|
OverClocked
: Platforms:
Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 |
|
|
|||
The Atari
xx00 systems - the 2600
especially - established the home videogame console as
a profitable, popular idea whose time had finally come
. . . I remember hours of target
fun, pacman, superman,
& frogger in my grandparent's
basement . . there weren't any polygons, lens
flares, or mip-mapped bilinear filtered doodads
. . just boxy graphics and a
shitload of gameplay . . when anyone speaks
of the "good ole days"
they are usually referring to these systems . . the 5200 & 7800
improved on the original's formula in various ways, but
never accumulated as large a user
base or software library . . all hail the king
of old skool . . the 2600 ownz you . . .
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Emulators
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Atari
2600, 5200, 7800 resources:
Atari HQ's EXCELLENT 2600 & 7800 section (BIG) The Atari 2600/7800 FAQ Atari Historical Society's 2600/5200/7800 info Dave Mrozek's 7800 reviews (lots) The Dot Eater's - 5200 & 7800 in historical context Atari 2600 codes & tips archive 
|
|
|
Top
8 Atari 2600 Games you never knew about
(and didn't want to):
|
| 1.
Knight on the Town
- One would think, given the 2600's less than stellar ability to
handle representative graphics with any degree of detail, that PORNO
games would be ruled out . . nevertheless, someone tried . . .you're
a naked knight . . you build a bridge to reach the poontang . .
seanbaby's got the
full skinny here 2. BOOM BANG - What a brilliant name for a game, eh? The joys of onamatopoeia . . . here, our hero(ine?) drops brown things on spiders . . . this is the sort of concept that once passed as "plot" back in the heydays of retrogaming . . 3. Farmyard Fun - Our readers in West Virginia will certainly appreciate this rare 2600 diamond that is essentially frogger with chickens and some sort of pellets that you, as a farmboy, must collect. Whereas Frogger made sense because cars can and do kill frogs, this is quite strange, as apparently chickens can reach fatal velocities . . . who knew? 4.Lost Luggage This could have been a great concept for a game, but instead, you essentially control two siamese twins joined by an invisible umbilical cord, and catch multi-colored suitcases that fall from the sky . . . and that's it . . think breakout, but with nothing to break . . wheee 5. Panda Chase - occassionally, developers tried new and exciting concepts with the 2600 . . and occassionally they ended up with surreal, shitty games about pandas . . . this was one of those occassions . . . 6.Revenge of the Beefsteak Tomatoes - I'm not sure if this was linked to "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" in some way or not, but in any case, you play what looks like a drug needle, and you shoot at angry purple tomatoes, while plants shoot at you AND the tomatoes as well, and occassionally a flying saucer passes by and shoots at EVERYBODY . . this sounds fun but it isn't . . . 7.Squeeze Box - okay, i might be missing something, but this looks like a scenario where you're a criminal trying to escape from a box of different, rainbow colored strips of light . . . this profound study on man's aesthetic relationship with his environment was later used to prove beyond a doubt that Jeffrey Dahmer was insane, as he was apparently quite good at it . . . . 8.SSSnake - SSSucks! tries to be centipede and fails hard . . . whenever anyone says that gameplay today can't compare to the "golden years", show them this to shut them up . . yes, games were awful and derivative even back then . . check please!! |