Talk:Atic Atac/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs) 19:27, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I bought the tape c. 1984 in WH Smith, completed it, mapped it, hacked the Z80 machine code to get infinite lives .... happy to review. More later. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 19:27, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Ritchie! I played it for the first time the other day and it seems to be ahead of it's time. Wait, you could buy games from WH Smith!? JAGUAR 19:42, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed you could, and in Boots as well. Things looked so futuristic in the early 80s, computers were revolutionary. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:02, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

Are you absolutely sure it was released in 1983? I seem to recall Crash complaining they did not have a copy to review in an early issue around Jan / Feb '84. Perhaps it just made it to beat the Christmas rush, but there doesn't seem to be a source that actually states its release.

IGN states that its Spectrum release year is indeed 1983, which is usually what I go by for sourcing release dates. Ploygon's review of Rare Replay also states that this game was released in 1983, along with two others. I think I'll go with the reliable sources for this one, as I haven't found anything that disputes the release year yet. JAGUAR 16:24, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, the citation in the infobox to Personal Computer Games is a dead link.

Every one of World of Spectrum's sources have gone dead recently, which comes as a major inconvenience as I can't even archive them. I've replaced that infobox citation with the IGN reference above. JAGUAR 16:27, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"The game was written by Tim Stamper and graphics were designed by Chris Stamper." - this information is not in the body

Added now in Background section JAGUAR 13:40, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"It was Ultimate Play the Game's second game to require 48K of RAM" - this information is not in the body or sourced (I happen to know it was indeed the second after Lunar Jetman but don't take my word for it)

I added some information regarding size in the Backrgound section, which is backed up by a source JAGUAR 13:40, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Gameplay

I would probably start this section by explaining the plot; the character has been trapped inside the castle and needs to get the three pieces of the Golden Key of ACG (footnote explaining Ashby Computer Graphics was the trading name of Ultimate) etc etc

Good point; I wasn't sure if the game had much of a plot! I had no idea the Golden Key of ACG stood for their old trading name? The reviewers didn't seem to notice that either. Added a footnote in the lead too. JAGUAR 16:39, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"The game is presented in a isometric format" - I don't think it is (see Isometric graphics in video games and pixel art), it's top down

You're right, I got that wrong. Corrected this JAGUAR 16:39, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is the information about the momentum necessary?

Sounds a bit minor and irrelevant, so I removed it JAGUAR 16:44, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"There are also enemies who are invincible" .... "however certain special items will ... kill them" - if they're invincible surely they can't be killed by anything?

Unfortunately I suck at this game so much that I can't even experiment with this to see if it's possible to kill those certain enemies. I've rephrased the sentence so it makes it clear that special items are required to either distract, repel or kill them etc. JAGUAR 16:44, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"however health will constantly drop the more the player moves" - as we've already mentioned "health" a few times, just "however it will constantly...." should suffice

Done JAGUAR 16:44, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's a book source here that could be mined further for gameplay; it outlines the special villians and that it was Ultimate's first arcade adventure, and this one that confirms Chris and Tim Stamper as the developers.

Thanks, I've used it to cite some parts of the gameplay and should get to writing more content from it soon. JAGUAR 21:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Czar: - you've recently expressed concerns about the screenshots on Ultimate's own article, can you just confirm the shot here is okay? Personally I think a better shot would be the starting screen by the door, not some random shot on the stairs.

I agree, the screenshot of the stairs doesn't provide enough illustration for the reader. I've uploaded a better image that shows much more of the game. JAGUAR 21:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reception and legacy

"Personal Computer Games wrote that it was "another blockbuster game"" - this is a dead link

Fixed. Thanks to World of Spectrum's dead links, I suspect there are a tonne of other dead links in the other Spectrum articles... JAGUAR 21:39, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Crash review criticised the instructions as vague; a common criticism that came in for all Ultimate games

Vague instructions were already mentioned in the sentence, but I've expanded it slightly to add that it offered a "learning experience" JAGUAR 21:39, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There should be a mention that Sabre Wulf, released about six months later came in for criticism from some quarters as being too similar to Atic Atic with just different graphics.

Added a bit in the last paragraph JAGUAR 21:44, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The "History of Knightmare" source at knightmare.com is a dead link

Archived JAGUAR 21:39, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Production

This is a little unfair, but I would expect a good article on this topic to contain something about the production and development. Unfortunately I think getting that information is as good as impossible, as Ultimate were serious workaholics who really bought into Apple's "90 hours a week and loving it" mantra, spending every waking hour of the day coding and leaving no time for press or interviews. Having said that, all of the above (there is an archive interview from Ultimate in Crash c. 1988 where the Stamper brothers briefly discussed their work ethics) may be worth mentioning anyway. In any case, the game didn't just appear out of nowhere; to be "broad in coverage" I think there needs to be some background. Have a look at Skool Daze#Background which is one way of dealing with it.

Me and czar discussed the lack of development sources at our project talk page for promoting these articles on behalf of a Good Topic. Rare (or Ultimate Play the Game as they were back then) is still a very secretive company. Their studio in Leicestershire is built up like Fort Knox - I've even seen it myself! There is virtually nothing on development regarding the early Spectrum games, however, whilst going through sources I did find something from Micro Adventurer commenting on that fact that all they knew about Ultimate was that they "worked in teams". It makes me feel like I'm cheating by omitting a development section from an article, but I suppose it's almost impossible for games like these. If all comes to worst, I'll see what I can do about merging a background into one of the sections. JAGUAR 20:17, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's confirmed that Tim and Chris Stamper didn't give interviews on Atic Atac, but rest assured I'll begin writing a new section on release information, ports, and Ultimate's background tomorrow. JAGUAR 22:42, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the source says Ultimate didn't give interviews around the time Atic Atac was released, then later in that piece explain why. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:45, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay in this. My internet has been down for a couple of days due to a flood, but now I can finally get to writing that production section. This has been always been on my mind! JAGUAR 15:00, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ritchie333: I have finally made a start on the Background section, let me know if there is anything you feel that could be added? I mainly used the 1988 issue of Crash for the section, but other than that it's hard finding information on Ultimate's background as they rarely gave interviews. JAGUAR 17:15, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'm having a look through now. The source "book" at the end of the paragraph doesn't appear in the references list; that'll need to be fixed. I think that's as good as we're going to get for information, so I'll go back and re-read the article to check there's nothing else. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 15:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Summary

I'm not sure whether there's enough to make a GA out of this, if I'm honest. As it stands there's only 4.5K of prose, which is quite short. There seems to be a lack of content generally; I'm just not sure how to resolve that off the top of my head. Let me have a think about it. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 20:02, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To save time, I've gone through and done copyedits myself. I can't think of anything else to write about the topic, and I think everything's in order, so I'll pass the review now. Without wishing to sound like an old fart, games like this and Sabre Wulf, Skool Daze and especially Super Mario Bros just seem to be so much better than what's around these days - I wish my kids had stuff like this rather than yet another Quake clone. And while I get the impression Atic Atac would have been shipped on a console from day one if it could, having it on a computer means you can hack it to pieces and see how the engine worked. You can't do that on an Xbox 360 (actually, you can, I just don't know how...) Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 11:53, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again, Ritchie! I done what I could with the background section, but really the lack of content and general information made writing this one very difficult. I wonder if I should write similar background sections for Jetpac and Lunar Jetman which are up at GAN. Yeah, I too think that old games in general are better and more original than stuff today. I still enjoy Super Mario Bros and think it's a better platformer than most games! In fact I rarely play games that came out after 2001, sounds strange I know... JAGUAR 17:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]