[Final Approach (Apollo)]

Sigh, believe me, I sympathize... I threw away the box for this one and GUARDIAN (!) back in the 90's when I assumed no-one would ever care about Atari boxes. :-(

[My Favorite 2600 games (and then some)]

Cool list! Definitely some games on there I need to give a second try to. (Karate NOT being one of them... if I could actually coax a second person to play Atari games with me, I can't imagine choosing to subject them to that nonsense!) Interesting that many conventional favorites are nowhere to be found (Missile Command, HERO, River Raid, etc.) but I like that you champion many games folks never think of.

[Bugs (Data Age)]

No inspirational life advice? No quotes?

 

How about... "Life's too short to play Data Age, Froggo, or Mythicon games." Had someone gave me that advice when I was younger, and I had invested the saved money and time wisely, who knows how things might have been different? :-)

[Bugs (Data Age)]

Yep, this one is garbage. Thanks for giving it a full write up anyway!

[Dark Cavern (Mattel)]

100% agree with everything in this review. I really love the sounds in this game. Gameplay is also great, and YES, it is absolutely better than Night Stalker (I was so disappointed when I tried the supposedly superior parent game!) For some reason it doesn't leap to mind when thinking of the top 2600 games, but it's a really fun game that I've enjoyed since the 80's!

[Karate (Ultravision)]

Thanks for that explanation! I can kind of see where you're coming from. Perhaps similar to someone who prefers an utterly terrible B-movie to a competently made but mostly unmemorable film. Me, I get a kick out of Laser Gates every time I play it, while Karate is just painful in every way, but looking at it through that lens, I can see where someone with less conventional tastes might see it the other way. (Heh, funny to think of myself who prefers Atari games to anything modern as having anything like 'conventional' tastes, but for me Activision games are the absolute heights of VCS gaming.)

 

Again, thanks for clarifying, and thanks for these entertaining reviews! It's good a get a different perspective on these mostly forgotten games!

[Karate (Ultravision)]

I truly love reading your reviews, but wow... Karate gets a purchase recommendation, while Laser Gates does not? Having a hard time wrapping my head around that! :-)

[Keystone Kapers (Activision)]

I've long believed this game has the best graphics in the 2600 library. The gameplay doesn't quite live up to the visuals, but it's still very good! I've always been amazed that this game was Garry Kitchen's follow-up to Donkey Kong... visually, it's quite the step up! I wonder if after wrestling with the 2600's limitations to get DK working if he wasn't inspired to create the best looking game possible given those limitations. If so, mission accomplished, Mr. Kitchen!

[Video Pinball (Atari)]

I think the tilt mechanism makes this game a lot more playable than it would be otherwise. Yeah, you can only use it for a second or so at a time, but that's enough... you can really steer the heck out of the ball doing that! Really, once you get the hang of that, it may make the game a little too easy!

 

Also, maybe it's just me, but I love the sound effects for some reason.... simple but effective.

[The Official Frogger By SEGA (Starpath)]

I doubt it will convince you to like the game, but most versions of Frogger do get harder as you fill more holes... traffic speeds up, as does the snakes. Plus as your choice of holes narrows, it's naturally harder to time that final jump. But I get it, we can't all enjoy every one of the classics. Personally, I can't stand Demon Attack, but I get most people think it's awesome.

[Suicide Mission (Starpath)]

Yeah, this one is a disappointment compared to most of the rest of the Starpath library. As for the 2600 Asteroids port, sure the default game (1B) is ridiculously easy, but for a decent challenge more like the arcade game, switch it over to 4A (asteroids travel more vertically, UFOs appear, new ships at 10K) If that's still to easy, try 32A (no extra ships, no hyperspace/shields/flip)

 

Btw, great reviews you're doing here!

[Nearing 100]

Nice collection you're putting together there! Might I suggest the following if you're still looking for more:

 

Adventure

Breakout

Carnival

Command Raid

Dark Cavern

Frostbite

Kaboom

Keystone Kapers

Moon Patrol

Wizard of Wor (hint: uses the right joystick for single player)

 

None of these are rare... just a selection of fun games that are worth picking up if you come across them. Happy playing!

[Playing Kangaroo On The 2600]

Good game! Very solid port of the arcade version. My only quibble is with the blue background, which I actually hacked a while back into the black background of the arcade. If you're interested, I posted it here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/75092-kangaroo-black-hack-request/

[Do you remember this album?]

I pretty much enjoy the whole thing myself. Underdog and Gigantor are particular favorites.

[Pac-Land]

Thanks for the tip! I've played this game in the arcade, on TG16, MAME, Famicom, and Atari ST and NEVER gotten past the trampoline!

[Tempest MAME 2012 pt2]

Couldn't you just run an earlier version of MAME that allows you to bypass the message?

[OK, I want more PS1 games]

I also wonder how games on CDs work, anyway. There's only so much info that can be read at one time by the laser, and I just don't understand how the disc could move back and forth really fast to keep up with your button pressing.

 

The game is loaded into RAM from the CD before you start playing. This is why you have to wait so long on newer systems to start playing the game, unlike older systems where the game is immediately loaded from the cartridge. It's also why you have to wait a while between levels... RAM is finite (especially so on the PS1), so after completeing a level, the system must load the next level into RAM before you can play it. If the disc is spinning during gameplay, it's probably just playing music from the CD.