Atari 2600

[chexmixbreath]

I came into video games during the 16-bit era. Playing Atari 2600 for me is no different than playing those crappy Tiger Electronics handhelds. Some games like Pitfall, Yar's Revenge, and Adventure are historically interesting and fun to mess around with for like ten minutes at a time, but I have just about zero emotional attachment to any of it. Flash games from the early 2000's are better than Atari 2600 games, lol

[oldgamerz]

Atari 2600 games were made vary simple most of them were easy to understand how to play, the controller was basically a joystick with 1 button, the major downside for me would be that you needed to sit by the game console itself and keep hitting the reset switch every single time you lost the game.

I don't have a real Atari 2600 console, but I still like the games themselves, in my opinion it was a huge step above the 1st generation consoles, being the PONG clones and the Magnavox Odyssey 1 in 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey 1 tv console, didn't have any sound or any graphics or any AI programming or computer opponent. OR any video game names for sake. all of which makes a video game worth playing in my opinion.

so people back then (as far as home television game consoles go) the Atari 2600 was a HUGE step forward back in 1977-1978,

I can appreciate the Atari 2600 for what it was at the time, but I don't have barley any interest in the original Magnavox Odyssey. I Mean all the games used plastic sheets and basically a white dot that would shine behind the overlay. the 1st Odyssey had no programming other than a primitive computer mouse curser in the shape of a white square.

not to mention the Atari 2600 had COLOR as well as a Black and White Option, no overlays

[sworddude]

Atari 2600 games were made vary simple most of them were easy to understand how to play, the controller was basically a joystick with 1 button, the major downside for me would be that you needed to sit by the game console itself and keep hitting the reset switch every single time you lost the game.

Allot of games where really hard to understand how to play thanks to the limitations. Quite some atari 2600 games in wich you needed to be quite smart to finish them withouth any help.

adventure, haunted house swords quests how did people figure this out withouth internet. you can barely recognize anything hard to see if you made any progress.

The games where really abstract tons of imagination needed

And have you seen most ending screens? In wich most people in this era would probably be confused if the game actually just crashed or frooze instead.

There is barely anything memorable about atari 2600 games

you don't have iconic tunes, no cool sound effects, the grapics are usually just lines on a screen. Even shitty flash games look better than games such as river raid or pitfall wich are some of the best looking games on the system.

Gameplay at best is space invaders or pacman however usually far far less. Considering the options that you have if you didn't grew up with it you'll probably never want to touch an atari 2600 game.

I guess the shitty sounds could be nostalgia to some. and ofcourse the really hard puzzles thanks to it's limitations experimenting with stuff in games such as adventure and sword quest to finally beat those. Had to take ages to figure stuff out withouth the internet. The hardships could probably have value to people with atari nostalgia.

[oldgamerz]

I never learned or bothered to learn how to play the "Quest" games, or Haunted House. I did look up how to play Adventure however those are not my favorite Atari 2600 games though

Have You played Star Ship?  or Chopper Command? or Asteroids? or Boxing? or, "Street Racer"? Skiing? Plaque Attack? Demon Attack? Space Invaders? Journey Escape?

I only played games through emulation, mostly on PlayStation 2. and the AtGames Atari Flashback consoles. Your not wrong with your claims @sworddude but the games are still fun for the few and if were talking worst console ever mine would be the Magnavox Odyssey 1. in spite of it being a 1972 game console, I think it should have had some kind of graphics sound, and AI if were talking the computer game Space War in which came out in 1962 10 years before the Magnavox Odyssey came out.

At least the Atari 2600 had graphics sound and AI at all, but coming from playing more modern games I am definitely not calling the Atari 2600 the best console ever, that would be crazy for me to say in my opinion.

Manuals needed to be read on some atari 2600 games like E.T but I never played that game and don't think I ever will.

[oldgamerz]

I am an all round game fan, I have no nostalgia for anything under the 5th console generation but sometimes I want to play some video Olympics, or Breakout, I just like playing most games

And "Star Ship" is the only game I know of that lets you target and shoot Toilets, Bugs and Blue Flying Saucers, in outer space 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kfVOdoTSX4

and use a mech to fart on a  giant space cookie

[gummo]

the major downside for me would be that you needed to sit by the game console itself and keep hitting the reset switch every single time you lost the game.

At the time that was all that was really necessary considering that the average TV screen in the late 70's was 19"-25" you were going to be sitting on the floor right next to the TV/game system anyways . Also some Atari games used the fire button as the start/reset button .

[mastodon]

I promise you younger guys the Atari 2600 and 5600 were the shit in the early 80s. Arcades cost money. Parents thought it was a waste of quarters. So to be able to game at home was great fun. Remember there was basically nothing else. Only Caleco and Intellivision. No internet, no computers (basically).  Everyone had a 2600. It had Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Nintendo's Donkey Kong, ect ect. The included game Combat had around 20 games on it. Real Sports Football was like Madden back then. Yeah its rough now, but wait 40 years from today and look at PS5 vs PS10. Which I'm sure the PS10 will just download directly to your brain by then.

[sworddude]

While there was nothing else Gaming wise.

Other hobbies exists, boardgames and reading books was a hell lot more popular back in the day. Let alone playing outside just to name some examples.

Rc cars, model trains figurines building kits. allot of hobby's where allot more popular back than (allot of those examples are nearly extinct nowadays) because gaming didn't fil that void as much with how limited it was back than. Those things mentioned above are pretty much of the same quality back than as it is nowadays. so you could say those hobby's where at their peak while gaming was at it's infancy.

it's only natural for allot of people to pick up something else since you only had atari, coleco and pong consoles. Not to mention The Nintendo nes saved them consoles because people got bored of Atari. Even back than the atari being almost nothing had an impact While ever since we had the nes and future generation consoles stuff kept growing instead. we didn't experience a videogame crash ever since.

That gaming got bigger after each year is mainly because games became more fun when time passed by in wich people dropped those other hobby's.

That's just my speculation anyway. Obviously plenty that enjoyed the new atari tech back in the day.

Sure atari and some other lesser known brands where all you had back in the day, but don't forget allot of other hobby's existed aswell that where way more popular back in the day that weren't held back by limitations and where at their peak (Not much improved nowadays).