Again, sorry if this isn't "pure" A8 classic software news, but of course these days we have to grab every little "new" morsel we can. Get that tool out and let's NAIL this mutha! Does the character accurately reflect the player in the A8 classic title of the same name? One thing's for sure... It's a darn sight faster on screen updates and player's velocity!!
Karateka got the moves! He does a better job than MC hammer himself Can I say im liking the options above this text box, will be so much easier to put up pictures (for me anyway). Like your avatar Andy lol
I shudder to think of the weeks I spent playing Karateka, learning the animation to improve my gameplay. All of that work, hours and weeks, and finally made it to the Princess... ran to her at long last and... --Tim _________
I only ever got to doorway of where she was being held, a remake would be good maybe balance out the speed of play, but apart from that I liked the game.
__________ Karateka had a certain flow to it once it trained me its animations' timings, although it still had its challenges in the combat sequences. The game was compelling enough to make me want to complete it, and I particularly enjoy that form of game over games that go on endlessly, just getting faster until it's faster than the player with 3 goes at it. Prince of Persia was the one I sometimes found too much at times. I'm not sure if I ever completed it— and I seriously doubt that if I did finish it, that I did so without a cheater or cheat codes. The jumps were sometimes maddening! My biggest fails were in the jumping— which was especially frustrating because in those days I had Bounty Bob jumping down to a science, and it operated on a similar faux-3D platform. Anyone else have similar experiences? —Tim __________
HEY! CAN'T TOUCH THIS - but now we can with Tharkanoid on-board too! Welcome, Mark - great to have you with us and hope to soon see you uploading any pics you might have of any great scores or demos or creations that you've been working or playing on/with in your Atari/retro den. Tim, I tried and tried to make progress, in Karateka, moving left to right along the halls to try and rescue the princess but found that in the end, regardless of moves, punches and kicks, the other guy always got the better of me and so my rescue missions would end in (in)glorious failure. My mate Kiddy would always fall about the floor in stitches by throwing his bloke immediately off the cliff edge by moving LEFT straightaway... little things please little minds!! LOL! Am enjoying the nostalgia discussing this old golden oldie. Keep em coming, fellas, and I've an old (relatively little-known) Breakout/Arkanoid clone which I would like to show and perhaps suggest that we might have a little competition at between ourselves... just a suggestion and NO, I haven't been in training all winter, Paul...!!??!! I'm as crap at it as I was when I first booted it up, bu chance, a few days ago. Basically, it's all a load of BALLS whenever I take up my joystick and try and return that angled incoming object! All will be revealed, as they say...
Is that crackout? (Then pull up your trousers ) Or unicum? Exploding wall? Or is it the other one I'm trying to remember the title of? Racking my brain as I speak
_________ Some of it, for me, came down to the joystick in play, I think. I'd discovered the Slik Stik and it had the best throw for my response time back in those days, short and sure. I always felt the Atari joysticks were too loose for the jumpers like Bounty Bob, Prince of Persia, and similar games— and just fine for others like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and that ilk. Admittedly, it's ironic that I didn't mind hand-based controllers like a joystick, I've come to prefer keyboard-based controls as a PC gamer since Wolfenstein 3D days. I find the console controllers of today overwhelming, and I give props to those who are perfectly fine with those controllers. The most advanced controller I could wrap my warped head around was the 6-button controller for the Sega Genesis because I was enjoying me some Mortal Kombat games and you needed a 6-button for the best Kombat experience. My brain's capacity was tapped at that point. These new controllers with buttons and micro stick controls... my mind melts just trying to explain it. I was proud to have been able to have managed a 6-button— and that was mostly because there were really only half the things needing to be remembered: two buttons controlled punches high and low, two buttons controlled kicks, and that left blocks to the last two buttons. I was already familiar with that level of control from games like World Championship Karate, with the difference being that I had buttons instead of flicks of a joystick. With the added bonus of special moves if you mashed the buttons in a particular order. Something I never mastered beyond Scorpion, who was my guy. Having woefully digressed from my original point, if you get the chance, try a different joystick when you play Karateka. It might just have been the difference. Now— before I digress again, this is me, signing and posting, — Tim
Haha it's fine my brain derails often. I don't mind modern controllers but always did prefer playing pc games with arrows keys and mouse. They were the days playing unreal tournament and quake ect with two pcs hooked together thru a hole in the bedroom wall! When I left home I lived with a friend for a while who was a computer teacher/builder and he had a couple of epic (for the day) PC's set up. I was younger and only needed the takeaways phone number, crates of beer and few hours sleep I used to get my rear end handed to me until the beers kicked in! Anyway amazingly the point I wanted to make was I always have to invert axis of controller so up is down if you catch my drift. Back to karateka - I've got lots of joysticks I could try, I always use a cheetah 125 so perhaps I should try a different one! I still think a remake would be great as we know Atari was capable of better - as illustrated with remake of amaurote.
To me it's all a matter of perception and perspective. I find most modern keyboard controlled PC games too complicated with the the keyboard keys one needs to remember playing all the different games, and trying to hold all my fingers over the keys that are needed to control and have fast access too is far less comfortable that an XBOX controller and all it's buttons within a thumbs reach. I find modern controllers simpler due to their still limited buttons, compared to a keyboard. It takes time to remember what keys or buttons do what or control what on any game and controller, or keyboard. And going back to games I haven't played in a long time, especially sequels that they just had to change how it controls, or similar games with different controls, I have to relearn the controls all over again. But I never let keys buttons and controllers intimidate me, if I want to play a game I take the time to learn.
There just aren't many modern games I take the time to learn though, honestly, I have dozens of games I downloaded on my Xbox 360 as the "free" game of the month with Xbox Gold membership when I had it, and many of them were top hits, but I have about 3-4 games I play and the rest sit collecting virtual dust, simply because I'm not quite interested enough in the game to learn all the new controls. So I guess, in that sense I'm like you Tim, but keyboard or controller, A game has to really capture my imagination for me to take the time to learn to play. The irony is that most of the few games I do play have the most complicated controls and menu schemes, mainly RPG's, FPS's and GTA 3rd person action/adventure.
I'm away to find my digital duster to sort that virtual dust! Haha RPG are my fave games, especially on Dreamcast. Evolution 1+2 Grandia series Skies of Arcadia Blue stinger Carrier To name a few.
@Tharkanoid I played Blue Stinger and Skies of Arcadia, but I love my Dreamcast most for it's FPS and racing simulation games. Have you ever played the Dreamcast's Action/RPG 'Draconus: Cult of the Worm?' I LOVE that game! I've played it through at least 3-4 times over the years. Actually, since the Dreamcast, most modern systems, the only types of games I play are RPG's, FPS's and racers, with the exception of GTA and the ilk on the Xbox consoles, which are sort of all of the above mixed. My Jaguar and 3DO are the only first-gen 3D consoles I own. I have Dreamcast, PS2 and Xbox 2nd gen 3D consoles, but the PS2 I only use for PS1 games and turn on the texture filtering so they look like N64 or early DC games. And that's only for the games that don't work on my DC Bleamcast! beta PS1 emulator, as it not only filters the textures but quadruples the resolution of PS1 games! Just some of the reasons the Dreamcast is my 3rd favorite console of all time, behind the Jaguar and 3DO.
There are a few copies on US eBay right now, ranging from $20 (link below) to $50 depending on condition and completeness. It might have been called Draconus: Dragon's Blood out of the states. George Takei (Star Trek's Sulu) does the voice acting for one of the Elves in the game. I think the main narrator is also famous, but can't place the voice. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Draconus-C...d=2348&hash=item3b42614825:g:v5oAAOSwfmFeQvf8
Karateka for me will always be the game that never was as fun as it could have been. I remember picking up a gazillion disks and started going through them, most were utterly forgettable but then Karateka booted, now when I saw saw Jordan's name I was excited, I'd known of his working via the circle I was in and then I saw the game itself, this LOOKED GOOD. The play mechanics were a bit hit and miss but it was so cinematic and I kept on playing until I realised it was too damn hard because it was too damn slow in response and that killed it for me. The game became a random series of hopeful pushes and presses that you hoped would work on time. Having since seen it running on a Rapidus it now plays better but it still makes me think (now quoting Little Britain) "The computers says no".. Ah the epic but so underrated Dreamcast, boy do I love that machine, twas a shooters joy (and pain) with a wonderful set of good games that looked so damn great. Just look at Sturmwind and its arcade quality, it really is. Not been a massive rpg fan but I've played some of the more action orientated one's on various machines, I suppose on the DC I really liked the Res Evil games. My only problem was that the DC was about when my finances were at their lowest so games were tough to keep up with so I was very happy when the boys found a way to hack the loader to boot copies and then made the loader fit to each game so no swapping, sadly there was a loss, the GDROM was 1g, we only had CDR's that were 700 meg so stuff had to be downsampled, ripped etc. Thankfully by then some of the titles were arriving in the charity shops so I could get full games again. Recently I purchased one of those clone GD emulators and it works incredibly well, plus you get to use the full rips of the games, no more mono sounds etc Found a source for the entire Pal and NTSC library and all I can say is thank goodness for 80MB fibre (well 71MB in my case), sadly the UK still lags so far behind everywhere else speed wise, a mate in East London can't even get fibre as yet so he's on 8Mb, go figure... Going back to Karateka, I'd love a rejigged modern version, it could even use the same graphics which are great but improve the response time, it would still be a rock hard game but more fun to play. The only way I saw the end was to watch a longplay of it, kudos to the person who did it, no cheats used.. Paul.
I never had a big problem with games where there were slow reaction times like Karateka. Yes, as probably most do, I wished the action was a bit faster, but I learned the timing and went with it and I've finished the game half a dozen times over the years, though not every time I play, it's still a challenge. The same was true with Fight for Life on the Atari Jaguar, people would say it sucked and was unplayable because it moved too slow, but I had no trouble, with a little practice, to get used to the timing required to properly make the fighting moves, just like Karateka. This was true of another fighting/adventure game on the Jaguar, Highlander. You just have to be patient and learn when to make the moves according to the response time of the game vs. joystick/controller movement. Maybe I've just got a lot more patience than most, but it can be learned with practice and these games I not only mastered and completed, but they are among my favorite games for the systems. Once you figure out and get used to the proper timing, the game becomes very playable and enjoyable. For me, since the very beginning of video gaming there have been games that for one reason or another the controls weren't great, but way back when, I didn't realize it was an issue with poor programming or slow systems or whatever, I thought they made the games like that on purpose, and learning to control them was part of the challenge of the game. I've since learned that it's often poor programming or attempting to do something in a game that the system just can't do quite fast enough, but from my history, I still just learn the timing and controls and don't let bad controls stop me from enjoying and quite often mastering the games as they are. It's still just part of the challenge to me, to master a game, good controls or not. Of course there are always some games that are just so badly done that there is no mastering the controls for anyone, but Karateka isn't one of them.
