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1:23 - Options
4:35 - timeline
7:13 - Game Library
8:20 - Apple II - watch mode
12:07 - Apple II play
16:19 - Apple II settings
22:50 - more Apple II play
41:49 - port-culled
42:28 - restarting & saving
46:15 - C64
57:13 - Atari 8-bit
1:01:40 - Karateka Remastered
1:11:31 - Deathbounce: Rebounded
1:15:25 - Asteroid Blaster
1:17:13 - Star Blaster
1:18:28 - Deathbounce (1st proto)
1:19:43 - Deathbounce (Colored Balls proto)
1:20:41 - Deathbounce (Little Man proto)
1:22:13 - Deathbounce (Space Train proto)
1:23:45 - Karateka (Jordan proto)
1:30:41 - Karateka (Broderbund proto 1)
1:34:26 - Karateka (Broderbund proto 2)
I wish there was a no filter option; you can turn off the obvious filters, but there's always a very slight rescaling blurriness, ie there's no aliased completely unfiltered output option. Also that you could remap all the controls, not just the main ones, that there was a confirmation each time you saved, that you had more than one save slot per game, and that the UI was a little more streamlined for starting the games--like, just give me an instant pick list.
The historical timeline stuff is sort of neat but, aside from new videos of Mechner and his dad, who composed the game's music, and videos interviews with the Digital Eclipse people who worked on this compilation--turned out I did not have enough interest to watch any of these new videos for more than a few seconds--you can get the actual historical stuff from Wikipedia and from Mechner's own YouTube channel, @JordanMechner . The new Digital Eclipse remakes of Karateka and another game Mechner made around the same time, Deathbounce, for all their very intentional and artificial modern smooth pixel art look, don't play particularly well, which feels like entirely missing the point of Mechner's own meticulous Karateka design (Mechner's Deathbounce prototypes don't play very well either ; ).
Still, very smooth presentation--aside from my constant fumbling with where PC "A," "B," and "X" buttons mapped on my arcade stick--love being able to play the Karateka prototypes and historical ports (the two ports that are here, at least: C64 and Atari 8 bit; I'd have vastly preferred to get more historical ports instead of the two contemporary Digital Eclipse remakes) and see the original manuals, the Enhanced Frame Rate setting's slight speed boost is real cool, and Mechner's Apple II Karateka is still fabulous: what a lovely, fabulously choreographed single player fighting game adventure, with immensely satisfying action.
Now I'll have to come back and get through it, save scumming to avoid instant death by portcullis and other devious traps. ; )
(I stupidly assumed at first that the six button control scheme was added for this collection for some reason--but it appears to go back to the original, judging from the included manuals, and scans and references I've found elsewhere to them. When I tried it prior to recording, I found the six button scheme a lot more cumbersome than using just two buttons plus up/down on the stick.)
The upside-down disk loading the game with upside down graphics was a real trick Mechner put in as a joke; a second version of the game was written on the otherwise unused side B of the disk, where "The programmer doing copy protection for the game figured out that by messing with the bit table, the whole game could be played upside down"; Mechner thought this would be funny:
'"We figured of all the people who buy the game, a couple of them would accidentally put the floppy in upside down," he continued. "That way, when that person calls tech support, that tech support rep would once in blue moon have the sublime joy of saying, 'Well sir, you put the disk in upside down,' and that person would think for the rest of their life that's how software works."'
http://web.archive.org/web/20080903021930/http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19585
I'm not sure that's how tech support works, though--sounds like Mechner just gave them unnecessary work. : P |
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