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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

JAKKS Licenses Midway Classics For TV Game 20

Posted by simoniker from the marble-madness-and-paperboy-oh-my dept.
Thanks to Yahoo for reprinting a press release revealing JAKKS Pacific has signed a deal with Midway to produce a standalone 'TV game' based on classic Midway titles. We've recently covered other newly announced titles in the JAKKS TV Games series, including Namco, Activision, and Atari models, and this title "...will feature top-selling Midway games, including Mortal Kombat, Spy Hunter, Rampage, Joust, Defender I & II, Robotron:2084, Marble Madness, Smash TV, Super Sprint and Paperboy", although it's unclear how exactly faithful the conversions will be.
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JAKKS Licenses Midway Classics For TV Game More

JAKKS Licenses Midway Classics For TV Game

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  • I would really like a good Tempest clone. Too bad it's not in this compilation.

  • What's the controller? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HTH NE1 ( 675604 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:35PM (#8297375)
    You've got games in there that use 2-way, 4-way, and 8-way sticks, a couple using two simultaneously, steering wheels, a trackball, and even handlebars, plus lots of buttons.

    Are all these going to be in one controller, or will there be compromises made?

    • Re:What's the controller? (Score:5, Funny)

      by mopslik ( 688435 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:43PM (#8297455)

      Are all these going to be in one controller, or will there be compromises made?

      For simplicity, the controller will be a single button. Commands can be executed using a series of taps, similar to morse code. For example, to make your Rampage character leap onto a building and punch the roof, use the following:

      tap-tap tap tap-tap-tap tap tap tap-tap-tap

      Oddly enough, this is not that different from playing Mortal Kombat to begin with.

  • This rocks! I have the Atari 2600 JAKKS compilation and it's a lot of fun and brings back a lot of memories (yes, I am an *old* gamer). One of may favorite things about it is introducing my kids to Adventure, which is one of my all time favorite games. This new Midway product has some serious classics as well (Robotron, Smash TV...) that I spent serious cash on in the arcade, but they're not as small-children friendly (pretty damned violent, actually). Add to this the issue about support for multiple joyst

  • If they're as crappy as the others... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @04:49PM (#8297508) Journal
    If they're as crappy as the others, I'm totally uninterested.

    An emulator lives and dies, at least as far as I am concerned, by its accuracy with regard to three things: Video, audio, and emulation speed. While my experience with the Atari and Intellivision consoles was admittedly brief, I can verify that both of them completely fail the audio and speed criteria. The Intellivision was way too fast, and the Atari sound emulation about made me cry, and neither of them did well in the other department.

    (I don't recall any video glitches but I couldn't bear to play long enough, nor do I perfectly recall the graphics originally.)

    I'll concede the Intellivision was never going to match the original experience with a new controller; for this my thumbs are grateful; you think Nintendo thumb is bad, try Intellivision-disc-thumb! But the degree to which the emulation is too fast is truly amazing; they didn't even try .

    Do not hold your breath for this release; they do not respect these games at all.

    • Re:If they're as crappy as the others... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:20PM (#8297812)
      Uh. You need to play longer.

      I have the Atari stick in my house, and I agree the emulation isn't perfect, but the sound and speed of it are pretty exact to the Atari's. (And yes, I also have an Atari 2600 sitting right next to it. I can put the same game in both and compare.)

      The problem is that some of the programs were edited before they were inserted into the emulator. The most mutilated is Adventure, which suffered numerous color changes (one of the dragons is a different color from the original), and the famous 'first easter-egg ever' is completely wrong. (The 'invisible' pixel is quite visible on the screen, and the message has been changed to the word 'text'... as if they forgot to type it in!)

      Then again, I can cart this over to a friends house and play in no time at all. The original Atari, *if* they even have an antenna connector, is a pain in the butt to haul around. And it won't plug into my TV without a quality-reducing adaptor because of the antenna connector issue.
    • Disagree with you here. I have both, and I find the emulation to be bang-on and the speed fine. However, the Intellivision games really haven't stood the test of time. The Atari ones are pretty timeless, and still enjoyable, but I haven't picked up the Intellivision control in months.
  • Some of those games are great two player games (Mortal Kombat, SmashTV) I hope they do something that allows two player simultaneous... and I hope the keep the dual stick setup for SmashTV - I'd by that in a second.

  • sluts! (Score:1, Troll)

    by kisrael ( 134664 ) *
    "...will feature top-selling Midway games, including Mortal Kombat, Spy Hunter, Rampage, Joust, Defender I & II, Robotron:2084, Marble Madness, Smash TV, Super Sprint and Paperboy",

    Except for Mortal Kombat, which I've hardly seen around, those games are the total sluts of the emulation world. They've been done on more systems than Madonna studying the Kaballah.
    • It was a joke.

      Jimminy crickets, it was a valid point (that there's not a lot exciting about these particular, given how distributed and emulated they already are) in a meant to be funny wrapper.

      Mods, lighten the hell up.

  • MARBLE MADNESS!!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by XO ( 250276 )
    MARBLE FREAKING MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I don't care how crappy the controller is, it's MARBLE FREAKING MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • Marble Madness is the reason I got started with MAME and the reason I bought my first trackball. Now gigs of ROMs and 4 trackballs later, I still suck at Marble Madness.

  • I'm surprised by Midway. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why would Midway allow something like this? They could sell these games over and over again in compilations for the next ten generations of cosole hardware, but this unit won't need to be updated when you buy that shiny new PlayStation 9.

  • why not... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BTWR ( 540147 ) <americangibor3@ya[ ].com ['hoo' in gap]> on Monday February 16, 2004 @05:46PM (#8298059) Homepage Journal
    just get Midway Arcade Treasures for any of the current-gen consoles - $20 and you get all the games mentioned here...
    • Have to agree with you.
      XBOX [amazon.com]
      PS2 [amazon.com]
      Over 20 great arcade games including: SpyHunter, Defender, Gauntlet, Joust, Paperboy, Rampage, Marble Madness, Robotron 2084, Smash TV, Joust 2, Bubbles, RoadBlasters, Stargate, Moon Patrol, Blaster, Rampart, Sinistar, Super Sprint, 720, Toobin', KLAX, SPLAT!, Satan's Hollow, Vindicators, Root Beer Tapper
      Toobin was a favorite, but Tapper was amazin
      • I have only played tapper with an anolog stick (well a simple joystick anyway, no 8 directional multi hardness thing like the term is used now). It worked great. Granted I was young so the bar was low, but it was awfuly fun.
  • Jakks should do a TRON and Discs of Tron combo set with the original tron controller and Spinner. Now that would be badass! Heck, they could even do some esoteric games like "Major Havoc" and Tempest, since both use spinners.
  • The (cheap) manufacturer discovers that there's not enough storage space to hold all of the games planned. What do we get?

    Mortal Kombat, now starring George the Gorilla.

    Go, George, beat the crap out of that Paperboy! FINISH HIM!

  • The previous ones.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ReyTFox ( 676839 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2004 @01:06AM (#8301911)
    ...were emulated fairly imperfectly and had features cut out from the original games(mainly the two player options though I believe difficulty modes might've also been cut).

    I wouldn't hold my breath on this one.

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