Atari 2600 totally sucks but is also completely awesome

[erictrumpet]

Was visiting my parents last week and found the ol' 2600. Been literally 20 years since it's seen the light of day. It was all there. I needed to pull out the tools to get the old hookup box to work on a post-Reagan-era TV but once that was fixed it worked like a charm.

Okay, so, the games: wow, they suck. The ones I have that are still playable and enjoyable are Combat, River Raid, Berzerk, Atlantis, and of course Pitfall. Both Pitfall and Berzerk I was surprised to find completely playable for hours on end. Atlantis was just ok and Combat was fun with another player but in terms of the graphics is literally a joke. But I also have Pole Position, Enduro, E.T. (mother of God that game is awful), and some others that are just intolerable. Awful games. Boring and unimaginative and ugly. I guess back then when it was the closet thing to a home arcade system we took what we could get. And the joystick is painful to use for more than about 5 minutes. I had wrist cramps from playing Pitfall. When I started to lose feeling in my pinky I had to play the next game running the other direction. But all this being said, the nostalgia factor is off the chart. The woodgrain finish on the console, the old slider switches, the crude crunch when you slide a cart in there. Awesome.

It's nice to have my original console from my youth. But honestly between my cab and my Xbox360 I can't imagine ever playing this thing except maybe once every other month just for kicks.

Eric.

[unclet]

I loved playing Adventure, River Raid and Pitfall.

[SavannahLion]

Awful games. Boring and unimaginative and ugly.

TBH, some of those games play quite a bit better than some of the games on modern consoles.

You get points for ugly though. Thanks to GTA:VC, I'll never be able to play games from that era without thinking about that radio commercial.

[ClubNinja]

... Enduro,... just intolerable.

One of my favorites.

[ChadTower]

... Enduro,... just intolerable.

One of my favorites.

Mine too.

Ugly is in the eye of the beholder.  You have to consider the aesthetics in the context of what the hardware can actually produce.

Pitfall II remains one of the great videogame achievements of all time.

[Chris]

Okay, so, the games: wow, they suck. The ones I have that are still playable and enjoyable are Combat, River Raid, Berzerk, Atlantis, and of course Pitfall. Both Pitfall and Berzerk I was surprised to find completely playable for hours on end. Atlantis was just ok and Combat was fun with another player but in terms of the graphics is literally a joke. But I also have Pole Position, Enduro, E.T. (mother of God that game is awful), and some others that are just intolerable. Awful games. Boring and unimaginative and ugly.

Well, there are others I think are quite playable: Asteroids, Demon Attack, Communist Mutants from Space, Adventure, Warlords (with 4 players).  Yars Revenge has its moments too.  Defender is a pretty decent adaptation.

[missioncontrol]

Vanguard is also a good one...

[erictrumpet]

Actually the mention of Pitfall II (the arcade title) is interesting. That game seems really bad to me, what do you guys think? To me Pitfall is the best 2600 game and I wish there were a better coin-op adaptation of it... (Same is true for Lode Runner, the original Apple II game was awesome but the coin-op one is terrible -- IMO)

Eric.

[ChadTower]

Pitfall II the arcade game is stupid.  It's a weird licensed version that Sega put out rather than Activision.  The 2600 version, though, was by far the biggest "scrolling" platform game to date and was a lot of fun.

[Space Fractal]

Atari 2600 is the first consol I have. Ye,s it pretty old, but still fun games. It wasn't easy to create games to that console, but some is very impressive.

My favorit is Propenty H.E.R.O. from Activision and I also prefer this version than other versions, since it a darn playable and cool gameplay. I remember have that game as original when I was child.

Pitfall II is created before the gamemarket crash and have some costume hardware inbuildt, why it have very good sound as well. Its a nice game too, but even tried it on emualtor throuch.

Berserk and Space Invaders as these games I remember tool. Yes graphics is worse than arcade versions, but pretty well converted to a very limited console.

[RoomTenONine]

Other good games on the 2600 (besides River Raid, Pitfall1/2, Adventure, HERO):

Warlords (4 player paddle deathmatch!)

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Space Jockey

Strawberry Shortcake (NOT, but my sister did have a copy and it drove me insane.  Check this hilarious vid of the game, WARNING it does have quite a few "adult" words:

REPEAT, adult words used...a lot of them.

[SavannahLion]

Busted a gut at, "ten pounds of dog ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- in a five pound bag."

Couldn't watch any more of the video.

[danny_galaga]

you may want to put that language warning ABOVE the clip. i didnt see it at all. lucky im not easily offended (",)

im impressed by the graphics of that game though. i remember playing combat and a couple of others on a friends console back in the day. a couple of blocks of pixels fighting a couple of other blocks of pixels 

[SavannahLion]

I took his dare and found a copy of the game along with the manual.

Not to defend the game but.... This game is intended to be a puzzle game where you match heads, torsos and legs to create a SS character. If you succeed, you get the theme music of that character and the character name at the bottom. If you fail, you get a composited musical score and no name.

My point? It's obvious that this guy can't even play a ---smurfing--- screen saver correctly. 

[shmokes]

Yars Revenge, Dragster, Boxing and Tennis are a few of my favorites that immediately come to mind. 

[ahofle]

I took his dare and found a copy of the game along with the manual.

Not to defend the game but.... This game is intended to be a puzzle game where you match heads, torsos and legs to create a SS character. If you succeed, you get the theme music of that character and the character name at the bottom. If you fail, you get a composited musical score and no name.

My point? It's obvious that this guy can't even play a ---smurfing--- screen saver correctly. 

HAHAHA that's hilarious.  You should post a follow up video and bash the reviewer. 

[RoomTenONine]

I took his dare and found a copy of the game along with the manual.

Not to defend the game but.... This game is intended to be a puzzle game where you match heads, torsos and legs to create a SS character. If you succeed, you get the theme music of that character and the character name at the bottom. If you fail, you get a composited musical score and no name.

My point? It's obvious that this guy can't even play a ---smurfing--- screen saver correctly. 

Yeah it is funny because I sent that to my sister.  Here was her reply:

"I will have you know that this was extremely entertaining to me as a three year old. He wasn't playing it right, by the way. They present the characters all mixed up in three segments and you have to fix them so their head, torso and legs all match.  Only then will the correct song play.  Screw him. Stupid boy."

I added this to my emulator so she can play it next time she's visiting.  We may have to make a video response.

[TheShanMan]

Does that guy have a limited vocabulary or what?

[Timstuff]

Regardless of whether the Strawberry Shortcake game in question sucked as much as that guy says it did, it looks like it did still suck (but a video response telling him he was playing it wrong would still be pretty funny). In all though, I think that the Atari 2600 did kind of suck with the exception of Pitfall. That game was da bomb, and the SNES remake / sequel was one of the prettiest games of the 16 bit era IMO. Aside from Pitfall though, I'm of the opinion that console gaming pretty much sucked until the NES came out.

[Kangum]

My first system was a atari 2600. the only game i really remember is missle command. maybe et. its been so long. i have no idea what ever happened to my system but i dont remember ever throwing or giving it away. either way although the atari 2600 was my first system i dont have a connection with it like i do with a nes. almost all of my first favorite games are on original nes.

[tk_42_1]

I couldn't get enough Adventure or Combat.

[SavannahLion]

I couldn't get enough Adventure or Combat.

Holy crap, I remember that in Combat. That game was probably the first time I got into a fight with someone about it. Word of note, when hitting someone with an Atari 2600 joystick, use the base, not the handle and make sure you have enough slack in the cord.

[Level42]

Was visiting my parents last week and found the ol' 2600. Been literally 20 years since it's seen the light of day. It was all there. I needed to pull out the tools to get the old hookup box to work on a post-Reagan-era TV but once that was fixed it worked like a charm.

Okay, so, the games: wow, they suck. The ones I have that are still playable and enjoyable are Combat, River Raid, Berzerk, Atlantis, and of course Pitfall. Both Pitfall and Berzerk I was surprised to find completely playable for hours on end. Atlantis was just ok and Combat was fun with another player but in terms of the graphics is literally a joke. But I also have Pole Position, Enduro, E.T. (mother of God that game is awful), and some others that are just intolerable. Awful games. Boring and unimaginative and ugly. I guess back then when it was the closet thing to a home arcade system we took what we could get. And the joystick is painful to use for more than about 5 minutes. I had wrist cramps from playing Pitfall. When I started to lose feeling in my pinky I had to play the next game running the other direction. But all this being said, the nostalgia factor is off the chart. The woodgrain finish on the console, the old slider switches, the crude crunch when you slide a cart in there. Awesome.

It's nice to have my original console from my youth. But honestly between my cab and my Xbox360 I can't imagine ever playing this thing except maybe once every other month just for kicks.

Eric.

Are you saying you still have the ORIGINAL Atari joysticks and they are NOT broken ? You either sucked back then or didn't play enough

I clearly remember that one broke about one week after the half year (!!!) warranty and the second one went a week later. I bought a Spectravideo in the shape of an airfighter joystick because it looked totally cool (but of course sucked big time on most games) and that one broke within 2 months. Then I put down some serious money (for my age then anyway) and bought a Suzo Competition Pro. That was the real deal as Suzo made real arcade joysticks too.
And that joystick I still got today. I used it through the 2600, then the various Atari 8-bit computers and the ST's I owned. It's still in ocasional use when I play the 8-bit machines. It has leafs for both the stick and the buttons and feels like heaven to play. I bet my leaf addiction came from this stick. Later on Suzo "improved" it by putting in Microswitches which I hated.

Anyway, 2600 games I loved: Combat (came with the machine and was great fun to play with my brother). Demon Atack was great. My brother and I didn't own many games because they were so expensive (even compared with today's standards). I rented games a lot. One of them was Centipede which I rented because I wanted to compete in the first rounds of the Atari championships. I absolutley hated the game with it's awkward way of trying to "impersonate" a trackball. I had never SEEN  the arcade version let alone play it. I did pretty well though, got fourth in the Durch final under 18....

Anyway, that 2600 is still on my parents' attic for sure. I remember that I at one time desoldered one of the connectors for the joysticks for some reason I don't remember......

The day the system really fell for me was when I rented the terrible Galaxian conversion. I remember my cousin and I rented it and were SO disappointed. We actually talked about how great it would be if we could own the real thing.......

I only played Pitfall II on the Atari 8-bit computer and I loved every second of the game. Even on that machine it was a miraculous game for those days.

Because I had a real "home computer" I looked down upon the NES as it being a system for (young) children. I never owned one.

In all honesty I tried a couple of games on a 2600 recently and man most of the games simply suck big time. Not comparing it to today's stuff, but the 8-bit stuff was a MEGA leap up already....so much so that I still enjoy a lot of the games on that system, but not on the 2600 anymore.

[rhuel]

I've got two 2600s now.

One in a rubbermaid storage case with about 15 manuals, paddles and original joysticks and the other (nicer one) sitting on top of my Hitachi 50" TV...hooked up and ready to play when the mood hits me!!!

I've got about 30-40 games for it and some suck tremendously, but getting some friends into a Kaboom! tournament is great entertainment. I broke it out two years ago at Thanksgiving when we had about 15 people over. The Atari got played for at least 2 hours straight.

If I had room on top of the TV alongside the Atari, DVD player, VCR, and Dish receiver, I'd have my C64 hooked up as well.

I hardly ever play the 2600, but it gets looks and comments anytime someone comes over and sees it sitting so proudly atop the TV.

[btp2k2]

Atari 2600 is the bomb. I loved 2600.

During the summers as a kid, my friends and I lived outside in the backyard and we made this giant tent out of those huge blue tarps...like 3 tarps. It was huge. In order to get our 2600 fix, we took one of those big orange extension cords and ran it out to the tent and hooked up a small 13 inch black and white TV and the 2600 and would play until 2 in the morning....which was about the time the folks would see the flickering light come from the tent and come out and tell us all to go to sleep.

Pretty awesome stuff

[Zeppo]

Does anyone know where I could order some replacement slider switches?

[Kevin Mullins]

Does anyone know where I could order some replacement slider switches?

http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/2600_Tech_Tips.htm#based

[vader]

Certain games on the Atari are good for just mindless fun, not a whole lot of thinking involved.  I have a few games and consoles ..

[danny_galaga]

wow. you sure do like asteroids, pac man and missile command...

[Sardu]

I was on the pitfall harry adventure club. haha

You had to get 2100 points, take a pic of your TV and send it in.