Console Debate #19 Atari 2600

[JeremiahJT | 75]

13 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Atari's 2600 port of Space Invaders might be the best home version of that game, with all the options available. Asteroids is pretty good, too, despite the lack of vector graphics. Their port of Defender is garbage, though.

Warlords and Video Olympics (which is a bunch of Pong games, including Quadrapong) are good, too. Circus Atari is actually pretty good, too, for a Breakout-derived game. 

Haunted House seems kinda eh at first, but the highest difficulty where you can't see the walls is really intense. 

Mountain King by CBS Electronics is great and fast paced. Plus it has "glitch heaven." Some of the other CBS games like Solar Fox and Tunnel Runner are good.

I've already gone on about Imagic. 

I have always liked 2600 version of Defender and played it quite a bit as a kid. Now I understand they cut quite a bit from the arcade and the 5200 version and the 2600 port of the sequel Stargate outclass it, but nevertheless I think it is pretty good.

[Tulpa | 3,509]

1 hour ago, JeremiahJT said:

I have always liked 2600 version of Defender and played it quite a bit as a kid. Now I understand they cut quite a bit from the arcade and the 5200 version and the 2600 port of the sequel Stargate outclass it, but nevertheless I think it is pretty good.

I played it quite a bit, too, but of all the classic arcade ports, Defender is probably the worst on the system (aside from maybe Pac-man.)

My main beef is that they dumbed down the enemy behaviors. The arcade mixed up the swarmers, baiters, and mutants in how they attacked. In the 2600, they just mindlessly charged you.

It's playable, and admirable how they made an arcade game that had five buttons and a vertical control joystick translate to the Atari joystick, but it's still pretty lacking.

[asmikace | 68]

My favorite thing when I used to collect for Atari 2600 is finding the later release gems of the system when they got development down but the crash cut copies short. The later Activison games like Beamrider, Cosmic Commuter, Hero, and Pitfall II and Sega's Rootbeer Tapper and Up and Down, and Frogger Three Deep were my favorite in the wild finds for the system.

[G-type | 2,482]

too late to vote, but its a 10/10 for me. I am a late Atari convert. I had a TI-99/4A computer as my primary video game device since I was 3. I didn't get the Atari until I was about 7 years old. I liked it, but I just viewed it as a slightly clunkier option than my TI (Which had graphics & sound more on par with a ColecoVision, plus a speech synthesizer). Started collecting Atari a few years ago, as my interest in NES and Sega was beginning to lose a little steam and I got really hooked. Did a deep dive into the whole library and discovered a ton of games I absolutely loved.

Edited May 20, 2021 by G-type