Pole Position VIC-20

[MrRJBowman]

The VIC-20 was never really pushed to its full potential because the C64 so successfully replaced it. The VCS, on the other hand, was pushed to new limits by hundreds of programmers for the better part of a decade. Search for "VIC-20 demoscene" if you want to see what the machine was really capable of doing.

[inphanta]

The explosion noise is CRUSTY as hell!

[Krypticflask]

LOL Pole Position that's what she said.

[farerse]

why is there no smoke or skidmarks?? let alone trees or objects.. poor

[tsuihark]

@farerse Yeah, why didn't they use the VIC-20's 3D accellerator for the graphics?

[farerse]

@tsuihark yeah i guess they disabled the shadows and antialiasing in the settings.. graphics is horribly jagged

[tsuihark]

@farerse Can you get the sound to work? I only hear this beeping noise! I think Youtube broke this video.

[farerse]

@tsuihark might be copyright issues, the soundtrack is probably disabled and replaced with beeps

[ClassicTVMan81]

@farerse

There's nothing wrong with the audio here.

[farerse]

@ClassicTVMan81 yes it is . it should have 5.1 cinema sound

[MadCommodore]

@farerse

Yeah like the speccy n ZX81 in 1982 lol

[farerse]

@MadCommodore lol does this game have support for force feedback wheel?? that would rox !

[MadCommodore]

@farerse well the Colecovision has a steering wheel, and that was the Rolls Royce of the console world at the time ;o)

Not even the arcade version of Pole Position had force feedback on the wheel, more like a plate on a chopstick as far as realism goes!

And for a machine costing a few bucks more than the ZX81 it has a far superior racing game!

[ReelSmartGameplay]

@farerse :lol..on a 42"tv that would be suicide.good laugh though.

[farerse]

@ReelSmartGameplay im not sure what u replied to!

[EgoShredder]

@MadCommodore

One of my friends had a VIC 20 which he tried to keep a secret but failed; he was constantly having the pi** taken out of him for owning that micro. He said he wished his parents had bought him a better micro, and a ZX Spectrum in particular. I think they did in the end but it was a Spectrum 16K! Poor lad, he really suffered during the home micro era! I personally had a ZX Spectrum 48K, then a +. After that a Amstrad CPC464 and finally a Atari STE.

[thedarkdragon735]

@tsuihark congradulations, now i gotta search for farerse's comment...>:(

[justtestingthething]

Somewhat interesting is the cathode ray line interrupt used in this game on the VIC 20 that expands the screen with a green rectangular area to the left and right

[ZXRulezzz]

It's just simple multicolor border effect, like one used in ZX Spectrum games and demos. Border just changes color more than one time per frame, so it forms a green field.

[dreamcastII]

this is very good.

[ClarionCoder51]

The engine noise is obnoxious! I think my ears are bleeding!

[tixxstixx]

wot a racket lol

[harleykman]

In some ways this is better than the Atari VCS/ 2600 game console,

and yet in others it's really very poor. Like the weird colors. The Atari game console had a palette of 128 and those extra colors really improve the appearance.

[NotATube]

@harleykman Yeah, from what I know the Atari VCS was in some ways incredibly basic (128 *bytes* of RAM, and no screen memory- each frame had to be regenerated on the fly), yet also very flexible so that talented programmers could get some impressive performance out of it.

[harleykman]

@NotATube

Actually the Atari VCS does have a screen memory. It's about 25 by 20 pixels dimension, and it defines the background screen graphics. Through various tricks programmers were able to update that bitmap and make it 25 by 240.... still not terribly useful.

[MadCommodore]

@harleykman

VCS had large pallet and couldn't use it in 'sprites' or anywhere on the screen background graphics just like the Atari 400/800 (the opposite to the C64, king of compromise...enough colours...all on screen anywhere per char block). VCS had monochromatic sprites, horizontal raster type colour splits and bugger all else really. VIC 20 had limited colours but had character memory map for bitmap AND colour placement as per C64 but a low resolution like the VCS.

[MadCommodore]

@harleykman What the VCS did have was the most talented programmers in the world. That was the best thing....stuff like Solaris should be impossible on the VCS hardware.

[markvergeer]

For a machine without sprites it is quite a feat!

[mlwjones]

lol...244 mph looked so much faster 25 years ago.

[bluesfan38]

Stunning

[MadCommodore]

It's a cartridge game from Atarisoft so no expansion needed.

[Infinitrium]

Expanded or unexpanded VIC?