris” because that’s lazy, but I think it’s just plain unfair to compare a primitive PC version to an SNES version. I also don’t plan on reviewing the Arcade Archives version of Tetris. Besides the bonus reviews, this will be enough Tetris to last me into the 2030s. So, what AM I playing?
Yea yea, I’m supposed to be playing Contra Force, and I am, but this is the one everyone wants a review of. This and Hard Corps will give me a complete review of every Contra Anniversary game, and that’s my current priority. But, this is just treading water until the big November games hit. And Saturday will be “Family Day.” Sasha has no Taekwondo class today, so we’re going to be dueling all day at Camp Bloodbrook for Pinball M. And I get to stay up all night grinding the buffs for Arcade mode. Joy. I can say 100% for sure that the Pinball M version has none of the problems that the Pinball FX version has. We’re all enjoying what we’ve played so far, but the time to SERIOUSLY play it and try to defeat each-other is today. I’m hoping to at least have the Vice Family scores up by Sunday in an update to the Pinball M review.
This is downloaded onto my Switch. From Freakzone, creator of The Angry Video Game Nerd games that I hold in much esteem. Sam, you made me roll my eyes within the first ten seconds of the game. You’re going to gaming hell, my friend. By the way, I’ve never seen the movie and I’m not going to watch it before I play this. So uh, this will be interesting.
Indie Gamer Chick 
When you do it, don’t forget to switch over to the Japanese version of Hard Corps once the American version pisses you off too much. Maybe the life gauge will save it for you.
For what it’s worth, Antbear should actually be Anteater (a port of the arcade game). I don’t quite know how they managed that typo in the article. And… I hope you have at least seen a video of “Time Warp” – great song from Rocky Horror!
Has there been any explanation for why the Atari ST just gets left out of this supposed lookback at 50 years of Atari?
I asked about this to my friends at Digital Eclipse a long while back, and there are issues. You’ll note that like the Llamasoft set also didn’t have Atari ST, but rather Atari Jaguar versions of ST games. There are issues with emulation of it and other concerns that are preventive RIGHT NOW. Even if you can run an ST program on a computer with an emulator, it doesn’t necessarily transition well to game consoles. There’s too many idiosyncrasies and optimization issues. Knowing them like I do, if they’re not using any games from a platform they own lock-stock, there’s a valid reason and all options have been explored.
This is my spin: I have faith that what’s prohibitive NOW won’t be eventually. Atari seems to understand as both a business and a brand what their honeypot is and I imagine they’ll devote resources to overcoming issues. I’ll remind everyone what a surprise it was that Jaguar games were in a collection. That was a prohibitive emulator for collections due to multiple technical foibles, and now two collections have used Jaguar. So, I have faith that they’ll do ST eventually. In a very real sense, they’re just getting started. We’re not that far removed from half-assed Flashback plug & play Ataris, or the 150 game Atari Flashback Classics where the best features were a handful never released games (that had already been in collections before) and the comic books for Swordquest. Atari just bought Digital Eclipse. It’s a very safe bet that the Gold Master Series is factoring big into their plans. Atari also seems to recognize that specific fan bases will reward effort with enthusiasm. Making of Karateka and Llamasoft show that no niche will go unexplored. In my limited experience doing classic computer platforms, those fan bases are amazing, dedicated, and loyal. There’s no way Atari wants to leave that untapped. I’m guessing there’s someone on the solution to it.