Four player Warlords tends to become a bit of a drag when there are only two players left.

There were some amazing classics for a machine that only was supported to have a three-year shelf life. There were many original, bona fide classic games like Pitfall, Pitfall 2, H.E.R.O, In the Hall of the Mountain King, River Raid, Adventure, Yar's Revenge, Solaris, Secret Quest, Demon Attack, Dragonstomper, Haunted House and Kaboom!

There were also quite a few worthy arcade ports, including Combat, Indy 500, Super Breakout, Battlezone, Stargate/Defender II, Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Berzerk, Asteroids, Warlords, Missile Command, Joust and Video Olympics/Pong

One observation I have about E.T. is that it really was not a game you could just pick up and play. Reading the manual seemed to be something people didn't bother with as much back in the day, especially kids who want to play the hottest game.

No one ever read the manual. It's a part of the reason why games nowadays tend to hold your hand the whole way through. :P

*I* read manuals as a kid because I wanted to see all the fun pictures. I was actually really disappointed when I read the manual for Wonder Boy in Monster World, because I had originally rented an IMPORT copy of the game in Japanese (making it the first import game I ever played) and the manual with that rental had spectacular, full-colour graphics, whereas the English-translated game had a black and white manual with mostly text and screenshots. :(

Any manual that clearly had effort put into it is always fun to look through, though I will admit I often played the game FIRST, then read the manual later on. ^_^;

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I remember playing the absolute crap out of the Atari plug and play paddle games thing when I was a kid, and now I want to get an actual 2600 so I can try the 4 player mode on Warlords.

I got that one a bit later on and played it a bit with my brother. It's probably the best party game for the Atari.

Harekiet wrote:

I'm always more impressed with the graphics they managed to get out of the atari in some games than the actual gameplay considering the limitations of the hardware. Some of the recent atari demos were quite amazing as well especially when seeing them on the big screen 😀

I've always found that dealing with limitations can really bring out people's creativity, and the Atari 2600 is quite a modest system.

Do you have links to videos of any of the demos that impressed you?

Great Hierophant wrote:

There were many original, bona fide classic games like Pitfall, Pitfall 2, H.E.R.O, In the Hall of the Mountain King, River Raid, Adventure, Yar's Revenge, Solaris, Secret Quest, Demon Attack, Dragonstomper, Haunted House and Kaboom!

I'd really like to get carts for Pitfall 2 and H.E.R.O. I think I only have a broken Demon Attack 🙁

I got River Raid 2 and played it a bunch. It's decent but doesn't compare to many NES shooters.

One observation I have about E.T. is that it really was not a game you could just pick up and play. Reading the manual seemed to be something people didn't bother with as much back in the day, especially kids who want to play the hottest game.

True, although it's still something you can learn most of the intricacies of by watching someone else play for less than an hour.

Gemini000 wrote:

*I* read manuals as a kid because I wanted to see all the fun pictures.

Any manual that clearly had effort put into it is always fun to look through, though I will admit I often played the game FIRST, then read the manual later on. 😅

I remember reading manuals when I couldn't play the games. Centipede's actually had a story (or maybe a comic?), albeit a mediocre one.

Some of the manuals were required reading. I don't think *anyone* could make sense of Riddle of the Sphinx or Space Shuttle without the manual, and most of the Atari-brand ones had charts showing what the effects of the difficulty switches and game variation numbers were (something that clearly showed their arcade heritage, as arcade machines were usually quite customizable via DIP switches).

Regarding manuals in general, the only two that have stuck with me over the years are the ones for Starflight and Homeworld (both for PC). They both covered similar fascinating back-stories of civilizations that discovered the remains of spaceships on their planets, which caused them to realize that they had lost knowledge of the fact that they were not originally from those worlds (think "Dragonriders of Pern" meets "Battlestar Galactica").

All this Atari talk is making me remember that I need to dig mine out of the garage and see how my 3-year old does with it. She's struggling to learn how to play N64 and Wii games (but getting better at an impressive rate), and I think there might be some Atari games that would fascinate her.

Mostly, though, I think she'd like the fact that I have 10 times as many Atari games as N64 games now that she knows how to change out cartridges properly on her own 😀

Hunterz wrote:

"Do you have links to videos of any of the demos that impressed you?"

Seeing as I went to my first Revision party this year,I was quite impressed with the atari stuff they showed there and the whole old skool demo compo in general.
So the entries were Bang! and TIM1T
Or just the whole compo at Revision 2014 - Compos - Oldskool Demo

HunterZ wrote:

All this Atari talk is making me remember that I need to dig mine out of the garage and see how my 3-year old does with it. She's struggling to learn how to play N64 and Wii games (but getting better at an impressive rate), and I think there might be some Atari games that would fascinate her.

So long as she hasn't been spoiled by realistic graphics, she'd probably love playing those old games because they're incredibly simple to play! :)

One thing to watch out for with a 2600 which hasn't been played in years though: The colours may be wrong. If this is the case what you need to do is take the top part of the console off to get access to the innards and beyond one of the holes in the metal shield in the middle should be a white plastic piece that can be turned with a flat-head screwdriver. Turn the console on with a game inside and let it heat up for about 10 minutes, (yes, it really will take this long at least to heat up), then carefully take a flat-head screwdriver while the console is still on and turn that white knob to adjust the colour output. Once you've got it where you think it should be, try some other carts to confirm you've got it right and keep adjusting until it's as balanced between every cart as it's gonna get. :B

Something I didn't mention before too: I actually have a small amount of experience coding for the 2600, as there was a point in time when I felt it would be a fun challenge to try to make 2600 homebrew games... it's REALLY difficult. The limitations are kinda ridiculous. You're only working in 8-bit assembly so it's not like you need to learn a ton of commands or anything, but you only have 128 BYTES of RAM for starters, there is a stack but that takes away from your RAM so you really want to avoid using it if you can, and you not only have to manually code in every VBLANK... but every HBLANK too... D:

When coding for the 2600 you not only have to count CPU cycles every step of the way since you have extremely little CPU time to do anything per scanline, but you also have to think in terms of scanlines. Six-digit score counters are actually really amazing once you know the trickery going on to get them to work, considering there's only two 8x1 single-colour sprites to work with and you STILL have to somehow get them prepped to draw on every individual scanline.

Knowing what I do about the 2600, I loved it when James Rolfe did his Indiana Jones AVGN episode and he says, "But don't tell me you can't draw a line!" and I can't help but think to myself, "No, you really can't." XD

I haven't hooked up my 2600 for about 9 years, but it was still working fine at that time. If it matters, mine has a wood-grained front and only 4 levers (the difficulty switches are on the back, which kind of sucks since they're generally more useful than, say, the color/b&w switch).

HunterZ wrote:

I haven't hooked up my 2600 for about 9 years, but it was still working fine at that time. If it matters, mine has a wood-grained front and only 4 levers (the difficulty switches are on the back, which kind of sucks since they're generally more useful than, say, the color/b&w switch).

I'm fairly certain they all have the same colour adjustment dial. If the colours turn out to be wrong you're just gonna have to adjust it, plain and simple. :P

...or live with the wacky colours. ;D

Posts like these make me long to have my Atari 2600 again. I had one until a few years ago when I sold it and the Cuttle Cart that I had. The Cuttle Cart worked like the Starpath Supercharger, data was sent over an audio cable. Modern flash devices like the Harmony Cartridge, which works with every commercial 2600 game, including Pitfall 2.

That reminds me: I think you can fit every Atari 2600 game ever made onto a single floppy disk. Most of them are 1KB or less.

HunterZ wrote:

That reminds me: I think you can fit every Atari 2600 game ever made onto a single floppy disk. Most of them are 1KB or less.

A complete Atari 2600 U.S. Commercial Game ROM set is approximately 2.52MB, and that does not include homebrew, PAL conversions, alternate versions, pirate hacks or prototypes. That would fit only on a 2.88MB floppy. 2600 games, at a minimum, are 2K, 4K being the most common, but at least one reached 32KB.

Thanks, my memory was rusty.

This is probably not the right place for game suggestions and such, but...

Gemini, I was wondering if you've ever heard of an old, homemade, side-scrolling, beat-em-up called Executioners? The game that was made by Bloodlust Software, who were also responsible for the NESticle and Genecyst emulators for DOS.

I just stumbled upon it yesterday by accident, and I couldn't even believed that I used to enjoy playing this game despite being so crude and juvenile (but still enjoyable). Come to think of it, I don't even remember how I managed to get my hands on that game back then, but I sure as hell remember playing it. 😐

Here's the link: http://www.bloodlustsoftware.com/executioners.html

I'm surprised their web site is still up.

I don't think I could do an entire episode revolving around that game because of how... umm... "basic" it is. There's a bunch of games that would be fun to cover but simply have so little real content that it's hard to devote an entire episode. Still, it's one I'll keep in mind for any short episodes I need to make due to time constraints in real life or if I make any more multi-game episodes. :B

Gemini000 wrote:

I don't think I could do an entire episode revolving around that game because of how... umm... "basic" it is. There's a bunch of games that would be fun to cover but simply have so little real content that it's hard to devote an entire episode. Still, it's one I'll keep in mind for any short episodes I need to make due to time constraints in real life or if I make any more multi-game episodes. :B

There's a series of similar Bloodlust software titles...
Executioners
Timeslaugher
Nogginknockers
Nogginknockers 2
NogginknockersX: The Duel (though I think this is Windows)
...I'd guess between those, and perhaps their old DOS emulators Genecyst and Nesticle there would be plenty of content for an episode. Of course you'd also probably need an extra long version of your opening content warning to cover these.

Also for emulation/PC fans there's SPRONG!, the Bloodlust game based around the Overclocked comic strip, though I think it's also a Windows title.

Two things (Probably irrelevant, but some interesting trivia none-the-less):

1. Apparently one of the programmers for Bloodlust Software, Ethan Petty, is still working in the game industry today. He's currently working at Ubisoft as a scriptwriter for Watch Dogs. His deviantart page is here: http://ringmasterbent.deviantart.com/

2. Kinda funny about how Gemini brought up game development on the Atari 2600. David Crane did a presentation few years ago of how he developed Pitfall for the 2600. The video is right here. It's an hour long, but it's really interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBT1OK6VAIU

Bloodlust considers their (rather famously fast) emulators as black sheep so it's probably best to leave those out with nothing more than a brief mention.

switchblade wrote:

as a scriptwriter for Watch Dogs.

That explains a lot about the dark chat messages 😁

Gemini000 wrote:

Something I didn't mention before too: I actually have a small amount of experience coding for the 2600, as there was a point in time when I felt it would be a fun challenge to try to make 2600 homebrew games... it's REALLY difficult. The limitations are kinda ridiculous. You're only working in 8-bit assembly so it's not like you need to learn a ton of commands or anything, but you only have 128 BYTES of RAM for starters, there is a stack but that takes away from your RAM so you really want to avoid using it if you can, and you not only have to manually code in every VBLANK... but every HBLANK too... D:

You are probably already familiar with the book Racing the Beam, but I'll mention it in this thread in case others are interested in a scholarly volume about the 2600, and the effect its limitations had on creativity... http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/racing-beam

pleonard wrote:

You are probably already familiar with the book Racing the Beam, but I'll mention it in this thread in case others are interested in a scholarly volume about the 2600, and the effect its limitations had on creativity... http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/racing-beam

My copy is autographed by one of the authors! 😁