One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.
This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.
The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.
A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.
Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)
Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)
All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.
Almost missed this episode.
@Microsoft’s decision to reverse its online policies
Dunno about it. I think it’s a bit too late. Just like a commented to a youtuber, similar hardware, smaller price – I think PS4 is better placed.
And due to using similar hardware, I expect the game libraries to be similar.
If you ask me, it’ll be the price and the exclusives that will make the difference.
@EA’s Soderlund states next-gen consoles should have come a year earlier
… idiot.
Hardware takes time and resources to develop. It’s not like you can set up a day one patch for a piece of hardware. Oops, the CPU bus should have been 256 bits wide, well, no worries, we’ll ship a day one motherboard replacement …
@Fish claims Fez 2 won’t come to Xbox One due to anti-indie policy
mmm not sure about it being a fit. I think that Team Meat was also a bit angry at the new consoles. So …
Thing is, while something to be praised, making such a stand can cause them some financial grief. I mean the devs built some communities on the platforms they released their games. Switching the platform could mean a smaller community, possibly a smaller market.
@Better late than never
It’s never late to have a new generation of consoles. If it came a year earlier, it would most likely be more expensive. Or less refined. Still, I can barely wait for the PS4. The Microsoft swing did nothing to change my mind.
I still will be getting a PS4. Probably will import it because of the atrocious Europe and UK price markups. I know there are taxes involved but we have to pay almost as much in pounds as you pay in dollars.
@Premium games
At the beginning of the previous generation here in UK games cost almost £60. But it quickly fell to £40 which was the price of premium games last generation. No one in UK is going to pay more than £40 for a game. Especially now that the consoles are region free.
@Betrayal
I agree with Alien. I know that Microsoft won’t turn back on their new promises as it would be financial suicide. But I hear a lot of people saying that they don’t trust Xbox anymore and won’t buy the Xbone. I think Microsoft shot itself in the foot pretty bad. That and the price. Here in UK the price differential is pretty bad(£429 vs £349) It will make a lot of difference here in UK.
@Star Wars Battlefield
Battlefront was a blatant rip off of Battlefield and now seeing DICE have the development is quite strange. I am just glad the game is being developed by someone. I loved the first 2 games and the Lord of the Rings: Conquest atrocity which came out some years ago was a poor representation of the series.
@There is something Fishy about the Microsoft East Indie Trading Company
I quite enjoy indie games on Xbox 360. Recently played White Noise (multiplayer rip off of Slender) which cost as much as a can of coke and gave me more fun than most premium games. I would love to see greater support for Indie games in the next generation. A note on Fish rant, if Microsoft policies are so anti-Indie than how did those thousands of games made it to the Indie channel?
@being impressed
None really. I mean, the games are good but none of them struck me as particularly amazing. Probably because I don’t tend to watch much trailers and just wait for the games. If I was to choose one then I enjoyed the Battlefield 4 gameplay. Looking forward to bringing down skyscrapers and reducing maps to rubble. And 64 player console battles. The game itself looked just like Battlefield 3 thou.
@loosing a game disk on a territory of your own bedroom
I think the problem here is not that Alpha Protocol disk was easy to loose because its tangible but because you are a scatterbrain. A digital copy won’t fix that.