[sesame_street_hustler]

my first system ever was an atari 2600, and even though it was august 1981, and the games we have now were so distant from being concieved even by the most skilled of programmers and inventors during 1981, you couldnt help in the back of your mind think while playing these games if anything more to them was coming.

yes, they were fun, but redundant..

how many times while playing Empire Strikes Back am I going to keep flying over the same damn section of Hoth?

Donkey Kong wasnt too much better, you played an beat one screen, it put you on the next one..beat that screen,.youre back to the first

where are the rewards,.you dont get any..except for a high score,.that can sometimes be topped over, and brought back to zero again in some games.

To this day, I know of only one Atari 2600 game that can be paused..and thats BurgerTime, by using one of the difficulty switches on the back.

do i still own my atari 2600? yep!,.cause when i have children, its good for them to know what one of the very first gaming systems looked like...dont know why, but it is.

believe it or not..there was even a Mario Bros & Double Dragon game for the Atari 2600. I can only imagine if someone ever created a homebrew version of Metal Gear Solid, Grand Theft Auto,Final Fantasy, or Resident Evil...now that would be horrendous.

The system was unique in that it had only one damned button. Thats it, just a single friggin button. Yeah, I have seen some other joysticks that did have two buttons, ..and come to think of it,.I actually owned one, but essentially the function of the second button served the same command of the usual standard button, as a simple controller cant override the programming language of software (duh!). I think the controller i owned, was shaped to resemble a jet fighter control, and the second button was a trigger button ala Nintendo 64.

The arcade ports of Atari 2600 games were absolutely nothing like their arcade counterparts, and the artwork was totally a lie, except for activision who actually told the truth, and put a screenshot of the game as their boxart.

Kids would spend countless hours playing these Atari 2600 games, that offered no real chance to upgrade your character's abilities. The fact that most every "new stage" looked so much like the last, didnt help things out either. Its no wonder when the Nintendo Entertainment System debuted, that many kids kicked their Atari 2600's to the dumpster, the nostalgic kids packed theirs away and stored them in the attic. I guess I fall under the latter.

Final Fantasy on Atari 2600...yeah, riiight.

[Slade]

Combat and Pitfall are two of the greatest games of all time. Videlectrix likes to make Atariish games.

A one button system was not unique. Most arcade machines had one button, and I still haven't seen many with more than two or three.

I also miss the days when boxart was super awesome but the screenshots weren't, because I liked to use my imagination to pretend that I was seeing a bat, not a big blue pixel.

[sesame_street_hustler]

I also miss the days when boxart was super awesome but the screenshots weren't, because I liked to use my imagination to pretend that I was seeing a bat, not a big blue pixel.

haunted house for atari 2600, comes to mind.

Combat and Pitfall are two of the greatest games of all time. Videlectrix likes to make Atariish games.

i went to that site, and saw the game Hallrunner,.but due to the strange font..at first, i thought it said "Hell Runner". then i thought to myself, .."what an interesting game that would be!,.get sent to hell, and have a run and hide survival game from Satan and his legion of demons"

[Professor Saucy]

Adventure is the best fucking game ever. I got this "TV games" Atari collection for like my 12th birthday, and I played the fuck out of that thing. I remember loving Yar's Revenge, and I was the KING of Asteroids. I played it so much I eventually shorted it out. :<

[Despondent]

We just got an atari flashback. the wife really wanted to play pitfall a couple of months ago. I have the original 2600 and a bunch of the aforementioned games (can't hear B-52's Mesopotamia album without thinking of dragon hunting), but the flashback comes with most of them pre-loaded. And a couple of versions of Adventure I believe.

It was a scam, the box art. And So many developers rushed crap into the stores. Second you played the game it was all a letdown.

Missle command got harder, and the colors did change so that kept things "fresh". Yes, I was the one who had the E.T. game.

[optimus_prime]

Ha! E.T. ....was there ever an actual ending to that game?

most people hate that game,.and ill admit its damned frustrating trying to levitate your alienself out of that deep hole in the ground,.but you have to admit,.for an atari 2600 game..it had a lot of depth to the game.

speaking of adventure,.if you like that game..you should try playing Venture,.or Vanguard

This post has been edited by optimus_prime: 04 October 2007 - 01:24 PM