The #Atari8bit had a number of very good and well received official ports of arcade classics during its day, but before and after the official games were released many quality clones were produced that in may times were as good or better than the official games and in some cases were the ONLY releases available when official ports never arrived.
Today we are going to look at 10 titles and test them on the 400#Mini. We’ll also go into how to get some of the more problematic of these games to run on this new official #Atari 8bit emulation box. Without Freddy Adu, let’s get started with an arcade clone that didn’t get an official Atari 400/800/XL/XE port in the 80’s or 90’s.
First up is Axis Assassin, a 1983 Electronic Arts clone of the Atari arcade game Tempest, which never got an official release. Axis assassin adds the necessity to fire forward and back on the geometric structures to the Tempest formula.
I set Axis assassin to use the 130XE, but it should work with 800 or 800xl settings also.
Bootskell is a 2022 Inufuto created clone of Pengo that uses his 8bit tool kit to output games for a variety of systems.
I also ran Bootskell with 130 XE settings but it will also work with the 800XL and possibly the 800.
Duellin’ Droid is a 1984 English Software clone of Robotron, which I also set up here to run with 130XE settings. It plays pretty well and is a nice alternative to the official version. It will work with 800 and 800XL configurations also.
There are already 2 good great conversions of Qix available for the Atari 8bit and 5200, but Fill’er Up! 2 released in 1983 by Analog magazine is notable for being one of better type-in arcade games to ever appear in an Atari magazine and is by Tom hudson who famous for creating 3D Studio Max,
Ghost Hunter is a 1981 Arcade Plus release of a very nice Pacman clone before Atari was able to release its own for the 8bits and the 2600.
Ghost Hunter works with Atari 400 and 800 settings only. I could not find a version of the follow-up, Ghost hunter 2 without graphics glitches,
With good official ports of both centipede and millipede to choose from , is there room for Megalegs, a 1982 Megasoft bug blasting clone? I sure think so, as before we had access to the 5200 version of centipede, this really was the best, most playable conversion, for the Atari 8 bit family.
The score cut off at the top of the screen is not due to my editing crap camera work but the emulator setting the height of the screen too high, We’ll explore fixing that with the next game, Pogo Joe
Pogo Joe, a 1983 Screenplay release, is my favorite Qbert clone of the Atari 8bits, it adds to the arcade version with spot on controls and the ability to jump between sections of the platforms, I had to play with the screen height settings a bit to get this on to work, Those are set on the same screen that you set the machine type. You will also see that once the game starts you will need the on-screen keyboard or a USB keyboard to press the return key. This is access by pressing the menu and and home buttons at the same time
Princess and Frog is a 1982 Romox Frogger clone notable for both it difficulty AND for being one of the 6 or so Atari 8bit games developed by Ed Fries one of the principals responsible for the original; Xboc at Microsoft
Sirius software’s Repton from 1983 is Defender clone that employs a unique control system: your ship can only fly when it’s firing and consequently only fire when it’s flying. It turns out to be quite a nice little blaster by Dan Thompson who also coded Hardball and Zone Ranger.
Rockball is a 1983 Roklan game that most likely never saw store shelves even though it was 100% completed and ready for production, which is quite as game as it’s quite playable and possibly the best classic era Asteroids style game for the Atari 8bits.
One note, I’m still having some problems with the CX stick as the reset button is too easily pressed and I inadvertently reset some of these games while playing.
And that’s all for this time, there are far more than 10 and we will be spending some time here looking for more over the next few weeks. I am also looking for a better way to capture the 400 Mini screen so I apologize if the ugly capture set off alarms. Until next time have fun playing your favorite arcade clones on the machine of your choice in the vertical blank.