Ooh, and here's another good one
Jun. 1st, 2019 01:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinNight Mission Pinball, a 1982 release from subLogic, as played by ILLSeaBass:
Once again, I'm showing an Apple II video because I can't find one of the Atari version that shows the artifact colors correctly. The Atari version basically looks like this, just with slightly fewer colors. Like seemingly all of these pinballs, this one was yet another GRAPHICS 8 game with composite artifacting, probably because it was yet another port from the Apple II, and this was the most direct way to port Apple hires games.
This was written by Bruce Artwick, the author of Flight Simulator. As such, it's not so surprising that it has an aviation theme (World War II bombers) and really, really good physics. Seriously, for sheer feel this one blows away all of the other early 1980s computer pinballs: I could tell that after playing it for just a couple of minutes. The sounds are a bit annoying, though. (I didn't initially notice because with the Atari computer emulator I use on my Mac, I seem to have a choice between a version with broken sound and a version with malfunctioning keyboard interactions, and for most programs I choose the first.) It's another one that uses a two-joystick scheme with the fire buttons operating the flippers.
I think the layout of this one is original. I'm not a fan of the seemingly haphazard arrangement of pop bumpers in the upper middle, which remove opportunities for ball control and introduce a powerful chance element into the game, but otherwise it's pretty good. Reminds me just a little of the early Stern table Flight 2000, though it's not the same.
There is apparently a backbox/physics-tweaking mode that allows adjustment of a huge number of parameters, much like the parameter editor in Flight Simulator. I haven't played with that yet.
Once again, I'm showing an Apple II video because I can't find one of the Atari version that shows the artifact colors correctly. The Atari version basically looks like this, just with slightly fewer colors. Like seemingly all of these pinballs, this one was yet another GRAPHICS 8 game with composite artifacting, probably because it was yet another port from the Apple II, and this was the most direct way to port Apple hires games.
This was written by Bruce Artwick, the author of Flight Simulator. As such, it's not so surprising that it has an aviation theme (World War II bombers) and really, really good physics. Seriously, for sheer feel this one blows away all of the other early 1980s computer pinballs: I could tell that after playing it for just a couple of minutes. The sounds are a bit annoying, though. (I didn't initially notice because with the Atari computer emulator I use on my Mac, I seem to have a choice between a version with broken sound and a version with malfunctioning keyboard interactions, and for most programs I choose the first.) It's another one that uses a two-joystick scheme with the fire buttons operating the flippers.
I think the layout of this one is original. I'm not a fan of the seemingly haphazard arrangement of pop bumpers in the upper middle, which remove opportunities for ball control and introduce a powerful chance element into the game, but otherwise it's pretty good. Reminds me just a little of the early Stern table Flight 2000, though it's not the same.
There is apparently a backbox/physics-tweaking mode that allows adjustment of a huge number of parameters, much like the parameter editor in Flight Simulator. I haven't played with that yet.