An excellent system - though often misunderstood
Written: Dec 12 '00 (Updated Dec 14 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent animation, colourful graphics. Backwards compatible with Atari 2600. Fun games.
Cons: Terrible sound; many games are needlessly short or repetitive; poor 3rd party support.
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| Dracmania's Full Review: Atari 7800 |
The Atari 7800 is arguably my favorite system of all time. I've also owned other Atari machines including the 2600, the XE Game System, the Lynx and the Jaguar. In addition, I've also owned a Sega Master System, a Sega Genesis and Nintendo NES.
The Atari 7800 prosystem is one of the most misunderstood systems in history too. This is kind of a testament to the fact that Atari did such a horrendous job of marketing it that people either make incorrect assessments about it or don't even know what it is. Wander through rec.games.video.classic sometime and you'll likely see some of these (misinformed) opinions in action:
* The Atari 7800 was a classic system that was a generation behind the NES and SMS. (not true, the 7800 was released in 1986 and while it was designed in 1983-4, so were the Famicom and Sega Mark 3).
* The Atari 7800 was behind the NES in terms of power. (This is usually written by someone who only ever played Galaga and Ms. Pacman on the 7800).
* The Atari 7800 can't scroll (again - usually written by someone who hasn't played many games).
* What is more powerful - an Atari 5200 or Atari 7800?
* The Atari 7800 didn't really offer improvements over the Atari 2600. (Anyone who's ever compared Space Invaders to Alien Brigade knows this is really, REALLY, *REALLY* silly. And I won't even mention the underwater sequences in Tower Toppler! ;-)).
I loved the 7800, though like any system, it has strengths and weaknesses. It's strengths are in the graphical area. While the NES had a 52 colour palette, the Atari 7800 had 256 colours. And while the NES could display 13 of those colours on screen at one time, the 7800 could place 25 colours on screen simultaniously. The 7800 had higher resolution too - it could displayed 160 x 240 or 320 x 240 resolutions whereas the NES could not go beyond 256 x 240 pixels.
But the biggest strength in the Atari 7800's corner came it its spectacular animation capabilities. For an 8-bit console, the Atari 7800 could do some impressive stuff. The MARIA graphics chip employed by the 7800 ran at over 7 mhz (blazing fast by 8-bit standards) and literally destroyed the Nintendo and Sega machines when it came to sprite manipulation. Sprite flickering almost never happened on the 7800 and some games such as Xevious, Desert Falcon, Dark Chambers and others would manipulate dozens of sprites without flicker or slowdown. Other games were able to use MARIA's speed for great 8-bit effects. Tower Toppler featured 3D rotating towers to climb and also 6-layered parallax scrolling in the underwater sequences. Ballblazer (from Lucasfilm games) was allegedly written with the Atari 7800 in mind and featured terrific split-screen 3-D animation. All terrific stuff on an 8-bit console.
The 7800 also had weaknesses. Anyone who has played one notices its maind weakness immediately: the SOUND WAS TERRIBLE! How terrible? Well, Atari and GE labs (developers of the 7800) had greatly improved the 7800's graphics compared to what was offered by the Atari 2600 and 5200 but the sound was not touched. The 7800 used the sound out-of-date RIOT chip in the 7800 that they did on the 2600. Hence, the 7800's sound capabilities weren't as good as the sound found in the Colecovision or Atari 5200, let alone the NES. The 7800 had a provision in its hardware to allow 7800 games to use additional sound chips inside 7800 cartridges. Unfortunately, only a couple of games (Ballblazer and Commando being the two most well known) took advantage of this feature.
Some people have also complained about the 7800's stiff PRO-LINE controllers, though I personally enjoy them. Atari released NES-style joypads in Europe to make the 7800 more appealing to the NES audience, but I find these to be somewhat stiff as well.
But the biggest problem was the 7800's library. I enjoy many of the Atari 7800's titles but I can understand why gamers of the mid-eightees didn't buy Atari 7800's in droves. First, Nintendo had scored almost all the big name arcade games of the day. The 7800 had a couple (Double Dragon, Xenophobe, Commando, Ikari Warriors, Kung Fu Master and Rampage) but Nintendo had everything, thanks to an exclusivity clause which essentially prevented Nintendo developers from bringing big-name games to Sega or Atari machines.
Second, Atari really dropped the ball for the early part of the 7800's library. Nintendo and Sega revolutionized games with side-scrolling adventures, RPGs and the like, Atari seemed to think that the public would be interested in buying souped up versions of old classics like Dig Dug, Asteroids, Galaga and Ms. Pacman. Mistake number one. The Atari 7800 did have solid translations of Commodore 64 hits such as Fight Night, Ace of Aces Winter Games, Summer Games, Touchdown Football and Super Huey but there weren't enough of them. Some of the C64 translations such as Karateka (terrible control) and Impossible Mission (a bug made this game well named) really, REALLY sucked. The lack of big name developers hurt the 7800 too. While companies like Jaleco and Konami were pushing the NES to new limits, no one was really testing what the 7800 could do.
Third, Atari had cheap owners at the time who chinced on game development in order to sell 7800 games cheaply. This caused many consumers to believe that the Atari 7800 simply wasn't capable of playing Nintendo-quality games. The real problem was that the Tramiels complained when programmers programmed games that required extensive memory chips. Most early 7800 titles were typically 32K to 48K whereas early Nintendo and Sega games were usually 128K to 256K. Atari eventually smartened up and began releasing 128K Atari 7800 titles like the 18-level sidescrolling, Scrapyard Dog; the 32-level racer, Fatal Run; the 26-level gauntlet clone, Dark Chambers; and the arcade adventure, Midnight Mutants. But by that time Nintendo and Sega had moved on to 384K and 512K games and Atari decided to move away from the 7800 toward the Lynx.
I do enjoy many Atari 7800 titles and find it has a strong catalogue of both arcade classics and original games. My first 7800 gave me the opportunity to play computer titles that I previously couldn't play because I didn't have a computer. It also has modern 8-bit graphics and is backwards compatible with my Atari 2600 library. It isn't perfect, but what system is?
7800 titles include the following.
Arcade Classics: Asteroids, Centepede, Crossbow, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Food Fight, Galaga, Hat Trick, Joust, Mario Brothers, Ms. Pacman, Pole Position II, Robotron 2084, Xevious. (My picks: Ms. Pacman, Xevious, Food Fight).
NES-Style Games: Alien Brigade, Basketbrawl, Commando, Ikari Warriors, Dark Chambers, Double Dragon, Fatal Run, Ikari Warriors, Jinks, Kung Fu Master, Mat Mania CHallenge, Midnight Mutants, Motor Psycho, Ninja Golf, Planet Smashers, Rampage, Scrapyard Dog, Super Skateboardin', Tank Command, Title Match Pro Wrestling, Tower Toppler, Water Ski, Xenohpobe,
(my picks: Alien Brigade, Scrapyard Dog, Xenophobe, Commando, Midnight Mutants).
Computer Hits: Ballblazer, Choplifter!, F-18 Hornet, Fight Night, Impossible Mission, Karateka, Mean 18 Ultimate Golf, One On One Basketball, Pete Rose Baseball, Summer Games, Super Huey UH-IX, Tomcat: F-14 Fighter Simulator, Touchdown Football, Winter Games. (My picks: Ball Blazer, Mean 18 Ultimate Golf, Summer Games).
Light Gun: Alien Brigade, Barnyard Blaster, Crossbow, Meltdown,
(My picks: Crossbow, Alien Brigade)
Atari Originals: Crack'ed, Desert Falcon, Realsports Baseball
(My picks: NONE)
People who want to try out this system can emulate in on their PC with the MESS emulator or the v7800 emulator.
You can also visit my classic gaming site for more information and Atari 7800 screenshots: <A HREF= http://www.geocities.com/mrathwel/VideoGames/index.html >http://www.geocities.com/mrathwel/VideoGames/index.html</a>
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Dracmania
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Reviews written: 2
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