Space harrier for Atari 130XE (March 2008 updated)

[shaurz]

Amazing!

[inphanta]

I'm a C64 head and I have to admit, this blows the C64 version out of the water!

[MrThunderwing]

So this is running on 1970's harware? I can only conclude from this that there must be some witchcraft involved in here somewhere. Seriously though, great job!

[P5BDeluxeWiFi]

@MrThunderwing 130XE was announced in 1985, at the same time as the initial models in the Atari ST, So that's basically rubbish.

x86 was designed when ?...WOW IT RUNS CRYSIS!!!....do you see?

[MrThunderwing]

@P5BDeluxeWiFi I don't really care.

[douro20]

Considering that the graphics engine remained unchanged throughout the entire Atari 8-bit series, what you are seeing is being rendered on graphics hardware which was designed back in 1977.

[cheese7monkey]

does this remind anyone else of the last sin and punishment (i assume s&p was inspired by this)

[freezy98]

Holy smoke !

[martinrking]

weird penis level: still weird

[unreal030]

Uncharted 2 looks better than this crap

PS3 > this

[xwario]

This is unbelievable. I didn't knew that the 800XL/130XE was capable of doing such great graphics. Looks almost like the arcade version. The only thing that is missing is the checkered floor.

[dmadn]

This is damn impressive

[LexorzNL]

Sadly there still are a lot of people saying the c64 can do better. They just can not accept the fact that the xl/xe is a very strong computer. More and more screens are getting coded on the xl/xe showing the c64 is not the only one who can do those screens. I bet this time the xl/xe can do even better on many screens than the c64. Even some demo's/games shows the sid chip is not that special anymore.

[inphanta]

@LexorzNL: I have heard some very impressive POKEY music, but nothing to outclass the SID. To say so is simply delusional. That said, this is much better than the 64 version of Space Harrier, but it's only one game. The XL version of Turrican is a joke.

[thorgallpl]

@inphanta theres no turrican version on the 8 bit atari.

[inphanta]

@thorgallpl: I was referring to the Atari 8bit Turrican engine vid.

[ThrilloVanHouten]

I remember when this port was first released waaay back in 2002. It blew my mind then, and it blows my mind now!

That's one of the best characteristics that Atari consoles had: if you were a good programmer you could push 'em incredibly hard and pull off nearly-impossible effects. Modern consoles can't be pushed like this...

[porcorosso81]

Wow, I'm impressed! Great work!

[VectorOmega]

Have you ever tried doing an Atari 130XE conversion of Legend Of Zelda?

[SuperAudioboy]

great game, nice speed n gfx. i could of wrote a much better tune. get rob hubbard in or david whittiker!

[xam714]

I liked the original music, you're using the shitty SMS style one now.

[Teraforce88]

No offense to Sal Esquivel, but I agree, the original music sounded better to my ear. This one sounds slightly off-key for some reason..... :-/

[MazeleyFanClub]

This makes my broken 1050 drives weep.

[NickDiPerna]

Looks great! I think the hardware is very suited to this type of game.

[Adropacrich2]

Very bloody impressive lets be honest and a shame the Atari range wasn't pushed harder at the time

[uggla03]

puts the 16 bit atari st to shame

good job

[frigginjoe]

Wow. It sounds like the SMS version, but the voice doesn't halt the game, which is cool. The visuals are real nice. I wouldn't have guessed the XE could do it.

[thelurker25]

the music sounds much like the SMS. The graphics look almost like the c64 and Turbo Graphix

[ineedapizza]

This version looks and sounds great!

[BenJabituya]

The music sounds nearly identical to the Sega Master System.

[zombiemod]

What resolution is this??

This looks to be in 160 x 192 but there's more than 4 unique colours per scan-line, that certainly ain't within what I read as Atari spec, and its not flickering so its not using DLI tricks either.

Whatever it is, if it's on an Atari 8 bit then its damn good, megabyte RAM extension or not!

[sheddyshack]

Yep, only 4 colours per scanline in this mode - it does flicker at 30Hz in real life rather than movie - interlaced colours don't show up properly otherwise. Only 160x96 resolution too. Running on a stock 64K Atari but the game cart is 1MB

[sheddyshack]

(1MB ROM)

[sheddyshack]

to clarify, movie is made by merging flickering frames or colours don't show due to different frame rate of movie

[zombiemod]

160 x 96?? Looks bigger than that.. unless you mean interlaced to 192 deep.

The main character sprite is also pretty colourful, how was that achieved? Player missile graphics weren't that wide were they?

Looks like a helluva lot of display list action going on there, you'd have to update the list every time the player moved to get the right colours on the scanline for his hair, jacket etc.

I'm confused lol!!!!

[sheddyshack]

160x96 mode - same height as 160x192 - just more chunky, but less to move around the screen :)

4 players 8 pixels wide. 2 next to each other, the others on top of those. option for overlap of players is set to create 3rd colour - so no display list interrupt stuff needed in this case. you're right, it would be a bit tricky otherwise.

[zombiemod]

Just googled for Space Harrier Atari and I can see you're the man who's developing it!! lol

Actually - by looking at the static screenshots on your site I can now well believe it's 160 x 96 pixels due to the chunky pixels, I guess the squat window in Youtube deceived me to thinking it was higher res. Regardless, still a remarkable conversion giving the constraints of the Atari graphics, 1MB ROM or not.... :)

[zombiemod]

Hmm, something tells me this isnt a Stock Atari 800. I smell "memory expansion" which means a comparison with C64 isn't fair.

As for C64 3D - how many arcade games back in the 80's used 3D?? Only Star Wars and Battlezone springs to mind. Now how many used 2D?

You have to admit the C64 stomped all over the Atari for sprite-based games. You just cannot do what the C64 can, at anything near the same resolution in 2D.

Don't delude yourselves otherwise :)

[zombiemod]

BTW, not that anyone cares about C64 vs Atari any more, sorry bout that, got carried away, felt the blood pulsating like I did 20 years ago!!! lol

[Jawattdenn]

It uses a 130XE so it should be compared to C128.

And yeps, the C64 easily outperforms any A8 when it comes to sprite based stuff. The entire C64 is a design around a sprite engine.

[RallyDon82]

this is insane, looks to emulate the gameplay of SH perfectly, the way it moves and the enemy patrterns the music its all correct, great smoothness and graphics for primitive hardware, absolutely top notch work here!

[reykupa]

this is so fake!!!

[olynxmano]

It's not a fake. It's one solution of having the CPU and both custom chips for graphics working together. But, clearly, this solution was used far too less on this great 8 bit machine.

[bobamu]

this is absolutely outstanding work

:D

[olynxmano]

"anyways people play and choose from whats available. its not vice versa"

That'S NOT really true. Many developers tried to make good 3d on the c64, but it always was too slow. So the developers concetrated their games on the sprites of the c64. that's why so many sidescrollers exist on the C64.

btw. "out of tune"... Analyzing most of the sid tunes, you recognize non musically frequencies that musicians chose, to have the music sounding better (?) ...

[Jawattdenn]

The difference is: On C64 you had 16 bits to choose a frequency, on Atari you had 8. 16 bits is 256 times more accurate than 8 bits, and that's hardly a matter of "taste".

[waskoma]

"If people weren't that much into sidescrollers in the 80's , but wanted to play 3D games as today"

.. and if people wanted to listen to horribly detuned music :D

anyways people play and choose from whats available. its not vice versa.

[kevin12567]

Awesome that it has the speech in there, and the graphics blow the C64 version out of the water! Really shows what potential this system had if it was marketed properly (as a computer - not as a competitor to the NES)!

[olynxmano]

LOL

If people weren't that much into sidescrollers in the 80's , but wanted to play 3D games as today, the C64 would have seen no light...

[dreamcastII]

Chris - where were you in 1987 when the Atari 8 bit needed this game !

[VideyoJunkei]

love all the voice samples!!!

[capricorn190301]

Very good effect !!

[gamein60seconds]

Have got round to playing this now, and it plays just as good as it looks. One of the most amazing programs on the old 8-bit ATARI.

[dreamcastII]

can you download this for the atari ? Atari emulator ?

[gamein60seconds]

There are two rough demo's available at the moment, one of level on one of level two. They look pretty much the same as they do on here. The collour switching used isn't very impresive on a pc monitor though. You need an old tv with some persistance in it, so LCD screens will flicker pretty badly too. But the thing plays so well :)

[CyborgNinja7]

This is great. I was wondering how this game was programmed.

[gamein60seconds]

Much better than the Atari ST version!

[paulpm1974]

Yeah craps on the Atari ST version, looks more fun and easier to control and just better :)

[StaxX28]

Much better then the C64 version !!

Great job !

[EricBarbman]

@StaxX28

And much better than the ST version !

[guyvf]

amazing. Graphically etter than the SMS version in some ways (the 'corners').

[pierreandre74]

Very very Impressive !!! Who could have thought an Atari 8-Bit could be taken to such extremes ? Atari fans... rejoice ! :-)

[odislaw]

very good work :)