Last night I've spend about two hours with NES Gauntlet. The lack of color lets it look quite drab at first but gameplay is excellent. Love the different background music tracks and the slightly faggotty "Ouw!" sample...
Good stuff. Will have to spend some more time with it.
I've noticed some slowdowns when there were a lot of ghosts/monsters on the screen, does the original have this problem as well or is it just my emu (Nestopia)?
You could play it on the Atari arcade classics on the PS1. Among another couple of great games. That would be on vol 2 btw.
Ah yes, the PSX Atari compilation... I'll ask a friend of mine about it who has a huge collection of PSX cames, bet he also has the Atari comps. Does it have any extras or is it a straight port?
I had the urge to play Gauntlet about 6 months ago. I bought this for PS3:
http://www.amazon.com/Midway-Arcade-Origins-Playstation-3/dp/B009GWLSFY It has both Gauntlet and Gauntlet II on it. The ports seem pretty good.
Nice, but I don't have a PS3. Do you know whether anything like that is available for Xbox 360?
If you have an Atari lynx there is Gauntlet 3. You actually play by holding the system vertically...it works pretty well. I had a lot of fun with the game (I still own it)....one of the more engaging lynx releases.
Lynx, ugh... I don't like handhelds, specially the older ones, their usually quite shabby LCD screens give me headaches, and I mean that literally.
The only handheld I bought and enjoyed to some extend is the NGPC, put quite some time into it during the first two months, now it sits on the shelf and collects dust.
They have both originals up at FunSpot in New Hampshire. I really wish they'd consider replacing the old Atari joysticks on it. I don't know about you guys but I HATE the original Atari joysticks that are on both Gauntlet's, Dragon Spirit, Road Runner, Temple of Doom and Rolling Thunder. I think it's because they want to keep the games original but it's a pain in the ass to play most games since they never work right. Even as a kid I loved to play Gauntlet but no matter which character I picked the joystick never worked right.
The Gauntlet cab at a local arcade that was the starting point of my addiction to this game series worked like a charm because not a lot of people played it. Whenever I went there to play some games, all other cabs were occupied with two or more people but not Gauntlet. Even most of my friends shunned it because they found it boring and overly simple, talking them into joining a 4-player game was more challenging than the game itself.
A fully-working dedicated Gauntlet cab is one of those vg-related items I'd love to own if it wasn't so huge (and power-hungry).
Might be a dumb question, but why not play the arcade versions in MAME, if you're downloading anyway
The NES version was fine, but it doesn't hold a candle to the actual arcade version. Plus pumping it full of credits and just going ape-shit into a horde is so much fun... "Red elf has shot the food..."
I'm with RabbitTroop... If your going to emulate anyways, go for the "real" arcade version. A port is just a port, and in my book no matter how close to the original it is... It will never be anything more then a port.
Dunno whether you guys were into micro computers in the early 80s like me but back then, some micro conversions (they weren't true ports due to the lack of processing power) actually had "better" (or let's say more accessible) gameplay than the arcade originals. This may come as a surprise to those who think that it's hardware power which makes the difference but it doesn't, it's all about clever programming.
Another example would be the C64 conv of Rainbow Islands. Played it in the arcade before the home version came out and even though I loved the looks and concept, I found the actual gameplay a bit tedious due to the fact that the chara always did a small slide when you put the stick in neutral position. The C64 conv didn't have that feature so it could be played MUCH faster.
Or take Buggy Boy on Amiga, it didn't have the smooth scrolling of the original but hit detection and using items was way more relaxed, and ultimately more fun for me.
Of course I've already downloaded and played Gauntlet on Mame but well... you know... ...emu. It just doesn't feel right if you know what I mean.
What's more, as a fan of the series I want to explore every corner of the Gauntlet world so I'm always looking for ports or convs I haven't played so far, just to get the complete picture.
I loved my C64 version--it might have been patched already. It also came with an ad for the Deeper Dungeons expansion, as I recall.
Didn't know they released a patched version outside of Deeper Dungeons. Hey, I have to hunt that one down!
The C64 disk version of the game had a random dungeon feature, the levels of the arcade original got loaded one after another, then the new Deeper Dungeons were loaded randomly while on tape, all levels were loaded sequentially. It was always a bit unnerving flipping the tape, rewinding it and praying that it would load the next level... Gauntlet was the reason why I bought one of those superb Load It datasettes that came with a builtin head alignment system, it was one of the best Commie peripherals I ever bought as it got rid of those dreaded tape load errors once and for all.
My favorite version of gauntlet is IV for the megadrive.Damn good ost,plus the fact it having a quest mode.For the modern ones that would be gauntlet dark legacy follow by legends.
Legends has been mentioned several times already, have played it only casually but it's on my to-get list now. Hope it's not a collectible or something.
Yeah, MD Gauntlet IV is great, bought the loose cart on a flea market many years ago. Thankfully it has no country protection and can be switched to 60Hz, PAL-50 sucks like hell.
