Should I buy an Atari 2600???

[VPI97]

I hear it comes with a free copy of Combat!

[Cringer]

I went for the Intellivision, thats what my brother and I had as kids! Still many fond memories!

[NOISE]

I've heard good things about the NES. I think its 8-Bit. Is that good?

[rkmsuf]

Consumer Reports says Collecovision...

[The_herd]

I think Bucc would be the subject matter expert on this one.

I heard Pong was a great game, maybe you can find it on E-bay.

[VPI97]

Originally posted by NOISE
I've heard good things about the NES. I think its 8-Bit. Is that good? It'll never last. Atari was here first and nothing could get their market share!

[JeeberD]

Originally posted by NOISE
I've heard good things about the NES. I think its 8-Bit. Is that good?

My roommate bought an NES yesterday along with SMB, SMB3, Zelda, and Tyson. I'm dead serious...

[NOISE]

Originally posted by VPI97
It'll never last. Atari was here first and nothing could get their market share!

I was thinking of the same thing. I even read somewhere Sony wanted into the game market and wanted to do something else than cartridges. Don't they know that the gaming consumers aren't going to accept that.

[The_herd]

Originally posted by JeeberD
My roommate bought an NES yesterday along with SMB, SMB3, Zelda, and Tyson. I'm dead serious...

He got ripped off if he didn't get Tecmo Super Bowl. What a waste of money.

[Chubby]

Atari 2600 ruled, my dumbass mom threw out mine with like 150 games when she cleaned out the house 3 years, I was pissed

[SlapBone]

Funny...when I was 10 my pastor's son gave me my first ever game cheat.

Playing Space Invaders on the Atari 2600, if you hold down the "reset" button while powering the unit up, your gun will shoot double shots for the entire game.


I once "rolled" Asteroids 5 times in one day during the summer of 78 (or maybe 79). This was before saved games so I made my little brother fetch me sandwiches and kool-aid so I wouldn't lose my streak.

[MJ4H]

What the hell kind of question is this? Of course you should.

[Franklinnoble]

Check this out... (http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/5d39/)

[Ben E Lou]

Intellivision...far better.

[Tasan]

Originally posted by Franklinnoble
Check this out... (http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/5d39/)

I have one of those. Its pretty fun, the only gripe is that the base of the joystick is a little fatter than the real one.

[JAG]

Originally posted by SlapBone
Funny...when I was 10 my pastor's son gave me my first ever game cheat.

Playing Space Invaders on the Atari 2600, if you hold down the "reset" button while powering the unit up, your gun will shoot double shots for the entire game.


I once "rolled" Asteroids 5 times in one day during the summer of 78 (or maybe 79). This was before saved games so I made my little brother fetch me sandwiches and kool-aid so I wouldn't lose my streak.

Nice, this reminds me of my Immortal Game of Missle Command where I got 2.8 million but the screen wouldn't show the millions place. I played for about 2.5 hrs straight and my mother got me breakfast somewhere in the middle (she must've been a true bastion of patience). Adventure was a great game too, but I love the explanation I read of it on the Book of Ratings page: (excerpted)

You're a dot. You have an arrow, which is actually a sword, which you use to kill what appear to be giant ducks.

I actually played Missle Command at an ice cream parlor about two months ago. Granted it was always a lot faster in the arcade than on the 2600, but boy did I suck.

[BigJohn&TheLions]

I still have mine but don't play it due to the paddles being worn

[Fritz]

Best thread in a long time.

[Philliesfan980]

Colecovision was seriously the best console out there in the mid 80's. Too bad it wasn't marked properly.

Order of operations:

Atari 2600 - Colecovision - Atari 7800.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Oh, come on. Nobody has an Odyssey?

That's okay. Neither did I. Intellivision all the way!

[Killebrew]

I'm a loyal Atari customer but I expect to purchase all of them eventually. It's really our duty to support these old console systems, if we don't who will? Plus the competition is good for all of us, it will help push them to design newer and better systems, maybe even come up with some kind of power glove controller (I can dream).

[akw4572]

Funny, about a year ago, I did buy one about a year ago on ebay. Got the console, joysticks, paddles, adapter, and about 40 games for $70.

[cuervo72]

Intellivision hands down. I spotted an "Intellivision Lives" disk for the PS2 in Sam's Club, might have to buy a PS2 (hmm, I think I'll have to cross-post that info :) ).

My cousin had an Oddessy (and my brother later had a Turbo Graphix 16)....

[cuervo72]

Dola - Jeeber, I actually unearthed my Nintendo over the weekend an played Tecmo and SMB :)

Forgot to mention, Intellivision also comes with Poker & Blackjack, so you can't go wrong there.

[JeeberD]

My old NES is actually at my parents house. Next time I go up to Colorado I'm going to have to pack it and the thirty or fourty games up and take them home with me. Well, at least the games since the roomie has an NES now. And I have Tecmo Super Bowl... :)

[WussGawd]

Originally posted by Pumpy Tudors
Oh, come on. Nobody has an Odyssey?

That's okay. Neither did I. Intellivision all the way!

Ah yes, the Odyssey. Had almost forgot that one. A friend of mine had one.

[WussGawd]

Originally posted by cuervo72
Intellivision hands down. I spotted an "Intellivision Lives" disk for the PS2 in Sam's Club, might have to buy a PS2 (hmm, I think I'll have to cross-post that info :) ).

My cousin had an Oddessy (and my brother later had a Turbo Graphix 16)....

There's also a collection of Intellivision and Activision (for the 2600) titles out there in the bargain bins for the PC. Bought both recently. Also saw a collection of 2600 games for PC, have yet to pick that up.

[stevew]

I had the ET game, and I beat it.


But I could never solve that blasted Indiana Jones game.

[StormcloudCreations]

ET?? You mean one of the worst designed video games in history, the Atari 2600 ET? The one the designer (on a G4 interview) admitted he designed and finished in about 4 weeks? The one that had over 3 million unsold copies destroyed a year later?

Not sure if congratulations are in order or not. :)

[Chief Rum]

Just get an ATARI 2600 emulator. They are out there if you're looking for them. ;)

Usually they come with the console's entire history of games, too.

I can still picture the ridges on the outside of the box and the little round metal switches. Oh yeah, and that handy black handle controller with the one red button. Ah, the memories.

CR

[scooper]

Originally posted by stevew
I had the ET game, and I beat it.


But I could never solve that blasted Indiana Jones game.

I don't know anybody who ever beat Indiana Jones. And we tried for hours on end.

My wife says she still has her 2600 packed away in her parents' basement and we plan on pulling it out some day and hooking it up. Lucky for me, my wife grew up on Atari and NES and is enjoys video games. She bought me an X-box for Christmas, God Bless her, but now I fight with her for time on it.

Anyway, I don't remember the game, but she says she has some Chuckwagon Atari game that she got by sending in UPC's from Chuckwagon Dogfood. She had a 100 lb Shepard growing up that went through the food quickly. She said she saw the Chuckwagon game listed on e-bay recently going in the hundreds.

[HornedFrog Purple]

crud I never did finish Pitfall... thanks for reminding me :(

[stevew]

Originally posted by StormcloudCreations
ET?? You mean one of the worst designed video games in history, the Atari 2600 ET? The one the designer (on a G4 interview) admitted he designed and finished in about 4 weeks? The one that had over 3 million unsold copies destroyed a year later?

Not sure if congratulations are in order or not. :)

LOL....the game was horrid. It was a gift from a babysitter. ET the atari game, is an urban legend.

[scooper]

I was in fourth grade when I got ET the Atari game. I didn't care how well it was designed. It was ET and I was playing Atari. Life could get no better.

[albionmoonlight]

Adventure was the best Atari game ever, IMHO.

My fiancee was talking the other night about how much she liked River Raid, so I went and got a joystick and downloaded an emulator and River Raid ROM. She liked that more than her Christmas present.

Now that we have the emulator, though, I will have to get some of my old favorites back. Human Cannonball was another good one.

[albionmoonlight]

dola--

and do you remember Decathalon? You had to move the stick back and forth really quickly to make the man run. It was the first game to get my hand tired by playing.

[rkmsuf]

Originally posted by albionmoonlight
dola--

and do you remember Decathalon? You had to move the stick back and forth really quickly to make the man run. It was the first game to get my hand tired by playing.

Any game people enjoy that gets you to "run" a marathon by jiggling the joystick has found gold...

[VPI97]

Decathalon is the game that my brother and I played the most. In retrospect, I question the design of that game....I mean, you go through the first 9 events just fine, but then it would take 10-15 minutes of wiggling the joystick just to finish the thing. We broke a ton of joysticks on that event alone.

[cuervo72]

Summer Games for the C64.

[Radii]

I had summer games for the atari 800. It was one of my favorite games ever. Hooray for Skeet Shooting!

[stevew]

I had Epyx winter games....it was so damn fun.

[Thadaleus]

Originally posted by Chief Rum
Just get an ATARI 2600 emulator. They are out there if you're looking for them. ;)


Sadly.. the emulator and the entire 500+ game catalog of Atari 2600 games, can fit on one 3½ inch floppy.

Originally posted by stevew
But I could never solve that blasted Indiana Jones game.

OMG.. I played this for weeks on end.. months even. Never found the Ark.
Got it on emulator.. still couldn't beat it.
I can beat Myst, but not Atari 2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark.
..sigh..

Thad

[JeeberD]

My brother beat ROTLA. I remember it took him forever to do so, and I could never copy his achievement, but it was certainly exciting to watch....