What If... Atari 2600 and Intellivsion could do 3D well?

[digitalpress]

Put Crypts of Chaos, Tunnel Runner, and Treasure of Tarmin aside for a moment.

Imagine if you will, these sorta-first-gen systems doing 3D like those games did but with a little more "oomph" on gameplay. Imagine someone doing Doom instead of Tarmin. Imagine Might and Magic instead of Crypts of Chaos. Just a little more depth... just a little more graphics power.

Or could this have never happened?

[Ed Oscuro]

I never was convinced by those systems' 2D, let alone 3D.

DOOM on either system would've been further from the source than Galaxy Force 2 on the SMS from the original.

Personally, I have always been a bit interested in the concept of Maze War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_War). This is another flickscreen type game (not real-time as far as I know), but I think the VCS would handle something like it pretty well. It almost seems like Eye of the Beholder, actually.

Probably not what you were looking for, but I just don't think those systems have the horsepower to do anything real-time that is more than a few lines - so maybe you could run around in a mostly empty box. Extra circuitry in the cartridge could help here, I think.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[Niku-Sama]

the 2600 had some interesting 3dish effects but with the intellivision and the controler it had i would have to say HELL NO!

[Iron Draggon]

OMG... I shudder to think how horrible a 2600 version of Doom would've been... and how many copies of it would still be buried in a desert right now... the gaming world would still be making jokes about it to this day... "the most horrific horror of Doom is the fact that they made it for the 2600" LOL

I'm not familiar with any of the games you mentioned, but I'm surprised you didn't mention Star Raiders... that's prolly about as good as 3D could ever get on the 2600... and prolly the most immersive experience you could ever have on that system, with its badass keypad and overlay for playing it... I remember playing that game for hours on end, pretending that I really was some sort of Luke Skywalker starfighter pilot... sweet memories of bliss...

but what about driving games like Night Driver? could they have made a 3D driving game any better than that on the 2600? prolly not... and it wasn't even real 3D... it was just a very clever illusion that made it look like 3D...

decent 3D graphics didn't really happen for home consoles until we finally got Pole Position for the 5200... now that was a 3D game to be admired by all... remember how long you always had to wait to play it in the arcades? and then when the home version finally came out, if you had that, you always had alot of friends hanging out at your house to play it with you... everybody loved Pole Position... it was the first real sign that someday our video games would be far more realistic than we ever thought possible... cause at the time, that was exactly what that game was like... it was the Virtua Racing of its era... and its so obvious that Virtua Racing was inspired by it too... but what 3D games on the 2600 were the inspiration for modern 3D games? I can't think of any, except for Star Raiders... that's the only one I know of!

[Sniderman]

Apparently you’ve never played the homebrew Skeleton+ for the Atari 2600. Only 4K and the best “3D perspective” game I’ve seen for the system. If not that, how about Escape from the Mindmaster for the Supercharger?

There were – and are – decent 3D first-person games out there…

[c0ldb33r]

This thread isn't complete without a link to the Official 2600 Doom Page (http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Arcade/8691/2600DOOM.HTM).

My God I wish that were real.

[swlovinist]

I can possibly see the 2600 doing some unique early 3D stuff...if it had an extra chipset, like the VR racing cart for the genesis or the Starfox cart for the Snes. After seeing what some programmers can pull off with the 2600 alot is possible.

[Rob2600]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Star Raiders... that's prolly about as good as 3D could ever get on the 2600... but what about driving games like Night Driver? could they have made a 3D driving game any better than that on the 2600? prolly not...

Pole Position for the Atari 2600 was much, much better looking than Night Driver. It was actually a great version, considering the hardware limitations. Enduro was great, too.

Solaris also had 3D levels. Nice stuff.

[jb143]

Has anyone ever tried to overclock a liquid cooled Atari 2600? I mean...1.19MHz can't handle much...but kick it up a notch and it might be able to do something like Wolfenstein 3D.

[icbrkr]

Need some C64 3D love in here too since we're talking about the mighty 6502:

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=40255

[Bratwurst]

What if Kid Fenris could kill someone with a mere thought? Mind blowing stuff here, people.