Link provided to an emulator for Vectrex Game System

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GeorgeC

Link provided to an emulator for Vectrex Game System

Post by GeorgeC » July 2nd, 2009, 12:00 pm

http://vectrex-emu.blogspot.com/

This is a link to a Java-based emulator for the old Vectrex game system.

If you're not aware of it, polygons didn't enter videogaming in a big way until the early-mid 1990s with Sega's Virtua series of arcade games. CPU's within computers and arcade tech just were not powerful enough to process enough polys fast enough to be useful for gaming and instantaneous VR. Prior to this, all games were raster-based (small blocks like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man) or used vector graphics.

Vector graphics gave games a primitive yet neat look and there was a brief afterglow of the graphics on the special monitors that the monochrome versions of these games (original Asteroids and the Vectrex system itself) used. Examples of these games include BattleZone (an early tank simulator customized by the US Army for real training!), Star Castle, Asteroids, Tempest, the original Star Wars Arcade game and its arcade sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. Basically, these were all line-based games based on an X/Y axis with all lines plotted between two points. It gave a neat, see-through skeleton wiring for 3-D effects that could be processed fast enough for gameplay and architectural and engineering planning by computers in real-time. Since it was a fairly low-tech solution to 3-D, computers have since at least the early Mac era have had a fairly easy time emulating the vector graphics look on monitors.

Vectrex was a home system sold for two years, 1982-1984, and was notable as being the only semi-portable system with a vector graphics screen. The system's expense ($199) and arrival just before the videogame market crash in 1983 saw it limited as a curiosity but it has since become a cult favorite system and one with a dedicated homebrew base that has new games developed for it in the last 20 years in spite of the system's final demise in 1988. (It was considered for re-release as a portable system the same year as the original Nintendo Gameboy but ultimately the system's backers had no faith in it.) I saw one of these console systems at Macy's in New York City around 1982 and briefly played with it. To this day, I regret I never owned one but am happy to find a playable emulated version of it now! It simply was a very neat system that copied the graphic look that I love so much in some of the classic Atari arcade games like Tempest and Star Wars Arcade.

I've tested the Mac OS X version of the Vectrex emulator and it works fairly well.

For those fans of old game systems that they grew up with, this emulator is a coup! It not only comes with full-features of the system but also a line up of the best games for the system embedded in including the Vectrex version of the classic shooter game, Scramble!

The color overlays used by the system's monitor (Vectrex was monochrome) by default pop up on-screen for each respective game.

This emu is definitely worth it for fans of classic gaming such as James and myself.

Download the thing already, darn it!! :lol:



P.S. -- I hope a playable version of the Odyssey 2 game system emulator becomes available soon. I've looked online and downloaded the thing but it still doesn't work well on Mac OS X.

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Post by James » July 26th, 2009, 11:00 pm


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