2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

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VideoGameCritic
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2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby VideoGameCritic » December 31st, 2019, 1:51 pm

Last two reviews of the decade! Two re-reviews of games I reviewed about 19 years back. Thoughts?

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Marriott_Guy
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Re: 2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby Marriott_Guy » December 31st, 2019, 4:00 pm

Great reviews, and Happy New Year VGC! One small item - the hyperlink referencing the Astrocade review directs to the 2600 version - not the Bally review.

Enjoy the holiday!

Terry

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noah98
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Re: 2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby noah98 » December 31st, 2019, 8:52 pm

Dragonfire is such an amazing game! Hard to believe it's a 2600 game. While I love this version, I find the Colecovision version impossibly hard. Getting across the drawbridge feels like luck more than anything else. I like the extra graphical touches and stuff like the archers, but why is the gameplay so different on the first level? Also, they downgraded the treasure graphics in that version.

The 2600 version is still the best. Even the Intellivision version is lacking in comparison.

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Stalvern
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Re: 2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby Stalvern » January 1st, 2020, 10:40 am

The Artillery Duel review starts with a dangling participle. "After posting a glowing review [...] an inquisitive reader asked" – the reader did not post the review! Also, "appropo" is not a word; you're thinking of the French word apropos.

"Medieval times era" in the Dragonfire review is redundant. Medieval times or the medieval era, but not both.

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Retro STrife
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Re: 2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby Retro STrife » January 2nd, 2020, 4:23 pm

It's great when your reviews shed light on a gem like Dragonfire that I had totally overlooked. Dragonfire has sat on my shelf for years and years -- it's one of those common, generic-sounding games that I wouldn't normally grab off the shelf to play. If it's a well-known game, I had somehow missed the memo. But your description of the game makes it sound great, like something I need to play ASAP. Thanks for that.

Quick typo alert in Dragonfire-- toward the end you say "holding the joystick left after entering enter the castle", the second "enter" should be deleted.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: 2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby VideoGameCritic » January 2nd, 2020, 7:01 pm

Thanks for the feedback guys. This is one of the reasons I like to post re-reviews. First, I get to flesh out another layer of detail I may have missed 20 (!) years back.

Also, I can thrust a forgotten game back into a spot light where people can give it another look.

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Re: 2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby Luigi & Peach » January 4th, 2020, 9:16 am

The picture of artillery duel and the description make me think of a simplified version of the DOS game Scorched Earth.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: 2019/12/31: Atari 2600: Dragonfire, Artillery Duel

Postby BlasteroidAli » January 10th, 2020, 6:43 pm

The best version of Dragonfire. I remember buying it and being totally blown away. High res graphics and amazing playability. Something that was lacking in the Coleco version which looked good but did not play as well.


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