Atari 2600

[Rumpy]

The 2600 was my first game system too. No idea who bought it or when, but we did have close to 20 games for it at one point I think. Good times.

[Omega Supreme]

Megamania by Activision had me addicted worse than crack.

[NeoZeedeater]

I thought I had included Krull. I guess not. I liked the movie back then too although I imagine it would be horrible if I saw it now.

Berzerk is cool but I spend much more time with other versions.

[epmode]

Needs more River Raid.

Great thread as usual.

[elfneedsfood]

The 2600 was my first system as well. The first game I had was a cowboy game called Outlaw. It was actually pretty fun. I played a lot of Combat and Space Invaders. Some other games I thought were cool at the time were Tutankhamen, Cosmic Arc, and Sky Diver.

[James]

I'm going to pull a DiffX here and say the 2600 sucked. Please don't kill me.

I actually did want one, but only because, at the time, there wasn't much else to choose from. The second I played Colecovision's Donkey Kong on a Sears demo unit I didn't feel any desire for a 2600 any more.

The problem was I learned gaming in the arcade, and despite the promises to the contrary, the 2600 wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the arcade in the home. Fewer colors, less detail, and stripped-down gaming weren't what I was looking for at all. Asteroids is a perfect example, the blocky chunk-o-rama couldn't compare to the vector graphic splendor of the arcade.

Having said that, I didn't even look at the Vectrex until years later. It didn't have color graphics, after all.

James

[frostwolf ex]

Megamania by Activision had me addicted worse than crack.

agreed, dragonfire, berzerk, dig dug, qbert and frogs and flies were major addictions for me. its kind of the reason i like the elder scrolls series so much, these games were the teasers, they didnt have the power to make a real immersive game, but they made you want it, i remember wanting something like the elder scrolls way back when i was playing them.

tutankahmen was pretty good too, i loved the idea of collecting treasure. venture was cool too.

The problem was I learned gaming in the arcade, and despite the promises to the contrary, the 2600 wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the arcade in the home. Fewer colors, less detail, and stripped-down gaming weren't what I was looking for at all. Asteroids is a perfect example, the blocky chunk-o-rama couldn't compare to the vector graphic splendor of the arcade.

well yeah that was the point, you played atari at home for a fix, but the arcades were where you got the heavy "drugs". thats why us old farts miss arcades so much, they were where you went for the good stuff.

[Advocate]

Ahh ... River Raid. I loved the 2600, hell I liked the 5200 more. Tempest! 7800 was the bets out of all of them, due to being able to play all three systems on one console. But the 2600 was by far my most fond of. The SMS is still better, but the 2600 holds a place in my gaming heart.

[Omega Supreme]

I'm a bigger Atari whore than anyone else here, but the 5200 was one of my least favorite systems of all time, for two reasons:

1.) The controller is the worst ever, and

2.) I already had all of those games for my Atari 130XE.

The 7800 was semi-decent, but I hated the joystick on that too, plus the system was severely underutilized. It was mostly a victim of being released too late in the ballgame.

[Agent X]

I'm going to pull a DiffX here and say the 2600 sucked. Please don't kill me.

You take that back!

I actually did want one, but only because, at the time, there wasn't much else to choose from. The second I played Colecovision's Donkey Kong on a Sears demo unit I didn't feel any desire for a 2600 any more.

The problem was I learned gaming in the arcade, and despite the promises to the contrary, the 2600 wasn't by any stretch of the imagination the arcade in the home. Fewer colors, less detail, and stripped-down gaming weren't what I was looking for at all. Asteroids is a perfect example, the blocky chunk-o-rama couldn't compare to the vector graphic splendor of the arcade.

Here's the thing. If you go all the way back to 1977, the 2600 could have been considered "arcade quality" at that time. Many of its games were actually improved over their arcade counterparts, not just in gameplay but also in graphics (keeping in mind many arcade games at that time were still monochrome). So, at that time, the claim was true, maybe even a bit understated!

After 2 or 3 years, arcade games made huge technological strides that the 2600 (and other systems of the time) couldn't match, and it wasn't really until ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex came out that the gap between arcade and home started to close again. But the 2600 still did an admirable job with a lot of their arcade conversions, even if they weren't necessarily accurate.

You cited Asteroids as an example--of course the 2600 couldn't possibly replicate the crisp vector graphics of the arcade game, and it couldn't move as many objects. Yet, the 2600 game retained much of the arcade game's feel, and also added new features and options that you didn't get in the arcade game. Space Invaders was another great example--it wasn't a very accurate conversion of the arcade game at all, but they added so much new material to the home version that it became a great game in its own right. They did this a lot in the later years--when it was no longer possible to accurately replicate the graphics and sounds of the arcade, they just did their best with what they had and worked on enhancing and improving the gameplay.

Also, a lot of the 2600's best games weren't arcade conversions. There were many excellent games that were exclusive (at that time) to the 2600, that never appeared in the arcade. This, along with the "different yet still worthwhile" conversions, is what makes the 2600 more desirable in some collectors' eyes than the ColecoVision and the 5200. The CV and 5200 have some great arcade conversions for the time, but most of their games are now available in even better versions (C64, NES, SMS, 7800, Genesis, or emulated from the actual arcade games themselves), and neither system offers a sizeable library of desirable, original, "can't get 'em anywhere else" games that the 2600 did. This is also one of the main reasons why compilations of CV and 5200 games haven't appeared on modern systems. Both are great machines (and I'm probably one of the biggest 5200 fans on the planet), and there's a lot to like, but in this day and age you can't hold their arcade conversions as the gold standard any longer...so why bag on the 2600 for this reason?

If "less than arcade quality" is your reason for avoiding the 2600, then try many of its original games instead. You'll be glad you did.