Five Awesome Atari 2600 Games That Must Be Made...[]

Okay, fine, you got me. I'll do a list-based blog post. Let's just get through this...

Although the Atari Video Computer System was released in 1977, and the last Atari release for it was in 1990, games are still being made for the system. Most of these are either hacks of existing games or ports of games that should've made it to the VCS but didn't; however, there are a number of more or less original titles still coming out for the 2600, which is why I say Atari will never die.

It's this fact that makes my imagination often turn to titles I wish the world would see — sequels or spin-offs that never happened, or even original concepts that really should be done — some of which I have compiled here for your enjoyment.

1. Pac-Man vs. Evil Otto

I don't have to tell you who Pac-Man is, right? Please tell me I don't. If you don't know who he is, close your browser (Internet Explorer, right?) and come back when you find out the answer.

Less well known (but only slightly so) is Evil Otto, the villain of the classic arcade game Berzerk. He's a demented smiley face who bounces onto the scene whenever you start to take too long to get through a screen, heedless of wall, threatening instant death if you don't hurry to the next room.

Now imagine a game where you play as Pac-Man, but instead of semi-closed mazes in which you are more or less trapped, you must eat all the dots in one room and make it to the exit while dodging Berzerk robots. Should you start to take too long, Evil Otto bounces into view, and you'd better hurry to the stage exit before he gets you!

Like so. 

The mazes would have to be smaller, of course, or else you'd never finish in time. You start at one gate, which locks behind you. To open the gates again, eat all the pellets. In the center will occasionally appear a power pellet or a fruit. No time to wait in the corner for the robots to come get eaten when you've got to get out of there fast!

This game would be a mash-up of two incredible classics, and would make me very happy indeed.

2. Pitfall Hanna

People often talk about misrepresentation of women in video games, and I have to say I largely agree: games need more female protagonists. Back in the Atari 2600 days, though, you were lucky if your character looked like a human at all, as opposed to a spaceship, tank, plane, Yar, etc. So your character could be whoever or whatever you wanted.

There are exceptions, of course, like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong (and Jumpman), and Pitfall Harry.

Pitfall! is truly one of the great classics on the Atari VCS, and for good reason. It's an expansive world with deceptively simple controls and plenty of replay value. It even spawned a sequel, Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns (and an utterly execrable NES game, one we won't mention further).

I still think the Pitfall series is missing one thing, though. Pac-Man has his Mrs. Pac-Man, Mario has his Peach, and Donkey Kong has his Pauline (hehe), but where are the ladies in Pitfall?

This is where I see an opportunity. The world needs a completely new Pitfall adventure — with similar gameplay and graphics, but a whole new world to explore — this time with a female protagonist. The world needs more than just Lara Croft. The world needs Pitfall Hanna.

3. SeaQuest II: Deep Waters

Activision's SeaQuest has got to be one of my all-time favorite Atari games. It starts out slow and simple, but it gets tough quick.

So what could a sequel do to make it even better? Multiple screens, like Defender. I present my concept for SeaQuest II: Deep Waters:

Up in the top-left corner is a radar display, à la Defender, but with four screens arranged in a square layout. The player's ship is currently in the top-right corner in this screenshot/mock-up/quick slap-together job. The colored dots on the radar show the player his/her location (yellow), the locations of enemies (sharks in pink, subs in grey), and the divers (light blue).

I also decided the game needed floating mines which wouldn't show up on the radar, just because.

So now the game would involve going much further from the air and having to juggle multiple screens worth of targets. I'd love to dive into this game.

4. Star Wars: AT-ST Battle

The excellent Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back for Atari 2600 pitted the player against an unforgiving conga line of AT-AT walkers. This game would be based on the scene in Return of the Jedi where Chewbacca (and some fuzzballs) capture an AT-ST walker:

Source: Wikipedia

The game I'm envisioning would still be a horizontal scrolling shooter, but with you in control of a chicken walker with some hefty jumping ability and pew pew laser guns.

The forest moon of Endor is a lot trickier to navigate than Hoth, though. In Star Wars: AT-ST Battle, you must dodge Storm Troopers on speeders, Storm Troopers shooting from trees, and the occasional AT-AT walker as you keep the Ewoks from being decimated and work your way to blast open the shield generator base.

Here's where I'd love to have a fake screenshot to show, but my goodness did you even read that description? Screenshot totally not even necessary here. Plus, George Lucas has dark Sith powers, and Disney doubly so. It's risky even posting that screenshot up there from the movie.

5. The Yar Ultimatum (working title)

If you own an Atari 2600 and don't have Yars' Revenge, please obtain it swiftly and play it before continuing to read this post.

This is a game just screaming for a sequel (although I'm having difficulty figuring out a good title). But imagine the same setup as the original, only with more playfield variations:

   

Imagine facing down the Qotile with only a small square of Neutral Zone, or perhaps two slimmer ones on either side of a centrally located Qotile surrounded on all sides? Or perhaps the ultimate challenge, having to take on the Qotile Space Invaders-style, but with nowhere to hide?

I think this series is well overdue for a comeback.

Okay then, JT, you jelly-brained sluggard, are you actually going to make these games?

I wish I could. But hopefully someone with the savvy and dedication will see this post and be inspired. Perhaps not with the examples here (although I can only hope), but with some new idea even I couldn't imagine.

Hope this has been good for your imaginations as well. Feel free to comment your own ideas. 

Peace,
JT

Those virulent ideas...[]

I was thinking today, as I often do, about the world of the movie Inception.

Specifically, I was wondering about totems, the small, personalized items that most of the "team" carry with them at all times to let them know whether or not they're dreaming.

Except, they wouldn't really, would they? The concept seems a bit flawed, in that it would only work in certain instances, as I shall illustrate.

The basic idea behind carrying a totem is that it is something which only the bearer knows perfectly. It appears relatively normal, an everyday object (because we all carry around chess bishops with us at all times), but one that has been modified such that only its bearer knows its particular quirks. In the case of Arthur, only he knows exactly how his die is weighted; only Ariadne knows how much weight she drilled out of her chess piece, and how it affects the balance; only Eames knows how his poker chip has been modified; and only Cobb...er...no wait everyone knows how Cobb's totem is supposed to work, but I'll get to that later.



The point is that if the object is reproduced by someone else (in someone else's dream), it will likely lack that key quality which only its bearer knows, which will be a constant reminder to the bearer a that (a) he/she is dreaming, and (b) it's in someone else's dream. This is illustrated quite well with Saito's rug: he is instantly able to tell that he's not in his apartment because the rug into which his face was pressed should be natural fiber, not synthetic (anyone can tell the difference, even asleep!).

Here we run into the first problem, however: those in dream sharing are (now stay with me) dreaming. Cobb mentions to Ariadne in the café scene that dreamers only realize that small inconsistencies in the dream world are overlooked by the dreaming mind: "Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange." Given that, how is one supposed to be able to tell that something's actually different or wrong? We can only suppose that those who are actually looking for specific differences somehow are able to keep enough awareness to spot them (still doesn't explain Saito's carpet-connoiseurship though).



Second problem: totems are supposed to stay relatively secret. That's part of their point. A good point man could do the research and, once the totem is known, use other clues to deduce what might make the deception easier.

Example: suppose the dreamer knows that Arthur's totem is a die. Most common thing to do to make a die different is to load it. One in six chance. Actually, it might get better, if you account for what people bring into dreams. We know that invaders can bring their own mental projections with them into others' dreams (e.g. Mal and the kids); we know that a suggestion can cause someone to put one's own mental projections into the dream world, even when it isn't the target's own dream (Saito could put his secret information into the safe in Arthur's dream). Suggest to a dreaming Arthur that he check his die somehow. He rolls it, knowing that it is weighted. There's every possibility that just him knowing that will cause him to experience the die landing up exactly as he knows it should. Bingo.

Third problem: related to the second point, suppose the dreamer knows nothing about your totem. Say, for example, you're actually going into the dream of someone not on your team, but actually the target (this happens when they enter Robert Fischer's dream for the third level — which makes me wonder how they got the right dream maze in any case, and how it survived after he dropped into limbo), who may have no idea what a totem is in context and furthermore no expectation that you may be carrying one (he assumed that Cobb and the others were his own mental projections, not real people, as per the Mr. Charles gambit). In this situation, whence your totem? It can only come from your own mental projection of it, which will naturally have it behave as you know it should, so it serves no real purpose other than possibly leaving you confused as to whose dream you're inhabiting, if any dream).

In fact, the only totem that really seems like it would work would be Cobb's, because it's defining trait is not a matter of weight, but of location. If he's awake, it topples; if he's dreaming, it keeps spinning. But that doesn't seem like it should work, for much the same reasons we've seen above: several people know how it works and what he's expecting to see (even Saito recognizes it when his brain's "turned to scrambled egg," despite the fact that he only saw it for a brief moment in the first dream level), and even those who don't, if any projection of theirs can be formed, aren't likely to think up a top that doesn't topple. If it's his own projection he's forced to bring in, he knows it topples in real life, so if he's looking to make sure of where he is, it will only follow his suspicions at the time — what he's expecting to see.

An elegant solution perhaps, but I don't see how it would actually do what it's supposed to do within the world of the film. If you think I'm wrong, let me know in the comments, of course.

Peace,
JT

Note: I still love the film more than any other in the past few years...it's just that once an idea invades it works its way through my brain so that I have to explore it for a bit.

Second note: All images were found via Google image search. Their sources do not necessarily reflect anything about my personal opinions or whatever, and vice versa. The quote I found on IMDB.com.