Starstruck lands on the Falcon
MiKRO of Mystic Bytes writes:
Outline visitors already know, the rest is hopefully keeping fingers crossed.... yes, Starstruck (the final version!) is here right NOW. In my opinion this is tough, tough, tough rival for Silkcut, I cannot decide which one rulez more :-) Target configuration as always, Falcon 060 without bus speeder should do. The more megahertz the better :) And as a bonus you can even watch in on VGA/60 Hz. But beware, all effects are fixed for 50 Hz so better to watch it on TV or VGA/50 Hz!
And honorable mention: thanks to Xerus for being really _outstanding_ tester, without him you would get much worser release!
Download Starstruck http://files.dhs.nu/party/outline2009/tbl-starstruck-falcon.zip
At Pouet.Net http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=25778
Watch a 50 FPS video of Starstruck on the Falcon http://dhs.nu/video.php?ID=232
Visit MiKROs homepage http://mikro.atari.org/
From: http://www.dhs.nu/
History of Controllers: Part I
Electronic gaming has one thing that makes it what it is in the world of entertainment, and that is interactivity. Without being able to influence the outcome of the sports game, or the battle movements of a ninja master, we are just watching a movie. To achieve the interactivity of gaming, engineers had to design a control scheme for instant response. In some cases, these controllers have become icons of the gaming past-time while others have wallowed in obscurity only brought out to be laughed at.
Yes, believe it or not, the first controllers were only one dimensional. What could you do with that one dimension, though? You had a world of Tennis, Hockey, Football and any other sport you could convince people Pong represented. Giving credit where credit is due though, everyone was used to knobs. Knobs exist on stereos and TVs the same skills you used to get a certain station to come in transferred nicely to electronic table tennis. Using the same principals of any other knob (a potentiometer) nothing was really considered for ergonomics or general comfort of the user. Most Pong machines did not even use wired controllers, instead the knobs were usually only on the console itself.
The Fairchild Channel F, the first home console to offer interchangeable consoles, debuted in 1976. The Fairchild produced by Fairchild Semiconductor offered a controller that is closer to the Wii nunchaku than any full controller that one can imagine. It has a shaft that is held in the players hand that has no buttons and is only topped with a short joystick. In addition to the movement normally alloted to a joystick, the Fairchild’s controller allowed users to both press and pull on the stick to get the “effect” of buttons. Not only was this an unusual option, making any button mashing difficult, this controller is further hampered by being hardwired with flimsy wiring at that.
A year later, Atari released the VCS (Video Computer System AKA Atari 2600) and it came with a controller that really needs no introduction. While still having paddle controllers that were synonyms with Pong, the Atari 2600 Joystick with its rubber grip and bright orange button is a permanent gaming icon. This controller was quite sturdy in design and was not hardwired to the console, however it did only offer 4 directions of control. While the square shape of the base is not exactly built for the human hand, the Atari 2600 Joystick is easily manageable even for marathon gaming sessions. About the only thing that was certainly changed was the idea of the “action” button being positioned on the left.
Read more at http://www.retrogoggles.com/?p=333
Bushnell Begins Business Blog
Unfazed by the recent closure of his uWink restaurant's Mountain View location, Atari founder and Pong creator Nolan Bushnell set up a new weblog on entrepreneur site Inc.
Titled "A Serial Entrepreneur's Perspective", the blog has so far discussed topics such as how to run creativity sessions with groups, why a recession is a very good time to start a company, and why patents typically aren't useful if you don't have $500,000 in extra cash.
Bushnell makes sure to share his experiences from Atari on the blog, too. In a post about why job security is "one of the worst things a person can have," for example, he talks about how firing employees can allow them to reinvent themselves:
"Over the years, many people that I laid off or fired have contacted me and, in many cases, it turns out that they took their severance or unemployment insurance time to get another business going. Many times an employee who was easy for me to lay-off was just miscast at Atari. Once they were in the position of creating their own gig, they knocked it out of the box."
You can read the blog, which has seen regular weekly updates since Bushnell launched it in early May, at this link.
Link: http://blog.inc.com/nolan-bushnell/
From: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2009/05/bushnell_begins_business_blog.php
Once Upon Atari
Howard Scott Warshaw (Yar's Revenge, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark) wants us to know that while his Once Upon Atari website hasn't seen a lot of updates, he's still active in the gaming world. During the fall of 2008 Howard released Once Upon Atari online for streaming by IGN. Even better, since 2007 Howard has written regular articles for gamesTM Magazine. You can catch up on past articles in our handy archive.
Link: http://www.gamestm.co.uk/
Link: http://www.onceuponatari.com/archives/gamestm/index.html
From: http://www.onceuponatari.com/index.html
Cryptic Studios To Rehash Old Atari IP In "A Series Of New Games"
When City of Heroes developers Cryptic were bought by Atari last year, it was said they'd be working on a single, secret game due in 2011. Now it turns out they're working on several games.
Atari's yearly fiscal report has revealed that Cryptic "is working on the development of a series of new games based on Atari's existing and historically successful IPs". Existing and historically successful, hey?
Looks like my dreams of an ET MMO - based on the events of the game's mass grave, not the motion picture - might be about to come true.
That or they mean stuff like Alone in the Dark.
Link: http://kotaku.com/5272477/cryptic-studios-to-rehash-old-atari-ip-in...
ASMA 3.3 released
20 months after the last release, Atari SAP Music Archive of Atari XL/XE music is finally back with a new update, featuring 308 new tunes. Among other news is a new structure of the archive, improving simplicity and well-arrangement. The archive now contains 2843 songs, or 4 days, 22 hours, 10 minutes and 54.5 seconds. Download and listen :-)
Link: http://asma.atari.org/
From: http://www.atari.org/
What material are Atari 2600 carts made from?
Yuppicide writes: I know this probably has been discussed before. What material are common Atari 2600 carts made from? I am trying to figure out if there's Chlorine in them without actually doing a burn test.
The answer, of course, is acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.
From: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=145510
Asking for help w/ Atari repurposing project
Happy Friday everyone! I haven't been around much as I've been finishing a repurposing project I've been working on for nearly five years and I think many of you will find this interesting. I found a way to repurpose original Atari 2600 video games into wallets using every internal piece and am officially launching this weekend.
If you don't want to read any more about the process, please take a moment and watch this YouTube animation featuring a Pac Man wallet acting like, well, Pac Man! If you like it (which I bet you will!) and have a YouTube account, I'd appreciate a rating and a comment. If you'd like to learn more about the five year journey to today, grab a glass of Tang & meet me on the flip.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbpq8NEWxYc
The wallet project started five years ago this July as an accident, the result of a pile of extra Combats, Asteroids, Space Invaders, and other common games when I recreated my childhood collection. Annoyed by these fantastic tokens of my childhood holding more sentimental value than anything else, I was determined to find another use for them and carried one with me for a couple weeks. I compared it against everything in my life. After evaluating a few different options, the wallet worked too well, using every piece back inside and fitting credit cards and cash almost perfectly.
Link: http://zeitshabba.dailykos.com/
From: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/12/741638/-Asking-for-help...
The Five: Aliens vs. Predator
The Run Through the Jungle: Quite a few games have borne the Aliens vs. Predator title over the years, but the only ones that really matter were developed for the Atari Jaguar and PC by Rebellion and Monolith. Rebellion returns to the franchise for this chapter, which treads similar ground as the PC games: Three species -- Alien, Predator and human -- vie for control of a planet. Whoever wins, we win, too.
1. The beauty of the great AvP games was that they offered three games in one, and that's the case here, too. There are solo campaigns for each side of the warring triangle, with appropriate weapons, sounds and situations for each. And in each campaign, there will be opportunities to set the other sides fighting directly, giving you some cover to escape an encounter unharmed.
2. Having those three factions butting up against one another would be a horrific tease without multiplayer. In truth, Sega hasn't shown much yet, but this is one area where I'm willing to be blindly optimistic.
3. What did the two Aliens vs. Predator movies lack? Balance. Not a problem here. Each of the three races is balanced to have advantages and weaknesses. Humans have numbers and weapon tech, but get them alone and they're easy prey. The Predators can cloak and use energy weapons, but that energy reserve is finite. Against a squad of humans or horde of Aliens, they're toast. And the Alien, which Sega has been reluctant to show off, is fast -- with deadly acid blood, but also incredibly fragile.
4. The PC AvP games could be incredibly difficult, especially playing the Alien. The creature was so agile that overshooting jumps was easy, and frequently deadly. This iteration has some new-school platform elements that might make navigation easier when leaping. You'll see landing reticules when playing the Predator, for example, that show where you can jump. That's a bit sad, in a way -- there was something appealing about the difficulty back in the day -- but games are easier and more accessible now. If this is the best way to crack more Xenomorph skulls, I'll live with it.
5. There's a specific look and, more importantly, sound to both the Aliens and Predator films. Rebellion has got the audio just right. The sounds of Colonial Marine pulse rifles, the sheared ping of motion detectors and the screams of leaping Aliens and healing Predators in pain is all there. Elements of the scores from both movie franchises are incorporated, too, adding to the ambiance.
The Crispy Forecast: The look and sound are there, and Rebellion has packed in some great dynamics between the factions. If it nails the multiplayer, this might be the return to the alien universes we've waited for.
This preview is based on a developer-driven demo of the game at E3 2009.
From: http://www.crispygamer.com/previews/2009-06-11/e3-2009-the-five-ali...
ST Magazine issue #144
ST Magazine issue #144 is now available in English. This (long) waiting time is due to translations and the lack of news from 16/32 Systems which previously sold ST Magazine. As a result, after much hesitation, we take the decision to sell it ourselves as well as through AtariAge in the United States (which already sells our other magazine dedicated to video games and homebrew retrogaming, called ReVival). Please note that we accept payment by Paypal or bank transfer when it is possible.
The subscription is 16.50 euros, postage included, for 3 issues (approximately 1 year).
Link: http://stmagazine.org/
From: http://www.atari.org/
