Do you ever get that "Atari-sick" feeling?

[Room 34]

Don't get me wrong... I love playing many Atari games. But sometimes, I will spend a little too long playing a game that is really not that good (say, Journey Escape), and I'll just feel kind of sick afterwards, thinking "I can't believe I just wasted x minutes/hours (or in some cases, seconds) of my life on that crap!"

 

Do you ever get this feeling? If so, what games do it to you?

 

Here's my list of games that have recently produced such a reaction:

 

Adventure (Yes, believe it or not, it does happen!)

Canyon Bomber

Dishaster

Golf

Gorf

Super Cobra

Video Chess (After shamefully losing to skill level 1, I got curious about level 7... but after waiting for 2 minutes for the computer to make its first move, and it still wasn't finished, I turned the game off and went upstairs!)

[ROBOTRON2084]

I get a queasy feeling after playing Rescue Terra one for an hour...but 2 Prozacs, a shot of Jack Daniels chased with a lemon phosphate...and I feel no pain at all!!!

[Chris++]

I get a queasy feeling after reading about Robotron's cures.

 

Seriously, attempting to find something appealing about Name This Game gives me that feeling and makes me wonder why I bothered. It should be fun, but it just isn't. Nexar also makes me wonder why I plugged it in. Finally, Bugs makes me kinda nauseaus about the wasted effort. The other bad games I have never get plugged in (unless my friend Adam and I are having a "Look how bad THIS one is!" session, which is great fun if you're in the mood), so they don't apply here.

 

Does anyone ever JONES for a game? I don't mean you're just in the mood to play it (or fancy a bit of that, for you UK Atari brothers). I mean, there's something about the mechanics, movement, interaction and visceral appeal of a game that gives you an almost physical urge to pop it in.

 

The thought of speeding around the track in Dodge 'Em, eating up the lines, does this to me for some reason. Once I think of it, I have to pop it in (much like a cigarette). Ditto for zipping around the screens in Superman, or filling the ice floes in Frostbite. It's hardly explainable, but I think you guys know what I mean, even though I haven't communicated it very well.

 

 

Chris

[Room 34]

Does anyone ever JONES for a game?

 

...

 

The thought of speeding around the track in Dodge 'Em, eating up the lines, does this to me for some reason. Once I think of it, I have to pop it in (much like a cigarette).

Well for some reason I have always had an aversion to this use of "jones" but I know what you mean.

 

Certain games just "feel good" to play. I get that feeling out of Space Invaders (but only if I am playing using the "double shots" trick).

 

Some of the paddle games are good for this... especially Circus Atari and Kaboom!

 

I also like the sensation of blasting the swirl in mid-air in Yars' Revenge. When you get on a roll in game 6 where the swirl keeps appearing right away and you just nail it!

[Chris++]

Absolutely...that colorful explosion takes longer sometimes than the waves themselves!

[Atari 7800.com]

Room -

 

I know the feeling man... I feel your pain. I feel pretty good after several hours of 2600 Asteroids or 7800 Ms. Pac Man.... but get me playing canyon bomber or yar's revenge for too long and blech... ill get a headache and just feel sick and think "why did i just waste 2 hours playing this stupid game?" Crappy games are even worse... if I play like circus Atari or some other no-good 3rd party game ill wanna puke after like 5-10 mins.

 

What's worse is when you've spent all day at some flea market digging thru dirty sticky cartridges that smell like someone's basement. That's even more nauseating.

 

 

Justin

Atari 7800.com / Turbo Grafx-16.com

[a light in the black]

I REMEMBER READING ELECTRONIC GAMES MAGAZINE IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES. THEY GAVE NEXAR AN A+. I RAN OUT A BOUGHT IT FOR MY LIFE SAVINGS BACK THEN AND GOT SICK SOON AFTERWARDS.

[Osbo]

Video Chess (After shamefully losing to skill level 1, I got curious about level 7... but after waiting for 2 minutes for the computer to make its first move, and it still wasn't finished, I turned the game off and went upstairs!)

 

I'm with u all the way there... I did just that, turn it off and when to do something else...

 

Osbo

[Paul Slocum]

I don't get that feeling from playing Atari, but I know what you're talking about. I get it from being in Guitar Center too long. Guitar Center (or similar music equipment store) is really fun at first, but after a little while you get this sinking feeling in your stomach. I think it's a combination of the salesmen, the wanna-be musicians, and the cocophany of all instruments being played at once.

 

-Paul

[bcsnow]

that would be pacman just munching al them little dot's for seconds,minutes,hours (until now it just stayed with hours no day's YET).

[Room 34]

I don't get that feeling from playing Atari, but I know what you're talking about.  I get it from being in Guitar Center too long.

Yes! I usually go to Mars, but it's all the same (except the guys at Mars don't pressure you to buy stuff as much).

 

What's even worse is if you buy something, and then take it home and realize it's a piece of crap. That just happened to me. My band was going to be playing a gig at a kind of dive bar in a beach town, so I went to Mars and got myself a Squier bass so I wouldn't have to subject my American Series Fender Jazz V to that environment. (Fortunately, I brought the Fender along as a backup.) Man, I plugged in that Squier and it buzzed like a (canyon*) bomber flying overhead. Back in the gig back it went, and out came the Fender!

 

Fortunately, Mars was pretty easy-going about returning the piece of crap.

 

(*I managed to stay on topic... barely.)

[Chris++]

Next time you're shopping for a back-up bass (if you don't want a Fender P, that is... ), try out one of the reissued Spector basses. Very warm, easy action. I'm not usually a bassist, so you probably know better than I -- but at least plug one of those babies in.

 

Your experience rang many bells, and I can sum them up for you in one word: Ibanez.

 

Anyway, I thought of a whole group of other games that have made me Atari-sick: Every Coleco game I've ever played for the 2600. And yes! These apparently separate thoughts are related!

 

Coleco games were deliberately made badly to make the ColecoVision look better than the 2600. Ibanez guitars have bad pickups, so that you have to buy the special Ibanez pickups and replace the stock ones. These are both only common theories, rather than anything for which I have supporting evidence; but these two companies should've gotten together, formed a company called Deli-Sub (Deliberately Substandard), and bought out the entire line of TRS-80 boxes, peripherals and software.

 

Or maybe it's just time for me to leave work and go home.

 

 

CF

[Room 34]

These two companies should've gotten together, formed a company called Deli-Sub (Deliberately Substandard), and bought out the entire line of TRS-80 boxes, peripherals and software.

Free with any purchase... one salmonella-infested meatball sandwich!