36 ms·

Because they're cool. And they can play Parsec: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game)

by nsxwolf 14y ago

T-hawk 14y ago
Major TI-99/4A fan here too. Parsec was the awesomest shootemup of its time by leaps and bounds. Pixel perfect movement and collision detection. I got good enough to roll over the scoreboard. http://dos486.com/misc/parsec.jpg http://dos486.com/misc/parsec.jpg The manual claims the sequence of level colors recycles after 16, but that's incorrect. Every level from about 13 to as far as I've reached somewhere beyond 20 is bright yellow. The manual also claims the game keeps getting harder indefinitely, but that's not true either, nothing really changes past level 4. The only difference is that the asteriod belt continues to lengthen each level, but that's generally a good thing as it's worth so many points. (Yeah, asteriod belt. Parsec misspells it. Blew me away that I played the game for ten-plus years before I ever noticed.) Awesomely, Texas Instruments released a number of TI-99 cartridge images as freeware. They're included with several emulator distributions. So you can legally and easily play Parsec and TI Invaders and a couple dozen other TI games. http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=Classic99 http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=Clas...
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > Yeah, asteriod belt One day in a distant future, a weakly godlike posthuman entity may want to call a feature of its own stellar system The Asteriod Belt. Other posthuman entities will, immediately recognize a fellow TI-99/4A enthusiast and start to play games together. :-)
- nsxwolf 14y ago
  I believe a later Parsec ROM spells "asteroid" correctly. I have a couple Parsec carts, I should check that out sometime. I always enjoyed how each level progresses in discrete mini-stages. It's like a side scrolling gladiator arena shooter.
- dalke 14y ago
  I enjoyed the game as well. I remember the thrill of achievement when I figured out it was possible to go backwards through two of the refuelling tunnels. Also, there's a bug in the bounds checker. When going backwards, hold the joystick up. This lets you go off the left side of the screen and over to the right side, behind the ships attacking you.
trevelyan 14y ago
Tunnels of Doom was fantastic as well.
- nsxwolf 14y ago
  Yes. This game invented the whole 3D maze with overhead tactical RPG combat thing, which didn't become popular until SSI's Pool of Radiance, 6 years later. It was a neat idea to put the game engine on the ROM cartridge, then allow game content to be loaded off cassette or disk. It's just a shame TI only ever released two game modules for it before pulling the plug on their games division. I heard someone created some Tunnels of Doom tools and that they're floating around on the internet somewhere, along with some modules fans have made with it.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

Because they're cool. And they can play Parsec: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game)

by nsxwolf 14y ago

Because they're cool. And they can play Parsec: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec_(video_game)

T-hawk 14y ago

Major TI-99/4A fan here too. Parsec was the awesomest shootemup of its time by leaps and bounds. Pixel perfect movement and collision detection. I got good enough to roll over the scoreboard. http://dos486.com/misc/parsec.jpg http://dos486.com/misc/parsec.jpg The manual claims the sequence of level colors recycles after 16, but that's incorrect. Every level from about 13 to as far as I've reached somewhere beyond 20 is bright yellow. The manual also claims the game keeps getting harder indefinitely, but that's not true either, nothing really changes past level 4. The only difference is that the asteriod belt continues to lengthen each level, but that's generally a good thing as it's worth so many points. (Yeah, asteriod belt. Parsec misspells it. Blew me away that I played the game for ten-plus years before I ever noticed.) Awesomely, Texas Instruments released a number of TI-99 cartridge images as freeware. They're included with several emulator distributions. So you can legally and easily play Parsec and TI Invaders and a couple dozen other TI games. http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=Classic99 http://www.harmlesslion.com/cgi-bin/showprog.cgi?search=Clas...

rbanffy 14y ago
> Yeah, asteriod belt One day in a distant future, a weakly godlike posthuman entity may want to call a feature of its own stellar system The Asteriod Belt. Other posthuman entities will, immediately recognize a fellow TI-99/4A enthusiast and start to play games together. :-)
nsxwolf 14y ago
I believe a later Parsec ROM spells "asteroid" correctly. I have a couple Parsec carts, I should check that out sometime. I always enjoyed how each level progresses in discrete mini-stages. It's like a side scrolling gladiator arena shooter.
dalke 14y ago
I enjoyed the game as well. I remember the thrill of achievement when I figured out it was possible to go backwards through two of the refuelling tunnels. Also, there's a bug in the bounds checker. When going backwards, hold the joystick up. This lets you go off the left side of the screen and over to the right side, behind the ships attacking you.

trevelyan 14y ago

Tunnels of Doom was fantastic as well.

nsxwolf 14y ago
Yes. This game invented the whole 3D maze with overhead tactical RPG combat thing, which didn't become popular until SSI's Pool of Radiance, 6 years later. It was a neat idea to put the game engine on the ROM cartridge, then allow game content to be loaded off cassette or disk. It's just a shame TI only ever released two game modules for it before pulling the plug on their games division. I heard someone created some Tunnels of Doom tools and that they're floating around on the internet somewhere, along with some modules fans have made with it.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]