8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

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Michael Danehy

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Michael Danehy » August 4th, 2006, 2:35 pm

[QUOTE=Alienblue]No, they used Atari Basketball in AIRPLANE. Oddly the Atari COMPUTER Basketball was near-identical despite more power!

I wanted to say, while Keystone Kapers has very good graphics it is far from the BEST on 2600....what about later games like SOLARIS, ROAD RUNNER...those REALLY pushed the envelope! Even some earlier IMAGIC games like Demon Attack and Cosmic Ark and the arcade-like TAPPER; heck even Activision's own BARNSTORMING had better graphics IMHO. The fact that KK had "spruced up"
graphics on the 5200 shows it was a bit sparse....just empty show cases, no windows, no customers, etc...
BTW, here is a tip for KK players: normally the elevator is to be avoided, too long to wait, right!? Wait till it hits the TOP FLOOR then hit RESET! Now RUN FAST! You should reach the elevator JUST as it gets to the bottom floor-keep on ridin' longs u can![/QUOTE]

Solaris is king in terms of Atari 2600 graphics. If you could go back in time and show it to people playing Adventure in 1978 they'd pass out from shock. And after they've recovered from their amazement at your time travel technology, they'd be quite impressed with Solaris.

 

 


Funkmaster V

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Funkmaster V » August 4th, 2006, 4:09 pm

error:

 

So before you write this one off, give it a try. There's something to be said for simplicity (a silliness) in sports video games.

 

A should be and

 

FUNk


Funkmaster V

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Funkmaster V » August 4th, 2006, 4:20 pm

And that was for Basketball.

 

Ya know, I kind of like Championship Soccer. Does that make me wrong?

 

FUNK


Chris Marsh

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Chris Marsh » August 4th, 2006, 7:47 pm

[QUOTE=Alienblue]No, they used Atari Basketball in AIRPLANE. Oddly the Atari COMPUTER Basketball was near-identical despite more power! [/QUOTE]

It even says in the credits of the film that there is a thanks to Atari Inc., so is indeed the Atari Basketball game. It is even weirder that a Vectrex game appeared in a B-movie called Android.


Benjamin

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Benjamin » August 5th, 2006, 12:29 pm

In responce to the critic

Maybe WE like your old reviews critic... ever consider that. It would be nice to compare them. I think it is a shame you dont leave them below your new rereviews.  anywho The arm falling off joke in the soccer Pele game review took me by suprise it was funny. Most of your humor is tounge-in-cheek


Jake

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Jake » August 5th, 2006, 4:11 pm

VGC, you could put all your old reviews in a link called..

retired reviews or terminated ones. Then have the list with the original grade and date. Actually, i think the grades have been changing without review updates, (sometimes) it seems the grades are different. No opinions on that, btw:

here's some,

 

-Basketball is a pretty good challenge,

sorta like an odyssey2 game, minimal and kinda fun.

Agreed with review.

 

-Pele's Soccer I liked (last times I played it). Cause the ball control seemed decent and it was fun enough for me. You can get ''Carpotunnell'' if played too much though!!

I would score it higher.  

 

-Keystone Kapers is well deserving of the A-. Graphics are super for '83. Solaris was great sound and image, but was made for 2600 in 1986? I expect more from

the newer atari games, so i am not so shocked.

Agreed with review.  

 

PS, I was laughing about the reviews for 2600 games 

Slot Machine / Space Jockey. lol. Space Jockey is cheese. Argh, weak!


Lancer

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Lancer » August 5th, 2006, 4:13 pm

WIth regards to the movie "Airplane" and everybody's favorite 2600 masterpiece "Basketball", it IS that exact game in the movie, but Kareem has nothing to do with it.  It appears towards the end, up in the control tower.  One of the tower guys is playing it while Ted Striker is trying to land the plane.

 

Remember: fun before graphics and sound (I am 37, that should explain it).


Alienblue

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Alienblue » August 6th, 2006, 6:51 am

True,dat, about fun b4 graphx... I am not a sports fan but recall both O2 and Atari basketball being highly praised (they even praised the "realistic" "3-D" view in BASKETBALL! (: ... And I do believe CHAMPIONSHIP SOCCER was like the first non-pong sports game, sorta in between PONG and "real" sports so the paddle-men are not surprising. One reviewer said to think of it as a kind of "mobile foosball"! ...a lot of Mattels early sports games had superior graphics but had two strikes against the 2600 games- SLOW play and only TWO PLAYERS could play (which would leave me out even if I LIKED sports...like, my WIFE was gonna play INTV Baseball/Football with me!?)...I never got mattels thinking on that, not every guy into sports had a brother , dad had to work, and freinds were not available 24/7....yet, I believe, only AUTO RACING could be played solo! All other sports were 2-person ONLY! Hence many loner sport fans got the 2600 in spite of "graphx"!

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8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby VideoGameCritic » August 6th, 2006, 3:46 pm

Alienblue,
You make a good point about how Intellivision was mostly 2 player.  When home video games were fairly new in the early 80's, one thing that really drew me to them was the fact that you could have fun with them any time of the day, even if you were alone.  I have quite a few friends who I play games with at least once per week, but I still enjoy locking myself in my game room and being in my own little world.  That's why I'm not anxious to go online.

That may also be one reason why men tend to favor games more than women.  For the same reason many of us are satisfied to hack on computers alone for hours on each, while most women prefer more human interaction.
Dave


Alienblue

8/3/2006: Atari 2600: Basketball, Keystone Kapers, Pele's Championship Soccer

Postby Alienblue » August 6th, 2006, 6:49 pm

Exactly, Critic!...I mentioned I LOVED games in general long before VIDEOgames; Chess, checkers, monopoly, SCRABBLE (my favourite) and card games...but I was all alone, no one to
play with! I played SOLITARE and wooden "puzzles" and did crosswords back then...so finding a "opponent" in the COMPUTER
VIDEOGAME was heaven-sent to me!

You may notice O2 has many 2-player only games as well. Both they and Mattel had MEMORY problems. O2 had a tiny 2K, so not much room LEFT for computer A.I.! With INTV, the problem was, they
used up soooo much memory on those fancy graphics, again, there
was no room left for A.I. in the "realistic" sports games. They could've cut half the players out of BASKETBALL or HOCKEY and made it one player but, alas, they wanted to outdo Atari in at least THIS area, and went for good-LOOKING games vs. games that could be played solo...fortunately years later They started making solo games like Burgertime, Mission X etc...and when INTV productions grabbed the rights they RE-released some of the mattel sports games with a computer opponent! (I forgot to mention, besides AUTO RACING, SKIING could be one player).




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