(1982) Atari Star Raiders and Video Touch Pad

[Music] thank you hello and welcome back to Vintage gaming memories this is your first visit like to welcome you to the channel hope you subscribe and check out the other videos I've already published I just started this Channel about a few days ago so I've been pushing out a lot of content that I had saved for quite some time I wasn't sure if I was gonna put them out on video so please take a look and welcome your comments and feedback and for those of you who have been on here before and returning I really do appreciate your continued support in this video we'll be taking a first look at an eBay purchase I recently received in the mail so I'm going to open it now and show you what I got and then we'll talk a little bit more about it bubble wrapped up nicely I'm not critiquing the shipper on this or I mean the seller I'm just gonna really get to the contents and show you what I have and you can kind of seize unravel it you're like thinking what is this like 1980 you just finally got star Raiders well no it's more than that it's the video touchpad that goes with it you're probably still saying to yourself what did you just gotta became aware of this is this 1982 or what was it 1982 I think it was it came out but no it is something interesting for me it is this Atari 2600 star Raiders game cartridge here in the video touchpad with the game overlay has already been inserted this is something I got from eBay for a big whopping 15 now I know it's not something that's difficult you can actually find us today and purchase it as well but I never had the video touchpad controller in my collection so I figured this is a no-brainer at only 15 and you get the game and it's overlay so we'll take a look at it and see you know I've played star Raiders before it's like one of the first games for the Atari but I played it on my Atari 800 in the early 80s so if you've never played at Star Raiders you should definitely give it a go it's a space type game as the name sounds you have this first person perspective when you play it and it kind of gives you like a 3D sense with the asteroids passing by while you warp speed through this again this is my recollection I'm remembering it by looking at the cartridge itself and I don't have the 8-Bit version of it but I do remember the big box how it looks so that's kind of like my my memories from the past but I know there's like crosshairs I think for the 8-Bit version and you get to shoot the enemy crafts I think the objective of the game like many other space games is you're trying to protect your your base from getting destroyed by the enemy and that's pretty much probably the premise I can't recall much more than that and I know there was like a lot of Maps or charts or things you can toggle through the game on the keyboard from my 8-bit so the 2600 not having a keyboard this is what you're going to be using so that's why they had this touchpad made available with this game so this version of star Raiders for the Atari 2600 was released in 1982 it came with the video touchpad controller and this overlay that you insert on top of it which it's already been inserted just take it off so you can kind of get a look it's got a bunch of little Keys here you can feel it presses down it's got a nice little feel to it but this is a way to utilize like I said for example with the Atari 800 8-bit that I had when I used star Raiders I had the keyboard well with 2600 you don't have a keyboard and this would kind of give you some of the functionality of the keyboard options by using whatever is assigned to those buttons based on the overlay and this overlay really is just like it is you just overlay it and you have to press down on the various functions that's indicated on it now the controller plugs in to your right controller Jack and that joystick that you normally would use and plug into your left and you would use them together now what I do want to mention is this controller should not be confused with the cx50 which I have right there well maybe you can see it how's that cx50 so the cx50 it's the number pad type controllers you can tell they slide in together and then you kind of form the two now this is also used for various games but it's also used for programming for very light programming basic programming to be exact there'll be another video I'll be doing on this particular peripheral and give you more details on it but this is definitely different than this touchpad I know there are other games that were developed to use on this touchpad but there wasn't too many of them I think it was just a handful of them at the time for this video the purpose of this we're going back to this touchpad this game and we'll see how this looks and works let's do a quick look at the condition of this now I was told it was in working condition only fifteen dollars not a big risk pretty clean no scratches again me and my looking at the screws making sure they're not rusted and they're all there the rubber footings are all in place it looks like it's been pretty much you know packaged nicely in the sense that it's not been opened up a lot looks like it's only been used a few times by the way the condition of the plastic if not scratched the way it's been folded up I believe this did come with the star Raiders and this overlay is in very good condition in 1982 as I said so that is the touch pad in the overlay the game I mean this is not of any big deal I mean I have this I'm sure already in my collection with 2600 games but we'll test this one out with this touchpad and my joystick right now okay well looks like the game works that's a plus now let's test out the touch pad to see how that works with my joystick I've got it plugged into my uh six switch tari 2600 I do have an extension connected because I don't want to be sitting on top of it I think we're all ready to go let's see how this thing plays and how difficult it is to control two things with um well I won't be using my lap but I've got a table that I usually pull out it's a portable one that I use as you can see here and it's been very handy something I would recommend to use if you're ever going to have gameplay from a far distance my television is an 85 inch so you know you really don't want to be sitting right up in the front so that's why I like to be sitting at least 12 feet from it but here we go all right well this game I'm not going to go too much detail but what you see on the left is my energy account from 400 going down and I'm gonna put my shields on pressing that down I got my shields on just in case I get hit by something so it's coming from 400 down you can see some asteroids coming by and I got a void getting hit by them or can shoot them so my goal is to find the enemies before they get to my base with my shield there's some enemies now I see so I got nine left as you can see the zero nine it was time to start and the p e s and the C that's rotating there that just telling the status of my okay status of my photons um and my computer attack I'm trying to do a couple things it's really difficult to do a lot once with this unless you have a table to put your controller on but as I have my shield on I am wasting energy pretty quick as you can see it dropping let's try the other options on this touchpad let's go to the galactic map and that's that so that red one is me showing where I can hyper oops warp speed too blue one is where I'm at currently in that object that's on top of it is the enemy and another on my base so let's go back to the front view and we need to get to the base at least destroy some of these as you can see in that eight of them left seven try to get the asteroids out of my way try to get some more of the enemy she shifts out of the way here it's there's some strategy involved obviously you don't want to waste all your energy five left and it's counting down here and my energy okay so that's it it is not an easy game to play with your hands being occupied by both the left side your joystick if you're going to just hold on to one hand and you're right with the actual touch pad the touch pad itself I mean you can leave it on a flat surface and just press it when you need to you really only have five buttons you're gonna be utilizing you're using one for a front view one for Galactic map then you're doing your hyper warp which you use your mat to see where you want to warp to which sector and then you've got a computer you can turn that on and off to look at and then you have your Shields which I was using I mean there's not many options on it but again if you're holding onto a joystick and you want to quickly go and toggle something you have to know which button to press definitely not the same as the 8-Bit version quality of the graphics is completely different there's some strategy involved when you utilize your Shields when not to and then of course your aiming capabilities to destroy the energy the enemy as well as the asteroids that are coming at you through the the belt so I don't know not a bad game overall but not something I find myself playing quite often so hopefully that helps you see how the game works at least this particular game with the touch pad and my pros and cons with what I see you know using a touch pad with a game like this now if it's just a touch pad for the entire game not using a joystick with it maybe a lot different experience but being that you need that or you would definitely want to use it with this game you have to really be able to move around your hands quickly and you need a stable surface to put these on I don't know that's my two cents so take it for what it's worth well this should wrap up the video I really wanted to get to the point of showing you the video touchpad and how it actually works with the game such as star Raiders this is my first impression of it because I've never owned a touchpad nor have I used it one before so it was pretty pretty cool concept I could see back in the day I think it's nice to have in your collection if you like to collect Ataris or the controllers and that's what I'm going to do with this it's going to go with my controller section I guess you can call it not so much on the shelving but it is a pretty cool device for the Atari that I think could have taken off if they had more games developed perhaps like more now with the Homebrew they can utilize these other functionalities of the of the buttons with the game but again you're going to be having to hold it and kind of holding your joystick with it so hopefully it's not a fast action game I do appreciate you guys watching taking time out of your day if you subscribe great if you haven't done so please do it really does help me grow this channel getting the sport out and having more people interested in giving their feedback to me positive or negative I am open to any criticism so until next time keep your gaming passion from the past Alive by living it today take care everyone

Channel: Vintage Gaming Memories

Views: 81

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Id: MK8LbaI2pGo

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2023