[Fresh meat (new collector)!]

Ebay is good if you want to try and get a lot. If you want to pay a lot then whittle through games one by one! I've picked up several lots from eBay and found that the local pawn shops didn't mind taking the dupes off of my hands. Sega had some pretty good ones, in my opinion. One of my favorite games is Tapper and another is Spy Hunter. Rampage really rocks on the 2600 (I find it much easier than other versions and it's still two player!)! Kung Fu Master and Commando are both AWESOME!

 

Welcome and best of luck and good fortune with your collection! Another thing you'll wanna get is a Harmony Cart to cut back on the wear and tear on your cartridge port and to open the way for homebrews and hacks! There is a version of Mario Bro. with better graphics than the original, several Pac-Man upgrades, and a myriad of homebrew games that run great on the real hardware!

 

Thanks, I'll check out the games you recommend! As a long time lurker I actually already have a harmony cart LOL. For my few online purchases I have made so far I've tried to find lots that allow me to keep the price per non-duplicate cartridge as low as possible. Since I already have the requisite Asteroids, Missle Command, Space Invaders, and Defender carts It's getting a bit more difficult to find worthwhile price-per-cartridge bundles but I'm on the lookout for them.

[Fresh meat (new collector)!]

Howdy. Long time lurker, first time poster. Please go easy on me :-)

 

Anyway, as a person who enjoys older computers and electronics I decided to take the plunge and start collecting carts for the 2600. I already have a about a dozen 2600 carts, a wood grain 4 switch VCS, and a 7800 so I'm off to a good start. I'm also pleasantly surprised that there seems to be lots of great old VCS games that are very inexpensive, including most or all of the ones I remember from my childhood.

 

My plan is to slowly acquire the games I most want - maybe a few carts per week - and eventually acquire the fun and reasonably priced games made by Atari, Activision, and Imagic plus a few select others (Turmoil and Empire Strikes Back come to mind as good games not made by the big three). Rare games like Quadrun and shovelware are off of my menu (and for what it's worth Pac-Man and ET will be part of my collection).

 

Two questions for the experts here:

 

1) Is Ebay and Amazon Marketplace plus Thrift Stores and Yard Sales the usual way to acquire cartridges? I don't see Atari games at Goodwill very often, and even then the common ones are priced comparable to Ebay. I go to yard sales weekly but can't remember the last time I saw anything Atari unless it was for the Playstation 2.

 

2) Are there any other companies besides Atari, Activision, and Imagic that produced consistently good games and have libraries worth collecting? I remember Parker Brothers and M Network put at least a few good games out. I know Turmoil was made by 20th Century fox but I've never played any of their other games.

 

Thanks much for the intel!!!