Sunday, March 5, 2017

Atari Emulator -> Frank Cohen's "Scooter"

Three.  Words.  Period.  Anyway, when you get a programmer like the prolific Frank Cohen, you're bound to get some repeats... and when you've got a slow-ass modem like I do, you're bound to get really tired of it.  Reminds me!  I was supposed to install a new one!  I must visit the website of my ISP.  Better make a note of it and slap it to my fourhead.  Anyway, class, we are now going to take a look at his copyrighted 1985 effort, and it's called "Scooter," which is probably the nickname of a tall, thin guy he once knew.  The real-life Scooter was an interesting character: always getting in one form of trouble or another, usually able to use arbitrage to get out of most of it.  Unfortunately, the Scooter of Frank Cohen's "Scooter" leads a much more mundane existence.  He's trapped in a realm of mazes, the next of which seems to be dangling over his head like the Sword of Damascus... Damacleese... Damacleez?  ...the Sword of Gideon.  He can't jump, unless it's over an air vent.  He can duck, but a lot of good it will do him with certain enemies that seem to shoot lightning bolts out of their ass.  He can collect Pac-Man-like power pills, but a lot of good it will do him with certain enemies that seem to shoot lightning bolts out of their ass... and the birds!  There's birds on one of the levels.  Anyway, I have to go make a salad, so we'll look at the individual levels a little later on.
...oops!  Bad screen cap.  Here's just the intro screen and... boy, I tells ya.  Those were the days.  As any frequent user of Atari 8-bit computers, even slanted lettering like this was enough to push the already overheated 6502 to its breaking point.  And more than 4 colors?  And mixing Graphics 0 with... ANY other mode?  Next-level sh... stuff.

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