Atari 2600

Seaquest was yet another addiction. Ice Hockey was also quite fun. RealSports Baseball was the cause of many a broken joystick, thanks to my dad who thought that the harder you pushed the stick, the faster the guy would run. Unfortunately this was not the case. I went through so many joysticks that my parents decided to start buying Joystick Repair Kits directly from Atari. About the only things I would use from these kits were the plastic sticks, and occassionally the little springs for the joystick button.

RealSports Boxing was also pretty fun, but my hand would hurt like hell after playing it. Empire Strikes Back was loads of fun also, which was pretty much just you flying around shooting AT-ATs. Spider Fighter was indeed awesomeness, as well as many other Activision games. Man, I need to pull my 2600 back out...

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Originally Posted by Wildkat

I forgot about frogs and flies....2 player awesomeness.

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oh yeah my friend and i played this game for extended streaches of time, much physical damage was done to each other, second only to the faux-tennis outdoor game zim-zam.

The thing about Berserk and Frenzy are the voices of the evil robots. They used to give me nightmares when I was a young little child.

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Originally Posted by Bacon

So what's the story with Pac-man 2600 using dashes instead of dots?

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Epmode is right, it's just a limitation of the hardware. The 2600 can't draw a large number of distinct, small "dots" (which are actually tiny squares in the arcade game) on a single horizontal line. So, they went with a smaller number of large "dashes" instead. I think there's also a related hardware limitation which causes them to be drawn as elongated dash shapes rather than tiny squares (or it's just easier on the system to do it that way, than to try to make them smaller).

You'll notice that the 2600 versions of Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man, which were programmed by GCC (who also developed the arcade versions of those games), also used the dash shapes for dots.

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

The 2600 does have more original games but I do think many of the CV arcade ports fall under the "different but worthwhile" category such as Donkey Kong Junior. I find the CV, NES and arcade versions all feel different and have their own appeal.

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I do agree with that (and same is true of the 5200). My point was that just because the graphics were downgraded on an arcade conversion (and they were also downgraded on CV, 5200, and NES--just usually not as noticeably as the 2600) doesn't automatically mean that the game was garbage, if the developer was thoughtful enough to include new changes or additions to balance the lack of graphical prowess.

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

I also think the main reason we haven't seen a CV compilation is because is that they don't want to have to pay several companies for the popular games, like Nintendo for DK and Sega for Zaxxon. With a 2600 compilation they can include a large number of Atari games that aren't arcade ports or a bunch of Activision games.

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That's the other reason. That's also the reason why the Intellivision compilations haven't had any arcade conversions (BurgerTime, Lock 'n Chase, etc.), or games based on licensed properties such as Tron or Dungeons & Dragons (sports games had the licenses like MLB and NFL edited out--they didn't use distinct teams back then, so gameplay wasn't affected). In the same way, Atari also didn't include games like Space Invaders, Defender, Berzerk, the Pac-Man series, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., etc., on their compilations, even though the 2600 versions of those games were very popular and distinctive.

Really, it's a combination of both those reasons (widely scattered licenses, and few true exclusives) which will make the likelihood of a decent ColecoVision or Atari 5200 compilation (one centered around those systems) very low. Both those systems thrived mostly on arcade conversions, with a few third-party developers also offering improved versions of 2600 games or downgraded computer conversions...but there's not much on either system that was both original and worthwhile. OTOH, the Intellivision had a lot of original games, which is why we saw Intellivision collections being relased even though most of its games are not as recognizable to the masses as the major hits that appeared on the ColecoVision or 5200.

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Originally Posted by RoleTroll

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney's_Hide_and_Seek

http://digg.com/gaming/NEW_Nintendo_...Hide,_you_Seek.

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Congrats. You win a no-prize.

Check it out.

Way to go David Crane.

I got an Atari 2600 back in 1980...something, and only had 2 games, Pole Position and Jr. Pac-Man. A friend of mine was getting rid of his console and out of nowhere he brings an entire garbage bag full of cartridges and gives them to me. That was one of the greatest days ever.

Countless hours were lost playing Combat, Target fun, and Frogs and Flies. Oddly enough, it wasn't the controllers that kept breaking for me, but the little "Y" connectors that connected the console to the TV, mainly from people tripping over the cord and yanking it out. We went through several of those.

One interesting fact for people that know the nuances of the Pac-Man series, is that the 2600 version of Jr. Pac-Man was the only console port that had the ghost monster's AI correct (and even had the glitch(?) of occasionally going through a ghost that the arcade versions had) for almost a decade and a half.

Wow, you list most of my favorite games on the system (Enduro Racer, Frostbite, Solaris, Adventure, Pressure Cooker).

Some of my other favorites:

Star Raiders (not as sophisticated as the 5200/Atari 8bit computer versions, but still very addictive)

Phoenix (a great arcade conversion)

Ms. Pac-Man (so much better than Pac-man)

Indiana Jones (talk about an action RPG.... it is such an incomprehensible game but I did finished it with a walkthru, even then it was TOUGH)

River Raid

Riddle of the Sphinx (so addictive enough though your dude is mostly throwing stones at desert creatures)

Just jumping in here to say I was the 2004 Atari 2600 World Champion.

That is all.