GameOfThrones wrote:Karateka needs to be on that list. The worst game on the 7800 and it had a few not very good games on it. Shuffle shuffle death. Recently I watched a walk through of the game. The guy was really good and he beat the game in 7 minutes. Good ending though and for the time the graphics were top notch. Completely let down by awful game play and controls.
Karateka was written originally for the Apple II, I believe. It has ports to other systems like the Commodore 64. I've even played a Famicom version, but that may have been a bootleg and not an official port. It really can be an excellent game, with good graphics, and some good memories such as the eagle, and the ending of courses. There is a reason it was ported to other systems - because the original is pretty good. The 7800 port is just really lacking, possibly due to the controller.
Unfortunately, Karateka was the first game I ever played on an Atari 7800, and I am not sure if that sour taste has ever really left me for the system. Its a shame that the 7800 version of Karateka seems to be the version many retrogamers know.
Please don't judge Epyx's Impossible Mission on its notoriously unwinnable 7800 port either. That game was so bad, Dave's never even reviewed the Sega Master System port.
It does bring up that there is a difference between a bad *game*, and a bad *port* of an otherwise acceptable game.