8 Bit Christmas

[baseline bum]

I thought some of the adventure games were pretty great at the time. Adventure for one. That was the game that made me want the system. Raiders of the Lost Ark was pretty good as well but a little bersome because it used both joysticks for one player. One was used for action and the other for selecting items. But once you beat any of those games, you could do it again in maybe 10-15 minutes at most. Although once the rumor of the hidden dot surfaced, that added another layer of exploration.

I remember Pitfall being good mainly for the graphics at the time but beating the game was basically just learning the map.

Yeah...I bought one of those 2600 joysticks that came preloaded with about 20 games. Thinking it'd be fun to check out. But I'd play a game for a few minutes and then try another. Definitely doesn't hold up.

The Atari 5200 should have been a game changer but they ed up the controller. Colecovision ended up being the best system (post 2600) until NES came out.

Yeah 5200 improved a lot on the graphics, but JFC that non-centering joystick and then that phone keypad. Though Atari was pretty much dead by the time the 5200 came out anyways. And whose bright idea was it to put the 2600 sound chip into the 7800, thus making the 7800 another DOA console? Looked better than NES graphically but the sound was so simplistic. Oh well they deserved to go under after ET.

[Millennial_Messiah]

I guess I was the only kid who didn't ask for a video game console from my family to buy me early in childhood. My first console was an XBOX 360 that I paid for myself when I was 13 in 2007 from my own money that I earned from hauling junk and teaching little kids math.

[SpursforSix]

Yeah 5200 improved a lot on the graphics, but JFC that non-centering joystick and then that phone keypad. Though Atari was pretty much dead by the time the 5200 came out anyways. And whose bright idea was it to put the 2600 sound chip into the 7800, thus making the 7800 another DOA console? Looked better than NES graphically but the sound was so simplistic. Oh well they deserved to go under after ET.

The 5200 had some games that were pretty close to the arcade versions. Joust and Kangaroo were two that I had that I enjoyed. They also had some kind of space game that was complex at the time but it involved pressing the number keys so it was also frustrating. But that joystick made everything a beat down.

To be honest, I didn't think ET was that bad. The falling in the the holes was crappy but it wasn't as bad as an adventure game as they make it seem. Especially given the cir stances.

Also while I'm thinking about it, Superman was pretty good. There was also that Swordquest game that had multiple cartridges with the comic book tie ins. But I didn't have the patience for that.

[SpursforSix]

Not to mention that Activision games changed the landscape. MegaMania was fun as . Also they had some great sports games.

[baseline bum]

The 5200 had some games that were pretty close to the arcade versions. Joust and Kangaroo were two that I had that I enjoyed. They also had some kind of space game that was complex at the time but it involved pressing the number keys so it was also frustrating. But that joystick made everything a beat down.

To be honest, I didn't think ET was that bad. The falling in the the holes was crappy but it wasn't as bad as an adventure game as they make it seem. Especially given the cir stances.

Also while I'm thinking about it, Superman was pretty good. There was also that Swordquest game that had multiple cartridges with the comic book tie ins. But I didn't have the patience for that.

I thought ET earned every bit of its rep. You'd fall in a hole, fly out, and end up right back in the hole again in this loop. It was supposed to be a game for six year olds to play but nothing was intuitive in it. I love that they thought they'd make millions off a blockbuster game they hired a guy to do in six weeks and instead took down their company with it. Serves them right trying to con a bunch of parents before Christmas.