Thursday, June 15th 2023
Atari Releases a New Game for VCS After 33 Years
Atari, once a leader in video game consoles, has today published... a new game! Called Mr. Run and Jump, the game is a classical 2D platformer, following Mr. Run and Jump with his trusty pal Leap the Dog, who defeats the terrifying Void and collects all the Power Gems from the Realms of Color. The gameplay is self-explanatory, as this 2D platformer aims to bring some of the vibes of older games with modernized stories and elements. Interestingly, the game is available for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC, and Atari 2600, also called Atari Video Computer System (VCS). The last game for Atari VCS was developed in 1990, and this game comes after 33 years to the platform.
Coming in a cartridge for the VCS console, the cartridge design has been updated a bit. It now has beveled edges and gold-plated connectors. Atari prices the cartridge at 60 USD, with availability on July 31. This version of the game is toned down a bit, as the older VCS hardware can not support all the features that modern console/PC versions have. There are 80 levels in the game and as many as five different enemy types, with a unique high-score system.
Below are more screenshots of the game.
Source:
Atari
Coming in a cartridge for the VCS console, the cartridge design has been updated a bit. It now has beveled edges and gold-plated connectors. Atari prices the cartridge at 60 USD, with availability on July 31. This version of the game is toned down a bit, as the older VCS hardware can not support all the features that modern console/PC versions have. There are 80 levels in the game and as many as five different enemy types, with a unique high-score system.
12 Comments on Atari Releases a New Game for VCS After 33 Years
Oh, it seems there's a specially coded game indeed available for the Atari 2600. Here's the link: atari.com/products/mr-run-and-jump-2600-limited-edition
Super crappy. They could have done better. Some of those original 6502 games did far better. There's a "full 64K" available to the 6502, and games like defender, pacman, Mr EE, Scramble, etc. ran on them. I think Mr Run and Jump 6502 edition could have been a little better :(
I guess it comes down to „cool marketing idea“: lets get a dummer student who doesn’t know 6502 assembly to program something in a modern framework and we‘ll compile it to 6502 as target. The difference between old school machine code and intimate knowledge of CPU and video chip and a general purpose compiler that will eat memory and not know how to get the most out of the video chip.
I think @AleksandarK is a bit confused. Yes, they are both VCS, but only one is a 2600.ah... now I get it...two games, one for nerds, one for gen pop.
They were called the VCS prior to November '82.
I know, because I had one. In 1981.
You can still buy the original 2600 on Ebay. Some people must have taken really good care of them to last that long.