The Smarmy Carny

In my mind, the Atari 2600 is the best video game console of all time. You either had a joystick or a paddle — both of which had just one button. Modern day consoles have nothing on the Atari 2600 with their 80-button, vibrating controllers and frequent crashes. The Atari 2600 blows these out of the water with its 128 bytes of RAM and 1.19 MHz processing speed.

• Basketball: D- I know that the graphics weren't top-notch on the Atari 2600, and that's fine. But playing basketball with a square ball? Something's just not right with that.
• Combat: B It came with the console, so everyone had it and knew how to play it. Somehow, they managed to turn two games (tanks and planes) into 27 games — really just different options on the two themes. For such a basic game, though, getting those tanks to move and shoot the way you needed them to really became an art.
• Missile Command: C- In retrospect, I probably played Missile Command far more than I should have. This game, though entertaining, quickly becomes repetitive. Gee, I wonder what the next level will bring me — perhaps more missiles I'll have to shoot down in the same manner? You basically played until the game outplayed you.
• Pac-Man: A- Pac-Man was the game. Easy to understand but difficult to master, I don't know a kid who was yelling at their television because of this yellow dude.
• Pitfall!: B+ I don't know how many times poor Pitfall Harry fell down holes or got eaten by a crocodile, but this game was addictive. The game used a combination of timing skills and just a bit of strategy that made you want to come back for more.
• Space Invaders: A+ Simple, easy, and perfectly designed for the platform. You have shields, you have bad guys. They inch closer, and you try and pick them off. And just when that might have started to get boring, you've got a UFO to aim at! It even spawned quite a few 80s song, which actually might not have been a good thing.

Please feel free to leave a comment. What do you agree or disagree with, and why? Which Atari 2600 games do you wish were included that I didn't cover here?

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 13:03 by Novac and is filed under All, Atari, Blogathon, Blogathon 2007, Charity, Culture, Fun, Games, Geeks, People, Pop Culture, Ratings, Technology, Video Games.   You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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