Which VCS game invokes the most nostalgia in you?

[+Nathan Strum]

Target Fun - for many of the same reasons listed above. It was the Sears pack-in game, so it was one of the first games I had, plus it was multi-player, which is always a lot of fun.

 

Second for me would be Asteroids, because a friend of mine and I built our own five-button Asteroids controllers to play it.

[SumerNivek]

Good Nostalgia- Circus Atari and Donkey Kong

Bad Nostalgia- E.T.

[Algus]

Asteroids. It was really my first Atari game along with Missile Command and Combat. Asteroids is the one of the three I like the most.

[WolfAmongWolves]

Dig Dug. I must have bought that in 1984 during the crash, because I remember that almost all 2600 games were between $3.99 and $8.99 at the time, but Dig Dug as a new arcade conversion was $19.99. That was around three months' worth of allowance, but I saved up for it. I was absolutely crazy about the game at the time. I think for the next month or so I spent almost every waking moment outside of school playing Dig Dug. I specifically remember one day when my mother came into the living room (where I'd probably been playing Dig Dug for hours) and asked me to please play something else, because if she had to listen to that music one more minute she would go crazy. The Dig Dug "walking" music and the little jingle that plays at the end of each screen are the sounds I most closely associate with the 2600.

[Papa]

River Raid, Pac-Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Battlezone, Defender..these were all games that my brother and I played a lot when we were younger.

[sloth-machine]

Dig Dug. I must have bought that in 1984 during the crash, because I remember that almost all 2600 games were between $3.99 and $8.99 at the time, but Dig Dug as a new arcade conversion was $19.99. That was around three months' worth of allowance, but I saved up for it. I was absolutely crazy about the game at the time. I think for the next month or so I spent almost every waking moment outside of school playing Dig Dug. I specifically remember one day when my mother came into the living room (where I'd probably been playing Dig Dug for hours) and asked me to please play something else, because if she had to listen to that music one more minute she would go crazy. The Dig Dug "walking" music and the little jingle that plays at the end of each screen are the sounds I most closely associate with the 2600.

 

Here here, Dig Dug 2600 is one of the best arcade conversions, IMO. So good!

[Gabriel]

Missile Command, Adventure, and Pac-Man hit my nostalgia button the strongest.

 

I also have to admit that Sherbet Shooter (Asteroids) takes me back to lazy early 80s afternoons as well.

 

[BigO]

Circus and Stampede evoke the most memories of playing back in the olden days.

Still play Circus. Haven't played Stampede in at least 7-8 years.

[davyK]

For me it is Asteroids. I got my 2600 in July 1982. It came with Combat. Around that time there was a promotional deal in the newspaper. If you sent away your proof of purchase of the 2600 you got Asteroids for free.

 

The next month we were on holiday in a caravan at the seaside (north coast of Ireland) when it arrived. My aunt and uncle drove up the night before we were due to come home (they would drive us home the next day) and brought the package with them. Caravans in the 80s had no electricity so I had to sit and look at the cartridge and read the manual all that night! The journey home the next day took forever but I got home and went to my other uncle's house who had borrowed the 2600 while I was away as it intrigued him. He had introduced me to video games by buying a pong console several years earlier so he had an interest.

 

We were both blown away by Asteroids. For its time it was a pretty solid port and my uncle absolutely loved it. He kept turning up at our house to play the following week and when he made up his mind to get his own 2600 the promo deal had ended and that put him off (£30 back in '82 was a lot of money on top of £100 for the console).

 

My brother and I played Asteroids every day for at least a year (game 39) and when our cousins visited it was one of the favourites too. When we were pushed off the main TV by my parents we played on an ancient second hand black and white TV we had in our bedroom. Many , many happy hours. No other video game has had quite the same effect on me.

 

My uncle died quite young (at 49) and I always associate the great summer of '82 with the game but also have a tinge of sadness when I think of his death which was around 6 years later. It's a bitter-sweet memory which is stoked with nostalgia. The 2600 lit the spark in me which ended up with me making my living in IT , and my uncle gave me a little nugget of advice about next steps in my education to pursue that - so you can imagine what that little game means to me.

 

It's a pity that I can't really invest much time in playing it now - I don't feel it has aged too well though maybe it is simply because I played it so much that I was done with it. The 7800 version is my new favourite home version - even prefer it to the emulated ports on PC and 360.

Edited February 17, 2015 by davyK

[+thegoldenband]

Swordquest: Earthworld, for the cryptic puzzles and the feeling of something enigmatic just out of reach. My mom and I tried to make sense of it.

 

Raiders of the Lost Ark, for similar reasons -- but with far more payoff, of course (unless you're Steven Bell). My mom and I figured that one out together too.

 

Q*Bert, because of my quest to go deep into the game and find Ugg -- one of my elementary-school chums falsely claimed he'd show up if you played long enough.

 

And Lord of the Rings: Journey to Rivendell, because the screenshots in that Parker Bros. catalog made it look like the magical gateway to a huge, explorable world, and having that game go tantalizingly unreleased always stuck with me. The reality is more prosaic, as we now know, but that "first step of a long journey" feeling remains.

[mitchd61]

Yars Revenge, Asteroids, Combat

[Crazy Climber]

Like it says on the boxtop, which VCS game invokes the most nostalgia in you?

The original 63 games I owned are all close but I suppose I should narrow it down...

 

Smurfs save the day - I got this at a garage sale without a manual and had no idea how to play it. The game Invokes crazy amounts of nostalgia because of the amount of time I stared at it and wondered how to use it, not too mention firing it up everytime a new friend came over and suggested "Oh, we can figure it out" but we never did (was missing a tape also) give me a break, I was nine

 

Fast Food - I got this as a gift for being a travel companion with my Mom for a LONG day of errands. We bought the game first, so I read the manual and glanced at the box art and cartridge for oh, about six hours. Yeah, can't look at that one without remembering that day.

 

Megamania - First game I mailed away for a patch, my Dad did too, was a good time. One of the few games we actually played together and he wasn't just watching (aka reading) combat is a close second for this slot

 

Space Invaders - I actually got my Mom to play this with me for an afternoon (she didn't do video games) we got a Red Baron pizza, a six pack of pop and a box of screaming yellow zonkers (do they still make those?) she actually tried playing and gave it a chance

 

Ghost manor - I did and still do find this to be a highly playable game. Great in short bursts (like games should be) and you can manipulate the score by riding the beams/etc to add a ton of replay for a game with an ending

 

Kaboom - If the paddles were plugged in I would play this game for weeks out of total and complete lazyness of not swapping controllers out

 

Strawberry Shortcake - My younger Sister played this a lot as she wasn't old enough to play cool games. Just reminds me of a time when she wasn't a complete mooch that is 37. lives at home, pesters my parents for cig money and hasn't held a job for more than a month....ugh....

 

Sky Skipper - Was my go to game fo Sunday Mornings, not sure why but I have always kind of dug ritualistic gaming

 

Polaris - first game I bought in the late 90's when I started to actually "collect" Atari games. Yeah, thats right, I did it before it was cool, lol

 

Man, I could really go on and on here, I'll leave it at that for now

 

*edit

Oh!! Berzerk!! First game I bought with my own money!!

 

Oh man, How could I forget Raiders and ET, played both of them soooo much. I remember sitting around for hours trying to figure out how to move the rock in the opening scene of Raiders because some dudes half baked older brother told us you could and we believed him, ugh, idiots!!

 

*edit edit

REACTOR STUFFED IN THE MILLINEUM FALCON CHRISTMAS MORNING!!!

 

Damn, I'm doing it again...I'm going to walk away from the keyboard now...

Edited February 18, 2015 by Crazy Climber

[dr. kwack]

Raiders of the Lost Ark- I remember finding the solution to this game in Joystick magazine at my local library. A friend and I solved it one evening and were thrilled.

 

Adventure- a group of us in 2nd or 3rd grade would meet up early before school and play this before heading out.

 

Any of the Star Wars games just because it was the 80s and it was Star Wars!

[Keatah]

I just finished playing Big Bird's Egg Catch. I never played this or owned this back in the day. But when I played it for the first time tonight I felt like I had played it a thousand times before in grade school when I was learning to count and learning to go from one room to another to change classes like the "big kids" down the hall did. And at the same time I felt like my grandparents had just bought over a new game, as they would typically do from time to time, and I was all excited running around like an idiot! Everything was a mixed up blur of confusion and fun. Including the stack of homework I had waiting that I kept putting off. Tv dinner in the oven. Windstorm whipping up something fierce outside..

 

Some funky timewarp nostalgia must have invaded the house tonight or something. Everything is back to normal now.

[Gentlegamer]

Combat, Tank Pong

[BassTrek]

Space Invaders - one of, if not the first game I ever played. Still love shmups to this day. So it probably influenced my tastes the most

Combat - The other possible first game I ever played

Pitfall - This was MUCH later. My bro and I found an "old Atari" at a garage sale, some time in the early 90s. We couldn't get enough of this old school platformer. Probably the 1st time we pooled our allowance for gaming. Was also the first time we saw something look that good on the thing

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I suppose that must be Pong, just because I briefly played it during a vacation in the early 70ties (that was pretty amazing) and later quite a lot on a Pong console before I got me an Atari 2600.

 

For the Atari 2600 it is definitely Asteroids. The first game I ever played on the console (at Berlin electronics fair IFA) and the one which I bought with it.

[Gaztee]

Pacman, pitfall, frostbite, pressure cooker, decathlon, dig dug, space invaders, fathom, Haunted house, keystone lapels. Frostbite is the one I still play most regularly. I have to say though it's the box art work, not the actual games that I find bring back the memories most. Still to this day I don't think you can beat those early 2600 games for their artwork. Never played defender as a kid, but always wanted the game just on the box art alone!

[Gentlegamer]

Is anyone else here a fan of Snoopy vs the Red Baron? That was an awesome combat game.

[1982VideoGames]

^{Super Breakout (one of the few games my Dad would play with me)}

^Starmaster

^{River Raid}

^Defender

^Pitfall

^{Donkey Kong}

^Venture

[Nebulon]

Robot Tank

 

 

... followed closely by Yar's Revenge.

[+wongojack]

Championship Soccer - was one of the very first games we had. I had to look up the select table in the manual to get the game variety I wanted to play. It was most definitely the first game I was interested in enough to check the manual

 

Pitfall! - Goes right in with my very first gaming memories

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Mr. Do, Space Invaders, Asteroids , Joust.

[Jinks]

Yars, River Raid, Dig Dug, Vanguard, Phoenix, Moon Patrol.

[+Cafeman]

Combat, Pitfall, Megamania.