last StarFighter arcade game clip

This is a set of screenshots taken from the 1984 Atari Arcade Video game based on The Last Starfighter movie. This game never shipped, but it pioneered the solid 3D graphics technology used in subsequent games. It would have been one of the first true 3D polygonal, shaded graphics games.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• arcade
• game
• 3d

[conradhw]

didnt know there was an actual game of it.. too bad never got released. so how was the footage taken?

[wolfmanjm]

The video was taken by simply pointing a video camera at the CRT

[billamu]

Would this have been released before the 80's game "I-Robot"? I know I-Robot had 3d polygons, but I don't know if they were shaded.

[wolfmanjm]

This game was after I Robot. I Robot was built with dedicated H/W, it also did not do any kind of lighting calculation, so was a lot simpler. Technically I Robot was the first solid real 3D game Atari did. TLSF was the first solid shaded programmable one, using a 68K CPU and written in C.

[Jshaw71]

wow, makes me wonder where this footage came from, you wouldn't be lucky engough to come across the roms? even if you didn't thanks for the video, i wish there was sound, where did you find this video, plz PM me with the link, again thanks for the video...

[wolfmanjm]

there never were any roms for the game as it was a development system. Loaded from an emulator into the memory if I recall. I made the video as I was the developer for the game and made the video just before it was canned.

[slickest1]

baw: i was the modeller/animator and created the b-tree occlusion used for cheap hidden surface removal. the prototype hardware was hand-wired by ted michon for atari.

[antdude]

Wow. I read MAME v0.140 can play this now? Has anyone tried it?

[LordBicen]

@conradhw Actually dude. go to roguesynapse and download it for free. they did a damned good job of recreating the failed atari project.

[plukethep]

this has been emulated. Take a look at philwip at mameworld

[JohnnyMartini]

Amazing.  TLSF looks like it could've been an inspiration for Namco's Starblade. Shame about it being canned, especially when it cost the same as the $10000 Hard Drivin (which did get released). This probably would've been a 3 token/75 cent game in arcades, but likely worth it.

I heard Namco owned Atari Games (AKA Tengen) for a little while afterward. If so, I wish they'd have ordered a follow through on this one. A Sega 32X or Sony PS1 home version would've been great to see.

[philiptwood]

@abudzakho Because of the videogame crash of 84. It brought everything to a hault.

[LordFrito]

Not entirely true. I, Robot did do lighting calculations, just not on every polygon. Polygons could be flagged to be either "shaded" or "fixed color". Most of the polygons in the game were pre-shaded, however some of the polygons use real-time shading. Most notably "big brother", the giant blue balls that come rolling at you on a later level. I also think the tetras were shaded. If you mess around in doodle city mode you can see which objects have real time shading and which dont

[NineTailsDemonFox]

@conradhw Never released? your joking right? Of course it was released.

[ancalites]

Almost impossible to believe this was developed in 1984. Why is almost everything colored gold, though?

[TheCastellan]

It was not the ships, it was the bad writing that they were sucked....plus I'm not a Star Wars fan to begin with.

Me, I like sleek, streamlined vessels, like the Enterprise from TMP, Reliant from TWoK, The Gunstars from Last Starfighter, or the ship from Flight of the Navigator. I like seeing something that does NOT look like something slapped togather in a factory we could see today.

Gimme sleek, sexy imports....with turbo handling! :D