It is hard to believe that in 2014, multiple new games for the Atari systems are under development.  Here is just some of the current game news…

2600…

There are several outstanding games in the works for the 2600.  A couple of the most notable are Star Castle Arcade and Stay Frosty 2.  These two games are complete and will be released as soon as enough cart boards are available for a production run.  Several other homebrew games are also in the works including Circus AtariAge, Frantic,  and Zippy the Porcupine.

5200…

Just after I posted my last blog about Caverns of Mars, two developers (Paul Lay & Aking) converted Caverns of Mars 2 and 3 to the 5200.  Caverns of Mars 2 is a side scroller very similar to Scramble and lots of fun to play on the 5200.  Caverns of Mars 3 (Phobos) is very similar to the original game, but with improved graphics.  If you are a C of M fan, then you should head over to AtariAge and check out these 8-bit conversions!

Speaking of 8-bit conversions, Paul and Aking have converted more than dozen 8-bit games to the 5200 in the past few weeks.  In addition to Caverns 2 and 3, they have converted titles such as Ant-Eater, Bacterion, and Pooyan.   Thanks to Paul, Aking, and a few others, 2014 is turning out to be a banner year for the 5200!

7800…

Master 7800 programmer Bob ‘Pac-Man Plus’ DeCrescenzo has recently completed Astro Blaster and is now working on a port of KC Munchkin.   Bob plans to make a cart run of Astro Blaster as well as a run of ‘Bentley Bear: Crystal Quest’ in the next few weeks.

Donkey Kong…

2014 may go down as the year of Donkey Kong for Atari Systems.  Perry Thuente has recently completed one of the most accurate ports of Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong XM) for any home system.  He spent months updating the 7800 version to be as arcade accurate as possible.   His version has all four screens (only three were included originally) and Pokey sound (requiring the soon to be released 7800 expansion module (XM)).   Perry has been busy assembling over 100 carts and may also release a Pokey cart version that will run without the XM.

No less than two different 2600 versions of Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong Arcade and Donkey Kong VCS) are under development.  Both versions are absolutely amazing and totally blow away the original version for the 2600.  It is absolutely amazing to see what can be done with the venerable 2600!

Wow…

It is hard to believe that so many great games for the Atari 8-bit game systems are going to be available in 2014…it seems like the 2600, 5200, and 7800 will live on for many years to come!

@Atarigameguy