[Let's Play] Party Like its 1987! Let's Experience the Atari Computer! Part Something: Some Atari Books and Other Retro Goodness. (Also Retro Computing Why Bother Post!)

Every now and then I get new Atari 8 bit goodies and sometimes other goodies.  Let's show them, and have STORYTIME!

(As always click for bigger.  You know the drill!)

For around 20 bucks shipped I got these lovely retro games for PCs.  Mostly Windows 9x era or a DOS title in Thunderscape's case.  Heavy Gear goes into my Hobby Games Gone Electronic niche, and Quake Mission Pack 1 goes into my Id Games niche.  While I need a TON of HGGE, for Id I am getting closer and closer to having them all.  4 more Mission Packs for Quake 1-3, Quake 4, Quake Wars, Rage, Heretic, and Hexen 2 and I should be pretty much complete unless I want every Raven Software game made with Id engines.  (Though the Wolfenstein games fit this.  Wouldn't mind Blake Stone either.  Luckily I already have Shadowcaster which is also an Origin joint.)

Suprisingly enough Heavy Gear generally seems to RUN in Windows 7!!  I have Compatibility Mode on Windows 95 and it goes.  The in case manual is little more than key commands and installation instructions though.  And because I have a Glide Wrapper to handle 3DFX Voodoo 3D, I can run it in that mode.   Sadly the out of game menus are all graphically glitchy and nigh unviewable in some cases even when I switch to 16 bit color or try 256 color modes.  (I have Administrator to Run settings on but for Windows 7 you basically HAVE TO.  And some programs run best in the C: drive directory as a folder whilst others would be happiest in Program Files or Program Files (X86).  If your programs run oddly try putting it in one of these other locations!)

Also being a Win 95 era game the glory of WASD controls isn't there so you have to go through a VERY tedious remapping system in game.  Also there doesn't seem to be any other resolution modes but 640 by 480.  Oh well.  It can go chill on the Win 98 SE rig.  It doesn't care that I have a mouse wheel or two extra mouse buttons either which for this game would be VERY useful.  Might as well go back to the older rig for this one!

But it works so I am a happy *Camper* and it will do.  I would prefer having the full manual but it was super cheap and I already have the cluebook.

The Quake Mission Pack on the other hand works fine.  It installed nicely in Dosbox for Dos Quaking, and with a little bit of Shortcut modifiying:

(As seen at:  http://www.dosgamers.com/ .  I tend to make things like cheatsheets or quickie pages for things using Snipping Tool.  It is very useful.  Screencaptures made easy!  Reorganized maps for RPGs!  Things that won't let you copy a picture!  Easy peasy!)

I'm in the start of the second third of the game right now and overall I like this mission pack over the original Quake solo campaign.  It is a bit more challenging without being ridiculous, and adds in new monsters like this Gremlin dude who will nick your stuff or do things to dudes you already killed like this elite Knight.  Also a pair of energy weapons which are pretty fun and an alternate Grenade Launcher that shoots sticky bombs that explode after like 20 seconds or so unless an enemy gets close then BOOM.  Lots of fun level designs in this pack.  Sadly this trimester took away all my stuff as Quake is wont to do so I have to regain it all.

And even using a new item which summons a random monster to fight for me doesn't help against the big guys.  The summoned dog died quickly then I joined the poor murderpooch.

I haven't installed Thunderscape yet but its a party RPG SSI tried to get going as a franchise after they lost the D&D license.  It.. did not exactly light the world on fire.  The game looks cool though.  I could have gotten it off of GOG.com for about a third of the six whole US Dollars I paid for it, but I am a big boy who can manage to use Dosbox or an actual DOS rig.  And I like having real manuals and disks because I am stupid.

But now on to STORYTIME!

Meet the two most helpful members of the DINORINES!  They are Blades and Heatwave.  They each cost 4 dollars which is less than a proper Iced Latte.  I couldn't say no to them joining my collection of Dinorines!  

I got this faded but reasonably priced Compute!'s First Book of Atari Graphics for like MSRP shipped.  It is an old book but I do wish to learn how to program sometime and having another nicely priced book for my Atari 8 bit collection is always welcome.  (When I can afford it.)

The book is about 250 pages long and has helpful charts like this one showing the various graphics modes available to the Atari 8 bit line and what they do and how much RAM it eats.

Some practice and educational programs to type in to learn as you read which is a great way to make words in a book stick into your brain meats.  I generally read and forget a lot unless things reinforce it or refresh my memory.  If I don't, it falls out of my memories, much like poor Heatwave's head in this picture.

It also has an in depth section on the GTIA chip which is like the main graphics chip most of the Atari 8 bit line had outside of the earliest releases of the 400/800 machines.  Read some of the text in these pages if you would like and learn how the Atari owns the Apple IIs and even gives the mighty Commodore 64 a run for it's money!  (The original chip, the CTIA has a few less graphics modes and only 128 color choices.)

Heatwave is excited that we can see if my Atari 800 is a later revision with the GTIA chip.  So much so that his dino nose is hiding a GOTO statement.

Some of the many wonderful Compute! books you could buy back in the early 80s.  On this list I would like the First Book of Robots and Computers, Mapping the Atari, and Machine Language for Beginners.

Blades and Heatwave are happy to show my hardcopy Atari books and reference guides!  They are so happy they go to talk to the rest of the Dinorines about it so we can all learn Atari programming together and maybe make a list of books to pick up and to keep our eyes opened for!

(As opposed to just getting PDFs from Atarimania.  Again I am stupid and like owning physical copies.)

Sadly the bigger Dinorines just don't care.  Slug and Scorn are more interested in spending money on marijuana, hard liquor, and hookers.

(They are also awaiting their other teammates who aren't out in stores yet.  They are however sober enough to have read spoilers for the movie they barely feature in and know that would be an even worse waste of money than buying old computer games and books.  Or toy robots who turn into dinosaurs.

As to the other books I kind of am on the hunt for?

Atari 130XE Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner Atari for the Beginning Beginner Compute!'s Atari Collection - Volume 1 and Volume 2 Compute!'s Second Book of Atari Graphics Compute!'s First Book of Atari Games How to Program Your Atari in 6502 Machine Language Mapping the Atari - Revised Edition The Second Book of Machine Language Writing Strategy Games on Your Atari (Or pretty much most of the books here: http://www.atarimania.com/documents-atari-400-800-xl-xe-books_1_8.html )

Now these aren't all the books I would like plus of course I would love to have original manuals for all my games and devices but time, money, space, and availability are all major considerations.

But.. take the time with your old hardware and LEARN IT.  Don't just play games or continually tinker with the hardware because you have some odd idealized idea of how it should operate.  

Get to know your machine.  Don't hoard stuff for it.  Expand and ENJOY IT as much as possible.  Plus books are awesome and everyone should read more real books.

Retrocomputing: Why Bother? Special: Alternate Ways to Play the Game 1

Yes.  Sometimes you just want to play and enjoy a good classic computer game.

But emulation isn't your bag.  The game doesn't run on Windows 7 or 8.
(I will just laugh at OSX and Linux here.)

The game itself just.. doesn't HOLD UP to modern standards.

(WASD controls for first person gameplay or GTFO?  Yes.  Just like the bottom button on a standard four button controller layout diamond is always my KILLY BUTTON.  I don't care that Japan does it backwards with center right.  Those two buttons are like mouse buttons and are thus primary and secondary/cancel.  Anything else drives me crazy and gives me a headache.  Like the one I kind of have right now and is thus why I am posting instead of working and making dat cash money.  Except it aint caused by a sinusy type cold attack.  Or too much caffeine/withdrawals of caffeine lately.)

There are a couple of alternate solutions and we are gonna talk about them a little bit.

One of the easiest is of course Console Ports.  Yep.  In some cases many of the classic games got ported to consoles removing pesky disk or tape loads.  They usually got decent controller modes over their 1 button counterparts.  In many cases the games had better graphics and sound.  (Gods while in the US Genesis and SNES port runs a bit faster than the Amiga original adds in a full in game music score plus nice proper multibutton controls over 1 button Amiga play.)

I am gonna show an example that will work quite well as to what you can expect from a VGA DOS era game since I own the Sega CD port and recently got a boxed PC DOS CDROM copy cheap.

(As usual click for larger images.  Most of the non game images are from my iPad Air as to minimize the need for a flash.  But some clarity is still lost.)

Dungeon Master 2 will work really well here!  Both versions have things the other does not while basically being 99% the exact same game.  Obviously the PC comes in a much bigger box.

Surprisingly enough this game even supports the mouse for the Genesis which not too many other games did, allowing for almost the same control as the PC.  Though in general the Sega version wins out because it has control pad support including the 6 button controller which allows a number of actions to be macro set to the top 3 buttons.  (You see the Dungeon Master genre of RPGs are closer in some ways to an action game with RPG elements where you have to stick and move.  Pure mouse play does NOT work well for this.  Also this was in the days before WASD controls became a default and the keyboard movement is either the arrow keys or the numeric keypad.  Depending on your computer's desk setup playing games like this is super uncomfortable unless you can move said keyboard about 5 inches to the left of it's normal position.  And no, setting keys in DOSBox doesn't help much.  In fact it just makes things difficult.)

Both my games were bought used, Dungeon Master 2 around 1996 when a computer store was getting rid of it's attempts at renting out video games.  Sadly this means this sticker from a former Commodore sales and service location is basically stuck there forever.  But it does let you see how the old Sega CD and Saturn CD boxes looked.  Kind of classy in a way.

The back of the Sega CD version has an ad for one of the three official clue books made for the game.  I am also showing what the PC Jewel Case front and back look like too.

Of course the PC version also comes with this nice fold out poster map thingie and a reference card with a bit of a starting walkthrough.  It's main manual has one as well though they are both a touch different.

The PC version manual is a bit larger and the introductory story is a bit better written.  In general both manuals basically cover the same thing.  Its just the Sega version has size limits.  Its a console thing.

The PC version on the left here again shows it is a bit better than the console manual but.. they basically cover the exact same info.

However the console manual is nicer in that it tells you what a lot of the spells in the game are as opposed to having to find them in the PC port.  

Now we are seeing the games compared side by side in emulators but using my original disks.  (I have a good DOSbox setup that runs most things easy peasy for me.)  PC on left, console right.  From my research the Sega version there uses the Amiga palette so it is actually hurting itself if true.  (The main Amigas and their popular graphics modes had 32 colors on screen.  PCs of the day were 256 colors.  You can see this.  Normally the Genesis did 64 colors though the Sega CD did boost its' capabilities to some degree.)

Again, its basically the SAME THING but one is clearly better looking.

Again, PC on left, Sega on right.  Same thing but the PC version looks loads better.  From my research the Amiga version was closer in form to the original Dungeon Master whose home platform was the Atari ST which while generally on par with the Amiga was saddled with 16 colors on its most popular machines and thus normally looks inferior to most Amiga counterpart games.  Yet from my understanding DM2 here never was released on the system that it owes its' existence to.  

And one final shot from Dungeon Master 2 showing exploration.  The same info and basic graphical layout but the PC version is vastly superior.

Yet the Sega CD version has more control options to easily choose from and is a bit easier to play.

I guess the choice is yours on this one!

I just need to learn how to "get" the Dungeon Master franchise and most of its VERY popular in the UK cousin games so I can play them and enjoy them.

But you see there are plenty of ways to enjoy a lot of old computer games even if you don't want to play with old computers.  

Here are a few more for this installment as a way to inspire you to look into various platforms and games just to see what is out there.

This here is an iOS game called Silversword.  It is basically a modern game trying to be like the Bard's Tale series but with allowances for nearly 30 years of technology and game player expectations.  Automaps!  The game informing you when your characters have earned a level up or have regained magic points in the sun.  ACTUALLY TELLING YOU WHAT YOUR EQUIPMENT DOES.

You know, stuff I wanted back in 1988 when I first played Bard's Tale.

(Also graphics for male and female characters, another thing BT 1 and 2 decided we didn't need.)

I would call this a Homage/Spiritual Sequel game.  Other games in this category would be Midnight Manor which is like a modern Montezuma's Revenge except with a built in construction set, or Devil Whiskey which is another Bard's Tale styled game.  The Dark Spire on the Nintendo DS is a Wizardry styled game.

Nowadays with Kickstarter this style of game is making a big comeback.  GOG.com and Steam have plenty of games basically being unofficial sequels to the classics as well.

This here is a translation patch for two Japanese only Wizardry installments.  See many Computer RPGs were BIG IN JAPAN so they got more games over there.  So let's call this that then.  A few of them even have translation patches.

Another big one is the Source Port/Hack.  This is where a game is either ported to run on modern platforms with engine tweaks, if not having the engine entirely redone, usually allowing for modern gameplay enhancements like Sensible World of Soccer has had, allowing for online leagues and the like.  (I was the Revolution.  I am NOT a Goal Scoring Superstar Hero sadly.  I need time to learn this game.)

(Note: most of the following images I uploaded to Facebook so they are a touch reduced in image fidelity compared to if I had hosted them elsewhere.)

This here is a special case.  Not only is it a source port.  Its a source port of a console game that was a console only sequel.  Doom 64.  Yes.  Someone took the original Doom 64 game and back coded it into a Doom Sourceport.  And then later on someone else made it so you could just directly play it on it's own, but like all good Source Ports this one adds in features like improved graphics resolution and control options.  On the N64 I didn't get very far.  On the PC I have nearly completed it even giving how I am trying to avoid saving my game anywhere besides the start of the level.

But let's show a "proper" sourceport eh?

Here is stock Quake in what would have been fantastic for its time resolution.

Now?  Source Port with fan made graphical improvements all over the place.  I could have even added more if I felt like looking for and installing them all.

Vanilla again.

Source Port!

The glorious Doomsday Project sourceport running Heretic with almost all the upgrades I could find.  Heretic was basically Doom with fantasy trappings and a higher difficulty level plus inventory management.  It can abide now like the Dude.

Just download a couple handy packs, put them where the instructions tell you to, and let the front end program handle the rest!  (It just reminds me I still haven't bought Hexen which is the sequel to Heretic and I have been meaning to buy it for close to 2 decades now.  Also the Quake 1 Mission Packs.)

Of course there are others too!  Perhaps I will cover these whenever I decide to do another installment eh?

Until then, GET TO GAMING.  There are so many ways to enjoy classic computer games in all sorts of ways you are bound to find something you enjoy!