'Pre-crash' console shooting games…

[Sonic R]

does anybody here play these games? I have been playing pretty much only really old games on the consoles such as:
Atari 5200
Colecovision
Vectrex

these games maintain their enjoyment by playing for score and continous play is in working at improving scores… 

I was browsing the the high score forum looking for some threads to see where some of my scores compair to others… only to find nothing! no Space Invaders, Defender, Asteroids, Centipede… are these old games not shooter enough? some of these games are often in debates of what is 'on topic' for a shooter, and only seem to come up in discussion during top 25 voting time… 

the culture here has been that shooter games are most enjoyed playing for score, and these classics are purely focused on such - these games maintain there value and longevity on the idea that they are game to be played for score…

I guess I am just a bit shock, and sadden, that there are no threads for high score for the ancient games… no one has any interest to play these games and post scores    

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The only minor issue about high scores on the Vectrex is that they roll over once you score past the 6-digit "999,990" point barrier and it goes back to "0". If the Vectrex designers had included 7-digit or 8-digit scores, that would've been ace in my book. But they opted out for just 6-digit based scores at best. I'd imagine with a simple eprom hack, this scoring issue could be changed easily + have true high score saving capability after the Vectrex is powered-down for the night.

I used to be able to get to Mine Field 23 (and sometimes Mine Field 24) on the built-in Mine Storm game back in the mid-1980s. There's a stage in Mine Storm where you have to contend with fast moving invisible magnetic mines that shoot fireballs at you, forcing you to constantly use the thrust button and leave enough of a gap to return fire to blast the bigger mines. The medium/smallest sized fast invisible magnetic fireball based mines are a pain-in-the-ass to get rid of as well because of their relentless homing on you at all times only antes up the tension factor. In the later Mine Field stages, a quick trigger finger is needed at all times to make it to the next stage (not to mention trying to anticipate where the Mine Layer mothership is going to appear).

Just for fun, it's possible to stick an Atari 2600 trackball controller into the Vectrex's joystick port and watch the rapid-fire bursts coming from your ship in Mine Storm. You can hyperspace much faster by simply rolling the trackball compared to pressing a button on the Vectrex's control panel.

Vectrex Reset Button Score Trick: If you have a high score on any of the official or homebrew Vectrex based game cartridge (with the exception of the Vectrex multi-carts), by simply pressing and holding in the "Reset" button (don't turn off the Vectrex either, otherwise, your highest score will be lost), remove said Vectrex game cart and release the "Reset" button, you'll see the same high score appear on Mine Storm. This score trick will also work if you score high enough on Mine Storm and insert in another Vectrex game cart using the reset button trick. Discovered this particular Vectrex reset button trick by accident back in the mid-1980s.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Sonic R]

[xris]

I think another reason that there is no interest here is because allot of these game fall into the competitive score range of requiring ridiculously high scores to take notice. Do you really want to try and play a single credit of Defender for three hours, or much, much longer? The normal scores for non-obsessed players fall in the laughably low category. There's really no middle ground. And, this also falls into Twin Galaxies domain, and we all know how well they go over here. Feelings that are also shared by myself as well.
So, yeah nobody here will touch these games for score, fun and nostalgia only.
I know of a Xevious cab in my town that gets reset constantly, and I get a big kick of playing it, getting first place, and walking away. Is it a good score though? Absolutely not.

[Aguraki]

I've been playing a bit of missile command with the mouse on MAME.
God this is incredibly difficult.
These old games WR often have 1 day or 2 long run(sick).
Twin galaxies is the way to go for these,even if here we don't like them much,I'll give them credit for this period.
I think I love more the idea of these games than playing them.

[Sonic R]

I am just shock that there are not any fellows here who play for fun in the community… I was not looking for any type of world record competition which is why I had seek the high score forums of these boards…

nevertheless, I enjoy these games and I will continue to play them as they satisfy me and provide entertainment of which I seek… I had hoped that maybe others who enjoy play of games of score would play some classic games for fun and friendly competition. I guess to hope that others would partake in play of the ancients was too much to hope for in this forum…

[xbl0x180]

I don't play for score because I'm not good at these games. Therefore, I have no other recourse than to play shoot-'em-ups for kicks. I love to play Galaga on the 360 and whenever I find an arcade version of Gyruss, I try to make it at least past Planet Earth

I can't do screen shots from my old crt teevee

[doctorx0079]

Whenever I see one of those multi-game cabs I have to play some 1942 and Exed Exes.

[Sonic R]

I can't do screen shots from my old crt teevee

I did not have trouble?

Whenever I see one of those multi-game cabs I have to play some 1942 and Exed Exes.

how about anything older, doc?

[BrianC]

I have been playing stuff on 2600, CV, Intellivision, and Atari 800 (similar hardware and even some of the exact games as the 5200. Some are different, but some like the Galaxian in that shot are identical). I have been playing a bit of Beamrider, Space Invaders, Millipede, and Spider Fighter on 2600 and some Demon Attack, Beamrider, and The Dreadnaught Factor on Intellivision. Atari 800 also got some cool stuff 5200 didn't like Juno First.

[sunburstbasser]

Astro Smash on Intellivision!

These early consoles tended to have pretty good early shooters.

[stryc9]

River Raid and Desert Falcon on 2600. Also River Raid 2.

The risk/reward of slowing down over the fuel tanks before blowing them up in River Raid was an excellent and deep mechanic for a 2600 shooter, along with smoothly scrolling stages (not flip screen), which again was rare on the console. It's in my Top 25 Shooters Of All Time list for these reasons.

And Desert Falcon's isometric shoot down enemies then land and collect treasure gameplay was addictive.

[louisg]

Millipede on 2600 is fantastic. That's my preferred version, too, especially when it comes to playing it on a system that doesn't have a weighted arcade trackball. (high score: 123823) River Raid 1 is also nice, but it's a little too easy.

[stryc9]

Millipede on 2600 is fantastic. That's my preferred version, too, especially when it comes to playing it on a system that doesn't have a weighted arcade trackball. (high score: 123823) River Raid 1 is also nice, but it's a little too easy.

Yeah Millipede is sick as well. And you are right to point out RR Being a bit to easy, although the difficulty was fine for my younger self back when the game was released fifty years ago

[BrianC]

Astro Smash on Intellivision!

These early consoles tended to have pretty good early shooters.

The 2600 one, Astroblast is good stuff, as well. I like it better. Faster speed + paddle control FTW.

[Sonic R]

I'm about to get Millipede on the 5200, I look forward to playing with the trak-ball! The NES version is rather meh, and the sound is annoying!

I picked up a XEGS last year so I could begin to explore the A8 line of games, but I quite like the 5200, even the controllers aren't too bad, when they are working, and I really love the trak-ball! I play almost anything that supports it from Galaxian, Pole Position, Missile Command, and of course, Centipede

River Raid and Desert Falcon on 2600. Also River Raid 2.

The risk/reward of slowing down over the fuel tanks before blowing them up in River Raid was an excellent and deep mechanic for a 2600 shooter, along with smoothly scrolling stages (not flip screen), which again was rare on the console. It's in my Top 25 Shooters Of All Time list for these reasons.

And Desert Falcon's isometric shoot down enemies then land and collect treasure gameplay was addictive.

I've got River Raid for the 5200 and Colecovision
I like Desert Falcon too, though I've got it on the 7800…

It would be great if there were more folks who played these games! I'd quite enjoy sharing scores with fellows and give myself a little more push to play and improve in certain games…

[BrianC]

I'm about to get Millipede on the 5200, I look forward to playing with the trak-ball! The NES version is rather meh, and the sound is annoying!

I picked up a XEGS last year so I could begin to explore the A8 line of games, but I quite like the 5200, even the controllers aren't too bad, when they are working, and I really love the trak-ball! I play almost anything that supports it from Galaxian, Pole Position, Missile Command, and of course, Centipede

I plan to get the 800 Millipede. I have the 800 Trak-Ball, but Centipede 800 doesn't support it (there is an unofficial port of the 5200 one that does, though). Missile Command is one of the only 800 games that supports it, but it's good stuff with the Trak-Ball. Despite the square mushrooms, I'm quite fond of the 2600 Millipede port. It gets very hectic and the speed and sound are very well done. The Centipede port is ok, but, unlike other versions, it's possible to go full games without the flea appearing.

The odd thing about both the 800 and 5200 Centipede ports is that they have sounds slightly different from the arcade, despite using the same sound chip. I checked Millipede 800. Like Centipede, it's close, but not exact.

[Dale]

The thing is though I've gotten a couple world records and a few more top 5 scores in pre-86 games in less then 30 hours of play. I could spend 130 hours on a modern shmups and I could never touch the top scores.

I'm pretty sure you guys have all gotten a few pro scores in the games you play from that era. Not every game has length like defender. I don't think the Robotron 2084 wr score goes over an hour.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

River Raid and Desert Falcon on 2600. Also River Raid 2.

The risk/reward of slowing down over the fuel tanks before blowing them up in River Raid was an excellent and deep mechanic for a 2600 shooter, along with smoothly scrolling stages (not flip screen), which again was rare on the console. It's in my Top 25 Shooters Of All Time list for these reasons.

And Desert Falcon's isometric shoot down enemies then land and collect treasure gameplay was addictive.

The 7800 ProSystem version of Desert Falcon was cool for it's time considering it shows a larger palette of colors flashing rapidly after your bonus round ends. Not to mention a whopping 512 possible combinations of hieros to combine with to score power-ups, extra points, power-downs, warp or even score an extra life. It's possible to find a safe spot and just blast away for easy points while the score cranks up. Is prone to suffer from slow framerate issue due to much sprites shown on-screen bogging the CPU down.

Spent hours and hours compiling a master list of hiero combos and what it gives you. Sometimes the same exact combo would net you a different item if the 7800 Desert Falcon game was played on a higher difficulty setting.

Arcade PCB Factoid: The Atari Games produced arcade game of Hydra even sports the opening Desert Falcon theme music as well.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[evil_ash_xero]

River Raid(of course), Vanguard...there's a lot of others, but those are the ones I played a lot. And Vanguard HAD AN ENDING! Praise Jesus!

[Sonic R]

River Raid(of course), Vanguard...there's a lot of others, but those are the ones I played a lot. And Vanguard HAD AN ENDING! Praise Jesus!

I just recently picked up Vanguard for the 5200 - I am really enjoying it, though I wish they would have used the twin stick feature as was used in Robotron 2084 and Space Dungeon… still plays great though!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

River Raid(of course), Vanguard...there's a lot of others, but those are the ones I played a lot. And Vanguard HAD AN ENDING! Praise Jesus!

I just recently picked up Vanguard for the 5200 - I am really enjoying it, though I wish they would have used the twin stick feature as was used in Robotron 2084 and Space Dungeon… still plays great though!

The real arcade cabinet of Vanguard that was distributed by Centuri stateside (licensed to them from Konami) back in 1982 sported an 8-way digital joystick + four seperate firing button scheme (for the cool & innovative four directional-way firing feature). So it didn't use a twin arcade stick setup like a Robotron: 2084 cab does. But yes, that'd been cool if Atari did include twin joystick controller support as an alternative method of playing the 5200 version of Vanguard (as opposed to playing it with just a single joystick and utlizing all four fire buttons from the get-go).

I was blown away upon trying out the 2600 version of Vanguard when it was shown for the first time at my local JCPenny's (when they did have a dedicated Atari 2600 demo kiosk setup to try out the latest 2600 games back in 1982-1984). Yep, Atari Corp. was in full force with promoting their 2600/5200 demo kiosks at all the major department/drug stores including JCPenny's, Sears, K Mart, Payless, etc. back in the early 1980s (before the Great Crash of 1983-1984 fiasco happened & everything went downhill from there). It was a great time to scoop up brand new games for mere pennies on the dollar during 1984 as stores/toy stores were selling them super cheap just to get rid of their remaining inventory. I did a double-take when asking how much it was for a brand new copy of 2600 Ms. Pac-Man at my local Wherehouse...it was priced at $34.99 MSRP back in 1983.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~