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IGN's Worst Coin-op Conversions
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NoxTek
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I notice they pick on Donkey Kong and Pac-Man for the 2600...
....but really I get the feeling this article was done by a bunch of spoiled youngsters who don't know what things were like back then. The 2600 was really the first massively marketed and popular home video game system (what we now call a 'console'). Sure, we had the Oddesy a few years before but it wasn't worth writing home about.
The fact that they were even able to come out with ports of arcade titles on the 2600 was a major feat in itself, and while I'll admit Pac-Man hardly resembled it's arcade counterpart it was the best that could be done at the time and it was pretty damn fun! Donkey Kong wasn't bad at all and actually paid a fair resemblence to the arcade version, it was just scaled down a lot.
You wanna talk about a great and fun port for the Atari 2600? ASTEROIDS... my god I must have wasted sooooo many hours when I was a kid playing Asteroids. I think it was actually MORE fun than the arcade version... it was certainly a lot more colorful.
But I'm really showing my age here...
....but really I get the feeling this article was done by a bunch of spoiled youngsters who don't know what things were like back then. The 2600 was really the first massively marketed and popular home video game system (what we now call a 'console'). Sure, we had the Oddesy a few years before but it wasn't worth writing home about.
The fact that they were even able to come out with ports of arcade titles on the 2600 was a major feat in itself, and while I'll admit Pac-Man hardly resembled it's arcade counterpart it was the best that could be done at the time and it was pretty damn fun! Donkey Kong wasn't bad at all and actually paid a fair resemblence to the arcade version, it was just scaled down a lot.
You wanna talk about a great and fun port for the Atari 2600? ASTEROIDS... my god I must have wasted sooooo many hours when I was a kid playing Asteroids. I think it was actually MORE fun than the arcade version... it was certainly a lot more colorful.
But I'm really showing my age here...
Xenomaniac
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Well is it just me or am I glade to see Mortal Kombat for the SNES was on the list? Great graphics, almost exact arcade look.......but where's the violence?
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The commentary was pretty good. And Virtua Fighter was really....really......really ugly...even for it's time.
I think they were way too hard on the really old stuff like pac-man and donkey kong. I thought pac-man was pretty good gameplay-wise. I mean come on, it was the 2600 for cryin out loud. Those were the days when arcade machines were way ahead of the then-fledgeling home consoles.
Stereophile
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I don't know. At only 5-6 years old, I was disappointed with pac man.
I know they couldn't do a perfect arcade translation or anything, but they could have at least kept the maze layout from the original. Ms pac man had 4 different mazes, but pac man only had one. There is no excuse why it was so butchered.
I've read a little about the early days of home consoles. Atari would make millions in revenue off games, and the programmers were paid nothing. The guy who programmed space invaders got like 5k bucks or something and it went on to make tens of millions for the company. So most likely whoever programmed pac man for the 2600, was given a two month deadline and just didn't really give a fuck. The 5200 version was pretty much arcade perfect, but by that time pac man fever was over.
I had street fighter 2 for snes, and if anyone remembers it was about a 95% accurate arcade port. Very nicely done. I'd never heard about the genesis version. That is incredibly lame you needed to press the start button to change between kicks and punches. Seems like they could have come up with a better compromise than that.
I barely remember strider on NES. I know I liked it. I think a friend had that game. I never played the arcade so I don't know what I was missing. Double Dragon on NES sucked. I'd nominate that as a piss poor arcade translation before strider.
I know they couldn't do a perfect arcade translation or anything, but they could have at least kept the maze layout from the original. Ms pac man had 4 different mazes, but pac man only had one. There is no excuse why it was so butchered.
I've read a little about the early days of home consoles. Atari would make millions in revenue off games, and the programmers were paid nothing. The guy who programmed space invaders got like 5k bucks or something and it went on to make tens of millions for the company. So most likely whoever programmed pac man for the 2600, was given a two month deadline and just didn't really give a fuck. The 5200 version was pretty much arcade perfect, but by that time pac man fever was over.
I had street fighter 2 for snes, and if anyone remembers it was about a 95% accurate arcade port. Very nicely done. I'd never heard about the genesis version. That is incredibly lame you needed to press the start button to change between kicks and punches. Seems like they could have come up with a better compromise than that.
I barely remember strider on NES. I know I liked it. I think a friend had that game. I never played the arcade so I don't know what I was missing. Double Dragon on NES sucked. I'd nominate that as a piss poor arcade translation before strider.
Stereophile
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Netrat33 said:
Yeah they totally changed it around. A skill system to learn moves. No co-op play. Only 2-3 enemies on screen compared to 6-7 on the arcade.
The graphics weren't bad for NES, but it looked completely different from the arcade. The bobos were tall thug looking guys in the arcade, but on the NES version they looked like deformed circus sideshow musclemen. Also the arcade had a gritty look to the backgrounds while the NES version had lots of bright colors. They should have stuck with the original art, even if it had to be degraded for NES. I was pretty disappointed in this one.
Another thing I thought of, not a console port but a computer port-
The Apple IIGS version of gauntlet was just horrendous.
I remember seeing the back of the box and looking at the Amiga and Atari ST screenshots that looked 100% true to the the arcade. And then my jaw hit the floor when I saw it on my computer. It looked like crap. Like a C64 game or something. Much worse than even the tengen NES gauntlet. Which is messed up, because the IIGS had comparable power to the Amiga and ST (It had the same cpu they later used in snes), but since it was Apple II backwards compatible, a lot of devs just took the Apple II code and slapped some 16 bit code on it and called it a day. Some IIGS games looked amazing for the time (Bard's Tale, Hardball, Dungeon Master, Sword of Sodan, Defender of the Crown, Zany Golf), but Gauntlet was a real stinker..
NoxTek
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Stereophile said:I don't know. At only 5-6 years old, I was disappointed with pac man.
I know they couldn't do a perfect arcade translation or anything, but they could have at least kept the maze layout from the original. Ms pac man had 4 different mazes, but pac man only had one. There is no excuse why it was so butchered.
I've read a little about the early days of home consoles. Atari would make millions in revenue off games, and the programmers were paid nothing. The guy who programmed space invaders got like 5k bucks or something and it went on to make tens of millions for the company. So most likely whoever programmed pac man for the 2600, was given a two month deadline and just didn't really give a fuck. The 5200 version was pretty much arcade perfect, but by that time pac man fever was over.
Well you gotta realize the 5200 was quite a different beast than the 2600, the hardware was a lot more capable when compared to it's older brother. And Pac-Man was one of the very first games for the Atari 2600 if I recall correctly... Hell it may even be the very first game after 'Combat' which came packed in with the 2600 for it's first 2 or 3 years. This was long before programmers learned to take advantage of the hardware and do some of the nifty tricks that you saw in later 2600 titles.
Man, this discussion has me all nostalgic feeling now... the 2600 was such a great little machine. Anyone remember Yar's Revenge?
Or how about Worlords? Paddle controllers for the win!
Stereophile
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I realize the 5200 was more capable. I didn't expect the 2600 to be a perfect port, but it's like they didn't even try. Example: Why change the layout of the maze ?
It actually came out sort of late in the 2600's lifespan right before the crash. Combat and the original VCS were released in 1977. Pac Man came out in the summer of 1982. Activision had already released a lot of their killer apps. i.e. Pitfall, River Raid, Chopper Command, H.E.R.O. I think the professional programming community had a good handle by that point, so I'm sure they could have done much better. Pac Man was pathetic even for a 2600 imo. Knowing Atari, they probably hired the cheapest programmer they could find, and told them we need this game next month.
Lots of people blame Pac Man along with ET for causing the videogame crash. Seriously crappy games for 40 or 50 bucks. Good for me though, cause after the crash I remember going to Toys R Us on a weekly basis and picking up a couple games for literally 5-10 bucks each. By the time I got an NES, I must have had 150-200 2600 cartridges. And yes I remember Yars Revenge !
While browsing a 2600 nostalgia site a few years back, I realized I used to own one of the rarest 2600 games ever. Sword Quest Water World. Should have kept it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/SWORDQUEST-WATE...oryZ4315QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Oops
It actually came out sort of late in the 2600's lifespan right before the crash. Combat and the original VCS were released in 1977. Pac Man came out in the summer of 1982. Activision had already released a lot of their killer apps. i.e. Pitfall, River Raid, Chopper Command, H.E.R.O. I think the professional programming community had a good handle by that point, so I'm sure they could have done much better. Pac Man was pathetic even for a 2600 imo. Knowing Atari, they probably hired the cheapest programmer they could find, and told them we need this game next month.
Lots of people blame Pac Man along with ET for causing the videogame crash. Seriously crappy games for 40 or 50 bucks. Good for me though, cause after the crash I remember going to Toys R Us on a weekly basis and picking up a couple games for literally 5-10 bucks each. By the time I got an NES, I must have had 150-200 2600 cartridges. And yes I remember Yars Revenge !
While browsing a 2600 nostalgia site a few years back, I realized I used to own one of the rarest 2600 games ever. Sword Quest Water World. Should have kept it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/SWORDQUEST-WATE...oryZ4315QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Oops
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NoxTek
The Geek Redneck
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OK lol I'm done defending Pac-Man, yes it was really horrid compared to the arcade but hell lol...
Oh and it was actually released in March or April of '82 now that I'm thinking about it.
I remember reading something long ago that the programmer (a Todd or Tom Fry if I remember right) had never even played Pac-Man before being assigned to the project. Too funny.
I also remember reading in an interview that he blamed the crappyness on the fact that the Asteroids team was hogging the only 8kb development workstation in working order at the time, or he could have made it better. I can sort of believe this because Asteroids was an awesome game.
But why the hell he made the background violet instead of black is anyone's guess... maybe he was a closet case.
Oh and it was actually released in March or April of '82 now that I'm thinking about it.
I remember reading something long ago that the programmer (a Todd or Tom Fry if I remember right) had never even played Pac-Man before being assigned to the project. Too funny.
I also remember reading in an interview that he blamed the crappyness on the fact that the Asteroids team was hogging the only 8kb development workstation in working order at the time, or he could have made it better. I can sort of believe this because Asteroids was an awesome game.
But why the hell he made the background violet instead of black is anyone's guess... maybe he was a closet case.
I can't believe they put Street Fighter II for the Genesis on there, it played and looked great for a supposedly technically inferior console. It's not the fault of the port that the stock controller only has 3 buttons, the article even admits with the 6 button controller the game is great. I do remember the sound effects were pretty horrible though, all the voices sounded so garbled and harsh.
That list has a few problems:
IGN sometimes act's like 'tards.
- Mortal Kombat (Super NES) - Looks better than the Genisis version, who cares about the nerfed blood and guts...
- Strider (Nintendo Entertainment System) - Fun game... and dude, it's the NES...
IGN sometimes act's like 'tards.
Lamont said:
well...Mortal Kombaat's draw was the fatalities...so even though it looked only SLIGHTLY better than genesis, it was a better arcade port.
And the article was about arcade ports which strider for nes was nothing like the arcade.
It's just a fun article dude. Don't take SO serious.
Better because of the fatalities... but graphics, speed, control and sound SNES was WAY better. Changing fatalities didn't affect gameplay. I owned the Genisis version first(Blood was a draw), sold it and got the SNES version for the timings of the combos and button pressing.Netrat33 said:
Strider for the NES had to make due with what the system could do, and even what was left was a good game, just damn hard. It could be called another use of the Strider IP not a port.
Ninja Gaiden for the arcade falls in the same boat as Strider. The arcade version was a two player Final Fight type of game 2.5D, while the NES version was 2D side scroller.
Me? Console/Arcade gaming is my life-blood.