Two prototype Atari 7800 shooters discovered

[ubersaurus]

Plutos and Sirius, two games long known to exist but only in unstable forms, have been rediscovered in much more stable and complete forms! A bit of patching, and they've been released online And no, this isn't an april fools joke(although they did figure into one on atariage).

You can read up about them on Atariprotos.com.

http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... plutos.htm
http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... sirius.htm

And the games are available on Atariage, as well.

They look damn nice. I'm hoping for reproduction carts to get made.

[captain ahar]

can't wait to give them a shot. particularly the side scroller. "unforgivably difficult" is just the ticket for a good time.

[Ed Oscuro]

Odd, the background story is the exact same for both games...so this collector was either a developer or somebody who got a bunch of stuff from a defunct software house/friend, would that be a reasonable assumption?

[captain ahar]

at the very least it is the same programmer on both. i doubt the connection is a coincidence.

both are so very european (in appearance anyway)

[Udderdude]

Looks like every C64 shooter I ever played.

Might give it a try .. no 7800 emulator lying around though :S

[Herr Schatten]

Sirius looks like a ripoff of Armalyte, only with better art direction.

[dave4shmups]

Plutos and Sirius, two games long known to exist but only in unstable forms, have been rediscovered in much more stable and complete forms! A bit of patching, and they've been released online And no, this isn't an april fools joke(although they did figure into one on atariage).

You can read up about them on Atariprotos.com.

http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... plutos.htm
http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... sirius.htm

And the games are available on Atariage, as well.

They look damn nice. I'm hoping for reproduction carts to get made.

Yeah, carts would rock! Thanks for this!

[Squirrel]

Plutos and Sirius, two games long known to exist but only in unstable forms, have been rediscovered in much more stable and complete forms! A bit of patching, and they've been released online And no, this isn't an april fools joke(although they did figure into one on atariage).

You can read up about them on Atariprotos.com.

http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... plutos.htm
http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... sirius.htm

And the games are available on Atariage, as well.

They look damn nice. I'm hoping for reproduction carts to get made.

Yeah, carts would rock! Thanks for this!

Its not possible yet, they have yet to develop boards capable of handling the size.

However, a Cuttle Cart 2, if you can get one, can play it. I had to sell mine

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Plutos and Sirius, two games long known to exist but only in unstable forms, have been rediscovered in much more stable and complete forms! A bit of patching, and they've been released online And no, this isn't an april fools joke(although they did figure into one on atariage).

You can read up about them on Atariprotos.com.

http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... plutos.htm
http://www.atariprotos.com/7800/softwar ... sirius.htm

And the games are available on Atariage, as well.

They look damn nice. I'm hoping for reproduction carts to get made.

Yeah, carts would rock! Thanks for this!

Its not possible yet, they have yet to develop boards capable of handling the size.

However, a Cuttle Cart 2, if you can get one, can play it. I had to sell mine

And exactly how big are both proto 7800 games of Plutos & Sirius?

And wasn't a Cuttle Cart II flash cart only able to use the MMC medium format? It would be better to use a SD media memory card instead, right?

So that makes the overall 7800 console ports of shmup titles to about five altogether then:

7800 Xevious cartridge

7800 Desert Falcon cartridge

7800 Planet Smashers cartridge -- this particularly rare 7800 cart does exist in both NTSC & PAL formats for the die-hard 7800 gamers...

7800 prototype of Plutos

7800 prototype of Sirius

Am I missing any other 7800 console-based shmup titles?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[dave4shmups]

I don't think you are. 2600 Xevious is playable, but it was never released; it's actually very fun.

[ubersaurus]

And exactly how big are both proto 7800 games of Plutos & Sirius?

And wasn't a Cuttle Cart II flash cart only able to use the MMC medium format? It would be better to use a SD media memory card instead, right?

So that makes the overall 7800 console ports of shmup titles to about five altogether then:

7800 Xevious cartridge

7800 Desert Falcon cartridge

7800 Planet Smashers cartridge -- this particularly rare 7800 cart does exist in both NTSC & PAL formats for the die-hard 7800 gamers...

7800 prototype of Plutos

7800 prototype of Sirius

Am I missing any other 7800 console-based shmup titles?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Depends on your definition. Centipede, Asteroids, Robotron 2084, Ikari Warriors, Commando, and if you want to count it, Food Fight all exist on the console, and involve shooting. But the 5 you listed are the only traditional shooters. Of course, there's a number of fixed screen, and a couple scrolling shooters on the 2600 that are compatible, as well.

Beyond that, both carts are large sized games, and include RAM chips onboard. The CC2 does only use MMC...I think it was designed at a time when SD cards were not common or really in a decent price range.

[Squirrel]

Yeah, carts would rock! Thanks for this!

Its not possible yet, they have yet to develop boards capable of handling the size.

However, a Cuttle Cart 2, if you can get one, can play it. I had to sell mine

And exactly how big are both proto 7800 games of Plutos & Sirius?

And wasn't a Cuttle Cart II flash cart only able to use the MMC medium format? It would be better to use a SD media memory card instead, right?

So that makes the overall 7800 console ports of shmup titles to about five altogether then:

7800 Xevious cartridge

7800 Desert Falcon cartridge

7800 Planet Smashers cartridge -- this particularly rare 7800 cart does exist in both NTSC & PAL formats for the die-hard 7800 gamers...

7800 prototype of Plutos

7800 prototype of Sirius

Am I missing any other 7800 console-based shmup titles?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

They require more ram on the cart if i'm not mistaken and that's why no current actual boards support, it... yet. CPUWIZ on Atariage sells 64k sized boards, no one else does, and by the way he's talking, I think he's in development for making boards to support those roms.

You can fit the entire atari 2600/7800 collection on a 32mb card. And yes, it only works with MMC.

[Squirrel]

Talking about CPUWIZ making compatible boards...

http://www.chasethechuckwagon.com/item. ... 0000000875

Now you can get it complete with custom labels and all.

Keep in mind, these are reproductions, but the only copies so far, except for the Cuttle Cart 2 folks, to be playable on real hardware.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Talking about CPUWIZ making compatible boards...

http://www.chasethechuckwagon.com/item. ... 0000000875

Now you can get it complete with custom labels and all.

Keep in mind, these are reproductions, but the only copies so far, except for the Cuttle Cart 2 folks, to be playable on real hardware.

And will CPUWIZ make another batch of both prototype 7800 shmup games of Plutos & Sirius?

It's about dang time that the 7800 ProSystem console got some more shmup love... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Turrican]

Talking about CPUWIZ making compatible boards...

http://www.chasethechuckwagon.com/item. ... 0000000875

Now you can get it complete with custom labels and all.

Keep in mind, these are reproductions, but the only copies so far, except for the Cuttle Cart 2 folks, to be playable on real hardware.

That cover label for Plutos isn't original:

http://hol.abime.net/1091

http://hol.abime.net/1091/boxscan

the coder and the game changed, but it's still by Tynesoft...

Also impressive that 7800 Plutos looks a million times better than amiga Plutos...

Edit: be sure to check the reviews section where Stuart Campbell says Plutos has a better gameplay than Xenon II.

[Shatterhand]

Sirius looks like a ripoff of Armalyte, only with better art direction.

Yeah, I glanced at the screenshots and the 1st thing that came to mind was "Hey, it looks like that nice C64 shmup...."

[ubersaurus]

Talking about CPUWIZ making compatible boards...

http://www.chasethechuckwagon.com/item. ... 0000000875

Now you can get it complete with custom labels and all.

Keep in mind, these are reproductions, but the only copies so far, except for the Cuttle Cart 2 folks, to be playable on real hardware.

My understanding is that those were made by hacking up an existing cart's board(which is apparently a pain to make repros out of, as well as pricey). But they do show that there is a market, so hopefully he'll get some circuit boards printed soon.