Battle of the Ports - Buck Rogers - Planet of Zoom (ズーム909) Show

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Hi Mark, It really was amazing for sure. My Father loved video games, but rather than play them, he invested in them during the technology boom for the video games and personal computer industry in the 1970's and 1980's. I don't know if he seen any unreleased games at Coleco, but he did see the lineup of games that were in line to be released. He also knew Sega's co-founder Dave Rosen and future Sega of America President Michael Katz though with the help of Arnold Greenberg from shareholder meetings at Coleco. All four use to talk about investments a lot. However, Dave Rosen started to part ways after seeing the ADAM computer. Rosen started to gradually break away from Coleco and my father thought it wasn't a good computer. My pops still stayed with Coleco because of the Cabbage Patch lineup. But when Coleco was starting to crumble, he and Rosen bailed out and concentrated elsewhere. As far as Michael Katz goes he went to work with Jack Tramiel with Atari right after with Coleco and then to Epyx. My father lost contact with him around 1992-93. Speaking of Jack Tramiel, I got a story to tell you for another time about him and my father Mark. Really cool since My dad was there from the beginning with these guys . 8^) Anthony...

[@RetroCore]

Ooh, Jack Tramiel. There's very opossing options about Jack out there.

[@kenwheeler3637]

That's quite interesting. I would love to hear more about this. Not that many people had such an inside view of the industry back then.

[@topofbones]

Amazing BotP! Love the efforts of the old little machines to emulate the power of the arcades!

[@Charlie-Cat.]

Great choice with Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom Mark. Colecovision is my personal favorite. My father was with my sister at launch day for it to come out at Toys R Us and it still works after all these years. Also Mark, here's something cool to read bro. . My father was a shareholder of Coleco in the 1980's and knew Arnold Greenberg. The former CEO of Coleco. He was there at the unveiling of the ColecoVison and with Cabbage Patch Kids. My father said at the time that he was a nice guy with him, but had a short temper. He was also difficult to deal with if you rubbed him the wrong way in business. Anthony...

[@RetroCore]

Wow, pretty cool story right there. I wonder if your dad ever got to see any unreleased items.

[@fulgenzio1973]

Wow, a real blast from the past! Amazing graphics for a 1982 game, Sega was ahead of these times.

[@NightSprinter]

Ah, another issue with DOS ports of the day: you absolutely NEEDED an IBM PC or compatible like the Tandy 1000 to play it correctly. Older games like it, and AtariSoft's port of DK if I remember from putzing in PCem, used a very specific routine for the joystick port. That, and combined with how speed-sensitive early-to-mid-80s DOS games were, that's just a potentially-disastrous combo. Though, you should check PCem out, or possibly use a frontend to make a CGA-composite config for DOSbox to show off the earlier ports in proper 16-colour.

[@stevethefishdotnet]

Only the second MSX game has music and ship designs from the Buck Rogers TV show. The ship is familiar to anyone who has seen the show, and even the Draconian fighter makes it to the title splash.

[@RetroCore]

That's right. Funny why it was the only one.

[@WrightOffsGaming]

Great vid thanks Mark, i was going to upload of play of this but found my version missing sound. This game holds many memories of Sunday afternoons walking around the Hornsea arcades with my grandparents.

[@RetroCore]

A few.people.in the comments of this video have mentioned that the sample pack needs to be downloaded for this game to have audio in MAME. If only I know that beforehand.

[@mode7parallax766]

What a great arcade game back in 82! I remember my jaw dropping when I first saw it. You can get the sound to work in mame, just download the sound samples from another site.

[@RetroCore]

Oh man, I wish I had know that.

[@StRoRo]

Wow, I bet the Spectrum version caused a few epileptic fit. Ahh the C64 version, it bring back memories. The gameplay actually reminds me of a game called Stealth on the C64.

[@kenwheeler3637]

I always love seeing the more vintage games. They're the one's I have the strongest connections with.

[@RetroCore]

I'll be doing Mr. Do next week 😀

[@kenwheeler3637]

Great choice. Lot's of different ports for that one. I still need to get a hold of the SNES and Tomy Tutor carts, that latter of which I don't see happening any time soon.

[@Lightblue2222]

Zoom 909 sounds so much cooler. Love seeing their original sprite scaler. Very cool. Thanks for the education.

[@Lightblue2222]

I might have to grab this for my 2600!

[@hybridvigga]

Awesome video as always, and one that shows what "Nostalgia" actually does to your memory. Having not played this since I was about 7 in the arcades, and not even emulated it on any system since, in my head this game looked more like the PS2 port of Galaxy Force II than what it actually looked like in reality, there was no sense of realisation in the preceeding years that you get having played all those Master System and MegaDrive games you remember as a kid back again through emulators, and realising what they actually look like even when upscaled and filtered (Magical Flying Hat Turbo Adventure, as it turns out, does not look like you are playing an anime movie, but it still is kind of awesome.)

[@RetroCore]

I know just what you mean. I've kind of always had my Retro games all through life though so the impact of seeing old stuff after many years is not something I'm familiar with but I can understand that when it comes to movies. Some old moves with special effects looked awesome back in the day but many now look really bad.

[@hybridvigga]

Yeah, its easier to notice with films even if you DO see them again. How convincing were those Ray Harryhausen skeletons when you first saw them, or the original cut of Terminator 2, compared to today? Sonic or Streets Of Rage 2 still looks the same, but when you take it with you through the years you don't notice the degradation that much, or have a more 'innocent' memory of it that it should be, than a game you haven't seen or even heard about for years. You remember it from when you booted a MegaDrive or emulator up last week and tried to 1CC it with Skate on hard and no buddy to back you up :-) Turns out I've got Zoom on a SG1 emulator, I just never tried it out cos I didn't know it was just the Japanese name for the same Buck Rogers game I played in my local Chippy when I was a little kid.

[@ProbableKoz]

F’n A Mark! One of the first games I got on my ColecoVision back in the day. Had no idea there was an Arcade Cabinet Version.

[@RetroCore]

You're not the only one. Many think the first Buck Rogers game was a RPG that started life o the PC.

[@lestat1uk]

There was a nice version of buck Rogers on the speccy called blade alley

[@davidfernandezsabio3844]

Classic gem by Sega which is rather fun.In order to have sound in the emulated version of the Arcade you must download the samples file of Buck Rogers and put into the Samples folder.Thanks for the video.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

I thought the saucers in the CV version resembled flying eggs!

[@RetroCore]

Lol, they do look like it.

[@TheRealAlpha2]

I had the Colecovision Adam version that came on a cassette tape as a kid rather than the Colecovision cart. I feel like the cart version was meant to be slightly cut back, but it's been awhile I might be wrong about it.

[@kenwheeler3637]

The Adam Super Game had a lot more content than the standard CV cartridge version. Several different boards and enemies are present in the Adam game.

[@hybridvigga]

More memory chips in the cartridge cost a HELL of a lot more than recording more audio onto a tape that came in a certain size and cost the same no matter how much you left blank. Same reason there are less characters and backgrounds in MK trilogy on the N64, it would have cost more money in chips to have them in there (whereas the CD still cost the same to produce on PSX and Saturn if you burnt 500 or 600mb onto it when it was printed.)

[@TheRealAlpha2]

Yeah, the only problem was the speed at which the data could be loaded. Tapes and CDs need to spin up to to read the data quickly from physical places on the media where as a cart could pull the data almost instantly. In fact we had to copy the Coleco Adam tapes because it wasn't uncommon for the tape to get tangled from the constant high speed back and forth.

[@shinkazama3959]

This came out in Arcades the year I was born?! thanks for making me feel young Mark :P , still thank you for the upload :)

[@RetroCore]

Hehe, sorry man. I was 7 when this came to the Arcade.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Its very curious that they didn't tie it in to the TV show, which was super popular here. Even had the original movie serial Buck Rogers himself Buster Crabbe doing a cameo as a character named "Gordon", which is funny as he also played Flash Gordon in the old serials. Edit: I noticed that that Western MSX computer port based both the theme song and the ship sprite of the TV series.

[@RetroCore]

It is very odd. Maybe they couldn't get the TV license? The MSX port may feature the ship and music likeness unofficially.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

That's a sound conclusion.

[@MrDirkles]

Iremeber playing this in Harrison's amusement arcade, Clacton on sea, UK. I never realised how advanced this game was graphics wise compared to other arcade games at the time.

[@RetroCore]

One game that always amazed me was Sega's Turbo. I'd stand there staring at the demo loop amazed and puzzled by the primitive scaling. I think that was the first game I ever saw with scaling.

[@MrDirkles]

@@RetroCore yeh i think you're right Turbo was the first but who knew what scaling was then hey? Those were certainly good times because you got to witness the development of an industry through the advancements in technology and all the brilliant stuff (games) that was developed using it.

[@PONTOCRITICO]

In Brazil, this game was called "Space Turbo" and the Atari 2600 version was very rare to find. I think the only 8-bit hardware that could come close to the arcade would be the Master System, but Sega never ventured to release a port for it. That's a shame.

[@RetroCore]

It is a shame no Master System port was ever concidered. I guess Sega thought the game was too old.

[@PONTOCRITICO]

@@RetroCore Yes, you're right, many arcade classics weren't ported to the Master System for exactly that reason. Regardless of the age of the game, a classic is a classic and many games could have added to the Master System gallery if Sega had made sure there were at least another 150 or 250 games.

[@superdaho6735]

I think there is a Coleco Adam version of this Game, which is different of the colecovision version.

[@Kwyjor]

Came to the comments looking to see if someone mentioned the Adam version - it was the Adam's pack-in game, after all. Really quite nifty - though a lot of it does resemble the CV version.

[@chunkycjw]

Sprite Scaling in 1982, Sega were really top dog in the arcade. Wonder if they used the same hardware from Turbo, which i'm sure used early sprite scaling too.

[@RetroCore]

It was actually an evolution of the Turbo hardware.

[@TromaDogg]

I did actually get to play this in the arcade when I was younger, I was a fan of the TV show at the time as well and thought the arcade game was excellent, really fun to play. Shame I only had the dull as dishwater Speccy version to play at home though 😆

[@NightSprinter]

Oh, found out why the game has no sound in MAME: ya need the samples. I guess like with the other Sega VCO games from what I looked up (Turbo and SubRoc), and games like Zaxxon/Super Zaxxon/Super Spy, the MAME team hasn't figured out the custom sound hardware yet.

[@RetroCore]

Yep, that's right. Someone else also mentioned that.

[@stevew8513]

You forgot about the version for the Texas Instruments 99/4A Home Computer. I have that one, it was pretty decent from what I recall. Apparently it also uses the Speech Synthesizer module too.

[@RetroCore]

Nope, I mentioned it when showing the screen shots at the begining.

[@stevew8513]

Whoops, just noticed that. Sorry about that.

[@Charlie-Cat.]

That's for sure Mark. Glad you like the family history with my father with these men. 8^) Anthony..

[@omegabob99]

You should be able to play it with sound on MAME 2003. Just add the sound sample file to the correct directory

[@wadehavens823]

Hi.. Great video! I'm happy to say however, that sound IS available through Mame if you download the sample files and place them in the right folder. Search google for mame sound samples.

[@RetroCore]

Sadly I didn't know that at the time of making this video. Thanks for the info.

[@Fortuna1]

Remember this games in 83 in a local arcade, very challenge when has the max speed and need avoid the barriers and towers PS: For mame, do you need download (aditional), a pack de "samples" with the sounds for this game (requiered)

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Crying shame the 5200/A8 version is such a let down after everything they achieved on the 260. 😭

[@RetroCore]

Yeah, I find that the 5200 versions of many games that also appear on the 2600 are much worse.

[@Seth-nt9bf]

5:06 Whoops! 😮 The 5200 was designed to use a FRAGILE analog stick. That's why it controls poorly on a digital stick. The 5200 is also based on Atari 400 hardware, which explains why most 5200 and 400 games are identical.

[@RetroCore]

Fair point on the 5200 control situation.

[@jeremycline9542]

SG 1000 version looks quite solid

[@rafaellima83]

By far the best version. It's a *great* game.

[@jeremycline9542]

Rafael Lima wish it had appeared on the Master System or a Saturn compilation

[@RetroCore]

It sure is. Very nice game for the SG-1000. I'm also surprised the MSX version has smooth scrolling.

[@geoserenity]

i think it was with a game like this that i first heard of the channel and subbed...so, obviously a great vid...

[@RetroCore]

Well I do thank you for subscribing. Maybe that game was Zaxxon, also by Sega.

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

Even though the SG1000 was before my time and only released in Japan games like this, Girl's Garden, Ninja Princess and so on have so much potential at being candidates for modern remakes that it's borderline criminal that Sega didn't tap back into their golden era line-up over the years. Can you imagine if they would have done a Sega Ages for this back in the PS2 era with actual 3D graphics!!?? I'm interested in the new Streets Of Rage 4 announcement, and I have my concerns since so far it doesn't have Yuzo Koshiro or any of the original developers working on it, but come on man. Do I have to crack my knuckles, blow dust off my old coding books and come up with a Windows 10 Zoom 909 remake??? lol :)

[@RetroCore]

Sega have such a rich history but never seem to use it.

[@atari-staffroom]

Great vid. Really enjoyed it. Interest that the western MSX release starts with a snippet from the TV show theme as well as the lock-on imagery from the TV pilot....shame about the game though.

[@toskar]

I remember playing this one when I was a kid. The thing is, I thought it was on my NES but I'm probably wrong since I can't find that version now. Aaah... the memory, right? Maybe it was the MS2 version. Or maybe the Atari 2600. Anyway, great video!!!

[@RetroCore]

In 2017 someone was porting this game to the Famicom but I'm not sure how that went.

[@kennethellis2666]

Was one of my favorite arcade machines at the local roller rink when I was in elementary school. Had the chance to play the sit-down variant at Funspot in New Hampshire a few weeks ago, and unfortunately their example is in very poor condition, with the stick not actuating correctly, no tactile response in the trigger, and horrible amounts of burn in all over the CRT. Was a miracle I was able to get to stage 7. But it was fun, at least from the standpoint of reminiscing. Need to find a better example to get my fix!

[@RetroCore]

That's a sham about the original cabinet being in poor condition but at least you got to see it.

[@yandman26]

Yep sound on mame totally works, I had it working five years ago.

[@headbangersworld]

Great video again! :)

[@RetroGamingonestopshop]

Great job! love the channel! well done!

[@ExtremeWreck]

This is great!!! It would've been better though if you were to add a bonus part where you review the Sega Genesis game "Buck Rogers: Countdown To Doomsday".

[@RetroCore]

Nah, never played that so I'd have to learn the game. No time for that I'm afraid.

[@kevinlawson1746]

They also made this for the Coleco Adam and it's even better then Colecovision version .

[@IMDRanged]

Interesting the MSX -West version did base the opening "cinematic" and music plus ship sprite on the Theatrical Movie/TV series of Buck Rogers with Gil Gerard. Nice attempt, not sure if they got the rites from Universal Pictures tho.

[@RetroCore]

I have a feeling they didn't.

[@zanegandini5350]

It's disappointing that the Colecovision port wasn't to the standard of the Japanese MSX/SG1000 ports handled by Sega. The Colecovision was very similar in hardware to them, so it could have been very close if not identical.

[@RetroCore]

I agree. Maybe they thought they could do better but I think it's quite obvious they couldn't looking at the mess they released.

[@zanegandini5350]

I'm not surprised though, given the lackluster efforts of most western developers at that time.

[@dreamcastfan]

I’d never seen this game before! I like that the second MSX port has taken the theme and star fighter design from the ‘80s Buck Rogers show. Why do so many DOS games from that era use so much pink?

[@fnjesusfreak]

You could use cyan-magenta-white or red-green-orange, so...

[@dreamcastfan]

sarachikorita Oh so that’s why! Lol, it must have been quite a nuisance trying to work around just those colours back in the day!

[@paulrahme]

Also cyan-magenta-white was the default, which is why most games didn't even bother switching to red-green-brown! You could also change the background from black to a 4th colour, but hardly any games did that either...

[@Mr.madmight266]

This game makes me wish there was an outstanding sequel for the Megadrive since the game itself looks like smooth fun in the arcade and SG-1000. is the arcade version oficially available to purchase by the way?

[@RetroCore]

I don't think there has ever been a release of the Arcade game on any format. Such a shame too as it can't be emulated perfectly.

[@Mr.madmight266]

Yeah that's why i asked because for this game i would be perfect to have oficial ways to get the game including sound. i guess i'll have to assume the arcade sounds the same as the SG-1000 version since arcade games drom the early 80's sounded kinda the same as a Master System game. i hope Sega can re-release this game so people can enjoy it at a reasonable price since i certainly didn't know about it.

[@lorddalek]

Actually the sound does work on Mame, you have to download a sample pack to hear it though,

[@meetoo594]

My local arcade had the sit down version, quite impressive iirc. I could never get into the game though, it was just too difficult to get very far. Also, the ms-dos version seems to have that quite often seen bug in games of this type where you can just sit at the side of the screen and nothing can kill you. I think one of the afterburner ports (master system maybe?) had a similar bug where you could sit at the top right of the screen and cruise through the first few levels without moving.

[@rafaellima83]

I believe in other versions too, if you just keep going left you will never get hit... but you won't get anywhere either as you have to go through the posts to get speed to "take off" to the next level. On SMS Afterburner you could hold left and nothing would kill you up until level 12. Level 12 and on this doesn't work anymore. And as you didn't learn how to dodge missile properly because you were just holding left all the time to get there you'll be quickly destroyed when you reach that level doing this :)

[@RetroCore]

Ah yes, it was the Master System port of After Burner that had a similar bug.

[@MistaMaddog247]

To get sound in the MAME version you have to download the samples zip file, you can get it from samples.mameworld.info/

[@daviddyer3543]

I'd like to see someone make a homebrew enhanced version of this game. Would it be possible to redo this on the Sega Super Scaler hardware or emulation of hardware?

[@RetroCore]

It would but the question is, would anyone be willing to do so.

[@gabrielloko30000]

Wait wait...Zaxxon and this game is actually from the same year? If so...Sega hit the mark twice in the year!

[@hybridvigga]

Arcade wise, Sega was hitting the mark three or four times a year since forever, in the arcades they were a powerhouse and industry leader tech-wise, with Namco basically being a Sega tribute act (but making their own awesome games) till near enough the time arcades died. They are also one of the few companies that kept going after they died, still releasing arcade boards based off OG X-Box for House of the Dead and Virtua Cop games, and power PC ones for arcade style driving games that never get converted to this day (people don't buy them anymore sadly, even stuff like Burnout has gone extinct, nobody's gonna be paying $60 for a PS4 driving game with 5 tracks and a mirror mode of them.)

[@marioghernandez4960]

A selection of areas, eh? Yep, it was very rare back the-- Wait, the sound for the emulated version wasn't implemented yet?

[@RetroCore]

Turns out I needed to download the audio samples. It works differently that regular games.

[@marioghernandez4960]

@@RetroCore Oooooooh. Makes sense now.

[@rafaellima83]

Your western copy of MSX Buck Rogers is broken. On that title screen, instead of a black rectangle it is supposed to show the game title, "Copyright Sega 1982", etc. I had both Buck Rogers and Zoom 909 on my MSX back at the day and for a long time I had no idea they were arcade ports. I was really surprised when I found out both were supposed to be ports of the same game. For a while I even believed there were 2 different arcade Buck Rogers games, and that the western Buck ROgers was based on an earlier one and Zoom 909 was based on a newer one. I do think that Buck Rogers was an average game that was enjoyable for a while. But Zoom 909... aaah Zoom 909.... When I was a kid I *DEEPLY* loved Zoom 909. Games with that 3D perspective weren't really that new at that point (MSX itself had Zexas which was also great, the 2600 had Zaxxon, etc), but Zoom 909 really had something special. I think it was how everything worked so well together... the game was blazing fast with very tightly designed levels, the soundtrack was just godly amazing and set the tone of the game so well, the controls were really spot-on and unlike some of those early pseudo 3D attempts, you could really judge distance very well. The game is a lot different from the arcade version, but I think Sega was very smart on not trying to do an accurate port, but doing a very good game that would work well on the hardware while being fun to play. From my experience playing the arcade game on MAME, I feel the MSX/SG-1000 version is actually MORE PLAYABLE than the arcade one. So I am really fond of this game. And I don't even care about it being an arcade port or whatever. For me the game is Zoom 909, one of my fav games on MSX and that's it. I've played most of those ports and while MSX/SG-1000 Zoom 909 is the most different from the original one, it's by far the most enjoyable game. Sega made an amazingly good effort here.

[@RetroCore]

Yeah, I saw a video that's showed the title screen how it should have been. Shame mine didn't work.

[@HPLins]

Never played this game before, but I remember it. How was the Sega Zoom 909? I did a quick googled and I found a game called Zoom for Mega Drive, but it is a puzzle game, so I assume the one you said is another game.

[@rafaellima83]

arcade Zoom 909 is exactly the same game, it was also released on arcades. Title is different but other than that, 100% identical. Mame taught me that :) Zoom 909 is there too, as a clone of Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom

[@DragonSlayerKyo]

Good choice of game this episode. A lot of the ports are rather impressive given the hardware constraints, especially the 2600 version. There's no good reason that the 8-bit/5200 port is so bad, given it's more modern hardware. It could do a good port.

[@RetroCore]

I find that the 5200 ports often turn out really poor for some reason.

[@DragonSlayerKyo]

I think the controller plays a major factor in that as well.

[@fnjesusfreak]

You would think it'd be easier to port the SG-1000 version to the ColecoVision, given that they used the same basic chipset (Z80-TMS9918-SN76489).

[@rafaellima83]

SG-1000, Colecovision and MSX could all have the same games as their hardware is very similar (Coleco and MSX are pretty much identical, the SG-1000 has a different PSG but it's very easy to "translate" code from one PSG to the other). For the longest time I thought the "western" version of Buck Rogers on MSX was just a Colecovision port and I was really surprised when I found out it wasn't. This led to some weird stuff, MSX had TWO oficial Zaxxon ports. One came from the Colecovision and the other one from the SG-1000. None of them were specifically made for the MSX, but both were oficially released. Many people have been porting games among those 3 machines on modern age. So now we have Dragon Wang on the MSX and Gradius for the Colecovision :D

[@fnjesusfreak]

The Bit Corporation Dina was a SG-1000 and a ColecoVision in one unit, because the hardware was effectively the same.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Not familiar with this in the Arcades.. Saw the SEGA magazine adverts, artists impressions, rather than actual screenshots and blurb promising the home versions, all of 'em, were FASTER, more challenging and more fun, than the Arcade version. Versions listed were: Atari:2600/5200/A8 range.. C64*Vic 20 T.I 99/4A Let's see what your video makes of those claims 😊

[@JimLeonard]

When it was clear the PC version wasn't working, why didn't you try again with keyboard?

[@RetroCore]

I did. In the video I mentioned that it may need a keyboard with a number pad but the Bluetooth keyboard I was using didn't have a number pad. The controls can't be changed either.

[@JimLeonard]

True, but the emulator you were using can remap the keyboard. Something for next time.

[@RetroCore]

Ah, I never thought of that.

[@atomiswave2]

Where's twiki? Bididididi

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Had an rpg version on megadrive. Obviously not connected in the slightest.

[@rafaellima83]

This Buck Rogers RPG was on other systems too. I Remember playing it on Amiga... And the Mega Drive version was the same. And it was bloody awful :)

[@RetroCore]

I remember the RPG game too. Never played it but I do remember wishing it was based upon the TV show.

[@dbnpoldermans4120]

Mac Dre- Black Buck Rogers One of the better tracks of Mac Dre (R.I.P.) kzbin.info/www/bejne/mHbdZWqZncZ0gKs While watching this episode I keep hearing this Mac Dre track.

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Ahhh dammit mame!

[@giuseppecalabrese396]

👍👍✋

[@MahmoudEhab2023]

100% the arcade original I mean I don't wanna sound like a hater but why this game of all well never mind again I'm saying it's 100% the arcade original so what will be the next one?

[@RetroCore]

Mr. Do.

[@MahmoudEhab2023]

@@RetroCore Mr do? Is that a game's name or a nickname for a game character?

[@fredericchaix811]

Why don't you show the COLECOVISION ADAM version ??? It is the best version ever made !!! Even the Arcade version looks poor compared to it !!!!!!

[@RetroCore]

I didn't know it was on the Adam.

[@LightForce-rw4kc]

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