How come a lot getting into retro games skip Atari?

[Gentlegamer]

I keep telling the kids that Tank Pong is the greatest game ever made, but they won't listen.

[YANDMAN]

People are stupid and overlook the beauty of these machines based purely on the fact that the games are graphically not as strong , bad graphics = bad games right??

 

There is something magical about just putting an atari cart into a system, there is an interaction you dont feel with other systems and i say that as someone who owns most of them.

 

I personally was slow to take it up, i have only been playing and collecting Atari for about seven years i guess, but its something everyone needs to try...............once you do you'll never stop.

[BassGuitari]

Except Mario Bros was released as a second wave famicom launch title in the fall of 1983. The same year the VCS version came out. So, no. you are still wrong.

Bull. Nintendo only licensed their arcade IP Mario bros and Donkey Kong and DK Jr and Popeye to Atari and other consoles because they were not in the console market at the time, least in the US. Sans some obscure educational PC titles like Mario teaches typing or the crappy and forgettable Phillips CDi titles, and potential future "mobile apps," name one instance where Nintendo licensed their IP on another gaming platform? Yes, I did just list several exceptions, but my point is Nintendo as a general rule doesn't license their IP to third party game platforms...

Don't mind High Voltage. If ever there was an Atari fanboy, he's it. And he'll seldom miss an opportunity to let you know it.

 

Thinking that people would buy shit in a cart simply because it had the Atari logo on it.

As was touched on earlier, part of the problem with the 2600--and by extension the North American console industry since the 2600 was the biggest player--was that most of the shit *didn't* have an Atari logo on it. Anybody and their brother could make something that barely passed for a game on the 2600 and sell it, and Atari couldn't stop them. This was rectified with the 5200, but Atari's complete mishandling of the 5200 made that moot.

 

That, I think is what really causes the kids my generation...to really dismiss companies like Atari, like Mattel. etc. Atari to us, represented the old guard. The old timers who simply could not forsee that that the public would want something new to sink their teeth into.

That's a fair assessment. It's impossible to argue (unless you're High Voltage, who'll find a way, or make one up ) that the NES didn't represent a generational break and the birth of a new era. You even see the same thing, to some extent, with people who love the Colecovision and Atari 2600 but can't dig into the Odyssey 2 and Channel F.

 

I'm not sure it's fair to say they couldn't see that people wanted something new, though. Every industry is predicated on evolution. There were games released during the Crash (or just after, due to delay on the part of said Crash) which were steps beyond the kinds of games that oversaturated the market to begin with. H.E.R.O., for example, or Hover Force on the Intellivision. None of them were as epoch-making as Super Mario Bros, obviously, but the "old guard" knew things had to move on. It wasn't that they weren't trying, or that there weren't new games, it's that they weren't quite "new" enough, whereas Nintendo's flagship games were revelations.

Edited November 20, 2015 by BassGuitari

[forrestsmith]

Heck I skiped the NES and sell the ones I do find I really don't get the fascination with Mario and all that jazz, but I never watched cartoons either

 

Forrest

[high voltage]

Don't mind High Voltage. If ever there was an Atari fanboy, he's it. And he'll seldom miss an opportunity to let you know it.

 

 

As was touched on earlier, part of the problem with the 2600--and by extension the North American console industry since the 2600 was the biggest player--was that most of the shit *didn't* have an Atari logo on it. Anybody and their brother could make something that barely passed for a game on the 2600 and sell it, and Atari couldn't stop them. This was rectified with the 5200, but Atari's complete mishandling of the 5200 made that moot.

 

 

That's a fair assessment. It's impossible to argue (unless you're High Voltage, who'll find a way, or make one up ) that the NES didn't represent a generational break and the birth of a new era. You even see the same thing, to some extent, with people who love the Colecovision and Atari 2600 but can't dig into the Odyssey 2 and Channel F.

I'm not sure it's fair to say they couldn't see that people wanted something new, though. Every industry is predicated on evolution. There were games released during the Crash (or just after, due to delay on the part of said Crash) which were steps beyond the kinds of games that oversaturated the market to begin with. H.E.R.O., for example, or Hover Force on the Intellivision. None of them were as epoch-making as Super Mario Bros, obviously, but the "old guard" knew things had to move on. It wasn't that they weren't trying, or that there weren't new games, it's that they weren't quite "new" enough, whereas Nintendo's flagship games were revelations.

 

I'm thinking!

[empsolo]

Don't mind High Voltage. If ever there was an Atari fanboy, he's it. And he'll seldom miss an opportunity to let you know it.

 

As was touched on earlier, part of the problem with the 2600--and by extension the North American console industry since the 2600 was the biggest player--was that most of the shit *didn't* have an Atari logo on it. Anybody and their brother could make something that barely passed for a game on the 2600 and sell it, and Atari couldn't stop them. This was rectified with the 5200, but Atari's complete mishandling of the 5200 made that moot.

While this was true for the most part, Atari inc by the time of the Crash had begun to really slip in terms of QA. We see rused titles forced out by Atari execs so they could capitalize on holiday sales and beat the other guys to the punch. In a few cases, they put out either a badly designed game or a half-finished prototype instead of letting guys like Warshaw take thier time and deliver a quality product for the consumers. I'm of the opinion that Warner didn't care about the consumer and really only cared about turning a fast buck.

 

That's a fair assessment. It's impossible to argue (unless you're High Voltage, who'll find a way, or make one up ) that the NES didn't represent a generational break and the birth of a new era. You even see the same thing, to some extent, with people who love the Colecovision and Atari 2600 but can't dig into the Odyssey 2 and Channel F.

 

I'm not sure it's fair to say they couldn't see that people wanted something new, though. Every industry is predicated on evolution. There were games released during the Crash (or just after, due to delay on the part of said Crash) which were steps beyond the kinds of games that oversaturated the market to begin with. H.E.R.O., for example, or Hover Force on the Intellivision. None of them were as epoch-making as Super Mario Bros, obviously, but the "old guard" knew things had to move on. It wasn't that they weren't trying, or that there weren't new games, it's that they weren't quite "new" enough, whereas Nintendo's flagship games were revelations.

True, the were some pretty cool experimental stuff on the the older systems. But here's the thing though, outside of Coleco with Donkey Kong, nobody really tried to market the hell out of those games and make them the forefront of those systems. What did we see as the pack in title for the later systems from the 2600 going forward? The 5200? It had Super Break-out and Pac-Man as the pack-in. The 7800? It had Pole Position II. The Lynx had California Games, and the Intellivision had Blackjack and Astrosmash.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

This statement pretty much sums up the issue better than most realize. (I'm focusing on the word "arcade")

 

Look at it this way. If you were born in 1990, your chances of being exposed to arcades is very low. Almost non-existent. Most arcades were gone by the late 1990's. For those of us who grew up with arcades (you were most likely born before 1983 and some may say even soon than that) you most likely walked or road your bike to the local arcades. That would mean (I'm guessing) you were at least 10 years old before you were doing this (in my case I was 11 which would be about 1984). Before the NES (if your only exposure was arcades and consoles) you would have only known "arcade style video games", but we didn't call them that. They were just "video games".

 

The NES for the most part is non arcade like games and younger gamers don't get the concept of an arcade style video game. That's what the majority of titles in the pre-crash game systems were. There for, they see them as not having a point to the game. Why play a game with no end? Younger gamers expect some kind of reward (like the ending of a game). Playing for points doesn't get you anything. If you then add on all the misinformation about the crash, you get the attitude that Atari sucks by many (not all) younger gamers.

 

It really is a generational gap because, the industry did change greatly after the crash in the way games were meant to be played.

 

Yes, I know this is a generalization (and there are always exceptions) but, for the most part I believe this to be true.

 

Think of it like classic cars. Many of us would like a muscle car (GTO, Road Runner, Cuda, Mustang), but how many of us would really like a "model T", or a "model A". Younger gamers see the NES as a classic muscle car and see Atari (INTV, Coleco, OD2) as model T's. Just old and crusty.

Or you had frugal parents like I did. I was born in 1981 and did enter arcades as a kid, but only to watch others play. Post 2000 or so, nearly all the so-called "mall arcades" were just ticket redemption devices where you spend $20 or so on tokens and if you're lucky, you won enough tickets to redeem a dollar store prize. Like it or not, this is what arcades have regressed to.

 

And regarding the NES, since all my friends had one growing up and I just wanted to fit in, I begged my parents every Christmas for an NES. I did not finally get one of my own until I was an adult. NES is still clearly the king of retro gaming systems in the eyes of collectors and most start out with either the NES or SNES before branching out. But few ever regress to the primitive blips and beeps and jaggy rectangles of Atari.

 

I've had quite a few local retro gaming friends over the years, but the NES was as far back as any of them ever went in terms of systems they were interested in. Every time I asked any of them why they weren't interested in the Atari 2600, the result was always the same: "The graphics are too primitive." While any seasoned gamer knows that graphics aren't everything, I think there's just this general consensus among a large portion of retro gamers that anything produced earlier than the NES doesn't have enough graphical power to make recognizable characters and interesting games. People around this forum definitely know that not to be true, but it does seem to be the popular opinion among most retro gaming enthusiasts these days.

I know. I even followed this mindset for ten years as an active retro gamer...

 

Heck I skiped the NES and sell the ones I do find I really don't get the fascination with Mario and all that jazz, but I never watched cartoons either

 

Forrest

You haven't lived until you owned the complete hybrid animation/live action Super Mario Bros Super Show series on DVD:

http://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-Bros-Show/dp/B000BSZAG0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448059463&sr=8-1&keywords=super+mario+bros+super+show

The complete series consists of two 4-disc boxed sets, which include several unaired cartoon shorts under bonus materials. Kind of cult classic type material. It's funny how much they got wrong from the games, like inverted color pallets and stuff. The later series based on Super Mario 3 had bad scripting and rubbish animation although Super Mario World from the early 90s was decent.

[AtariORdead]

As much as I loved and still love the Atari 2600 you have to accept that in terms of how the games look and feel they are a lot more primitive.

 

there is no point getting upset by it, some of us can enjoy the games, but I can totally see why to a lot of games its just that one little step too far back.

[bretthorror]

It doesn't help that most kids who start with retro gaming are probably avid AVGN fans and probably don't really get his character. I do think his reach goes further than anything in retro gaming and influences people in ways I don't think he always intends. If you're 15 and into retro gaming and take the time to read anything, you're going to get a slanted perspective most times. It takes a long time to figure out that what the average person believes is just the same thing they saw in a YouTube video. If you're 15 and happen to be the anti-Call of Duty and play NES as a smite, you're gonna listen to the Youtubers as gospel, just like if you're 15 and wanna piss off your parents because they wouldn't let you stay out past 11, so you start smoking 'cause the 20 year old giving you a cig says it's cool. I've always been into horror movies, but upon getting the internet, my interest got exponential. I considered those who had more knowledge and had seen more movies than me as sort of elders. Well, eventually I caught up and surpassed them and saw how full of crap a lot of them really were. Hobbies take time to really understand, but at the time, learning what they did know was a major help to me.

 

On the contrary of getting upset that retro gamers skip Atari, lest we forget Atari fans and other fans skipped a lot of things that came after it. In today's indie game world, Steam has insane, great games for a buck in bundles that are perfect retro experiences, but a lot of fans still don't care about them.

 

 

Or you had frugal parents like I did. I was born in 1981 and did enter arcades as a kid, but only to watch others play. Post 2000 or so, nearly all the so-called "mall arcades" were just ticket redemption devices where you spend $20 or so on tokens and if you're lucky, you won enough tickets to redeem a dollar store prize. Like it or not, this is what arcades have regressed to.

 

And regarding the NES, since all my friends had one growing up and I just wanted to fit in, I begged my parents every Christmas for an NES. I did not finally get one of my own until I was an adult. NES is still clearly the king of retro gaming systems in the eyes of collectors and most start out with either the NES or SNES before branching out. But few ever regress to the primitive blips and beeps and jaggy rectangles of Atari.

 

I know. I even followed this mindset for ten years as an active retro gamer...

 

 

You bring up an amazing point with the arcades. From what I understand about the early 80s arcades, they were teen hangout joints, which makes totally perfect sense why people of that era have so many memories of the arcade - they had a part time job in high school to buy beer, play arcade games and whatever you had to buy a broad to give you a tug every weekend. They were better times. However, I am with you, my fondest arcade memories were in the pool area at a Super 8. They had maybe 5-6 cabs, a pinball machine and a claw machine. Like you, all I fucking remember is begging for quarters from my mom and watching people play. Don't get me wrong, my parents would always give me a buck or two every weekend we'd go down there, but fuck, even 2 bucks probably didn't last me 5 minutes.

[BassGuitari]

I'm thinking!

You're a good sport.

 

While this was true for the most part, Atari inc by the time of the Crash had begun to really slip in terms of QA. We see rused titles forced out by Atari execs so they could capitalize on holiday sales and beat the other guys to the punch. In a few cases, they put out either a badly designed game or a half-finished prototype instead of letting guys like Warshaw take thier time and deliver a quality product for the consumers. I'm of the opinion that Warner didn't care about the consumer and really only cared about turning a fast buck.

But how many examples of such rush jobs were there, really? (This is an honest question.) Besides Pac-Man and E.T., which everyone knows, or maybe Raiders of The Lost Ark. Defender, maybe? I'd argue that if QA was an afterthought at Atari--and I'm not completely convinced that's true, despite a few high-profile examples to the contrary--then they were fast on their way to rectifying that; most of Atari's 2600 titles from the end of 1982 onward were, by most accounts, pretty good. Look at Centipede, Galaxian, Phoenix, Vanguard, Ms. Pac-Man, Millipede, Battlezone, Joust, Stargate, etc. Those silver-label titles were as good as anything Activision or Imagic were doing (except the Swordquest games, those suck ). I can't think of a 5200 game Atari released that I would objectively call "bad."

 

True, the were some pretty cool experimental stuff on the the older systems. But here's the thing though, outside of Coleco with Donkey Kong, nobody really tried to market the hell out of those games and make them the forefront of those systems. What did we see as the pack in title for the later systems from the 2600 going forward? The 5200? It had Super Break-out and Pac-Man as the pack-in. The 7800? It had Pole Position II. The Lynx had California Games, and the Intellivision had Blackjack and Astrosmash.

Can't argue with you there. Atari/Corp. really knew how to shit the bed with its pack-in games. From Super Breakout (5200), Pole Position II (7800), and the trifecta of Missile Command, Bug Hunt, and Flight Simulator II (XEGS) to Cybermorph (Jaguar) and Blue Lightning (Jaguar CD), there's quite a rap sheet there. At least the 5200 later came with Pac-Man, but the damage was done.

 

In Mattel's defense, Astrosmash was arguably the Intellivision's killer app for a time. Mattel didn't have the arcade licenses Atari did and the Intellivision didn't really have any third-party support until 1982. They started bundling Burgertime (one of the few notable arcade licenses they were able to secure) with the Intellivision II, so at least they were trying.

[Philflound]

Can't say how much I love the vintage 1980s computer games too. Used to play my C64 all the time. When I finally move and get settled, I'll probably break out the old disks again. In the meantime, DOSBOX has me going on some vintage hits.

 

I actually picked up Pool of Radiance 2 the other day. Though it's 2001, it's still sort of vintage and I had issues with it on my computer, which is now 5 years old. Had to manipulate some things and now it sort of runs right, but not completely. I wish I could play the old games the way they were meant. I don't know if I have some of my older computers. Will find out when I move and pack everything.

 

I remember having a pong system before Atari. Probably 1976 or somewhere along those lines. Not sure what brand it was, since I was just 6 at that time. But it was fun. Though we were limited with time because of the screen burning and such I remember.

[empsolo]

You're a good sport.

 

 

But how many examples of such rush jobs were there, really? (This is an honest question.) Besides Pac-Man and E.T., which everyone knows, or maybe Raiders of The Lost Ark. Defender, maybe? I'd argue that if QA was an afterthought at Atari--and I'm not completely convinced that's true,

Atari was good at doing with what they had. Most of the time. Yeah, sure. We could talk about arguably poor arcade ports that Atari put thier logo on. Like the ports of Zaxxon, Donkey Kong and JR, Empire Strikes Back, etc. However, by 1982 Warner execs were willing to shell out for multi-milion dollar contracts that secured the rights to popular movie franchises like the Indiana Jones Series, like ET, as well as popular games like Pac-Man and demanded that those games be out in six weeks in order to meet holiday sales. Furthermore, Warner would have data-caps on the size of the cartridges, which would really put a hamper on the quality of the product. Hell, they would even skimp out on doing any sort of play testing before the release of ET and Pac-man.

 

And then, that same holiday season, Atari released the 5200. A pretty much maligned console for it's non-centering joysticks and tendency for the fire buttons to break. Not to mention, the pretty wierd way you hook the damn thing up to the tv and plug it in. I mean, the power running through the RF BOX? Seriously?

 

I think the point I'm trying to make is that Atari was hurt in the realm of public perception in 1983 for it's triple whammy of poor decisions. The fact that Atari dropped a new console that was, in some respects, of a poor quality build next to the competition and predecessors is one thing. The fact they released it on top of releasing some terrible major first party titles during a major holiday season and had a seeming inability to control the quality of games that had the offficial Atari logo......(I'm looking at you Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Zaxxon, Defender, etc) I would argue was what would destroy Atari's reputation going forward. At least with people of my generation.

despite a few high-profile examples to the contrary--then they were fast on their way to rectifying that; most of Atari's 2600 titles from the end of 1982 onward were, by most accounts, pretty good. Look at Centipede, Galaxian, Phoenix, Vanguard, Ms. Pac-Man, Millipede, Battlezone, Joust, Stargate, etc. Those silver-label titles were as good as anything Activision or Imagic were doing (except the Swordquest games, those suck ). I can't think of a 5200 game Atari released that I would objectively call "bad."

True, the 5200 games would learn from the harsh lessons of the 1982 Christmas season. The problem is that the 5200 was a terribly maligned console for some pretty legitimate reasons and and the games themselves were nothing more than more expensive do-overs from the year before. Though the sysem did had some stinkers though. I remember reading how Galaxian and Gorf weren't all that hot as was Countermeasures. But all in all, the 5200 had much better games, but they suffer from the fact that most of the games are simply just more expensive, marginally better ports of existing titles. That and the industry began to crash around it in 1983.

Edited November 21, 2015 by empsolo

[high voltage]

Most of Atari silver box range was of excellent quality.

 

And griping on about bad Atari games, every console out there had those, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, just look at the quantity of rubbish games on the PSX, but of course, Sony had 1000s of games on that console, VCS had like what ~500 in its lifetime? FamicomNES had so many bad games. A friend of mine said his favourite games on FamicomNES were like SMB, Duck Hunt, Zelda plus a handful more. His mother always rented Nintendo games from some video store. They were play testet only to find out they were garbage, put back on the kitchen table to be returned, and off I went playing Zelda etc again. You really just played the certain same games on NES over and over.

 

And Virtual Boy was Nintendo's 5200, every console maker on the planet released 'bad' consoles.

Edited November 21, 2015 by high voltage

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

And Virtual Boy was Nintendo's 5200, every console maker on the planet released 'bad' consoles.

5200 may have been a commercial flop, but it's no Virtual Boy. 5200, 7800, and Lynx were all soft flops. Each sold in numbers and had a decent library. Jaguar on the other hand floped hard. But words cannot even describe the level of fail that is the Virtual Boy. Best summed up in this rocket launch video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BldHM3NfIw

[high voltage]

And funny thing is, I owned a VB at one stage (the shop sold it for $29,99 a bargain to good to miss) and 10 or so games, I really enjoyed it.

Edited November 21, 2015 by high voltage

[empsolo]

Most of Atari silver box range was of excellent quality.

 

And griping on about bad Atari games, every console out there had those, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, just look at the quantity of rubbish games on the PSX, but of course, Sony had 1000s of games on that console, VCS had like what ~500 in its lifetime? FamicomNES had so many bad games.

The really bad NES games were generally relegated to games put out by LJN and the main Acclaim titles. Generally, most of the shit NES titles were put out by one or two western developers looking to make a fast buck on them. Which is generally true for any system. (Even the much vaunted and beloved Sega Genesis was not immune from this despite the"Sega Seal of Quality".) And they were derided mostly for really punishing difficulty and awkward stage design, rather than problems games not booting at all or games that are literally impossible to finish. (IE impossible mission on the 7800.)

 

Plus the youtube community tends to ape the AVGN's in character "criticisms" of NES titles without actually doing some critical thinking on thier part. It's one of the reasons why the AVGN did the Zelda II video.

 

 

 

A friend of mine said his favourite games on FamicomNES were like SMB, Duck Hunt, Zelda plus a handful more. His mother always rented Nintendo games from some video store. They were play testet only to find out they were garbage, put back on the kitchen table to be returned, and off I went playing Zelda etc again. You really just played the certain same games on NES over and over.

I enoyed a lot of non-Nintendo first party titles as a kid. I used to walk down to the rental shop in town which only a block a way from my house and pick up NES titles on the week end. I remember loving the crap out of the NES version of North and South, Fester's Quest (which is isn't a bad game, if you know what you are doing), Quantum Kabuki Fighter, Bionic Commando, Blades of Steel, and RBI Baseball, and a few others.

 

 

And Virtual Boy was Nintendo's 5200, every console maker on the planet released 'bad' consoles.

The Virtual Boy's problem was that it was released way too soon and and was more of a novelty than anything.Although, I never got the backlash that the Virtual Boy ended up getting. I remember reading some ads and playing around with a Virtual Boy Kiosk at a Toys R Us and I actually enjoyed some of the Virtual Boy games like that Mario Bros remake but never really payed much attention to it.

Edited November 21, 2015 by empsolo

[+KaeruYojimbo]

We could talk about arguably poor arcade ports that Atari put thier logo on. Like the ports of Zaxxon, Donkey Kong and JR, Empire Strikes Back, etc.

 

None of those were actually made by Atari (Zaxxon and DK Jr. were released by Coleco, Empire Strikes Back by Parker Bros, and it isn't an arcade port). Zaxxon is actually a pretty fun game on it's own merits, but as a port it's terrible. ESB was one of the earliest (maybe the earliest?) uses of parallax scrolling. Not the most inventive gameplay, but not a horrible game.

 

Donkey Kong Jr. is garbage.

 

Why are you willing to forgive Nintendo for the bad third party games released for the NES, but so eager to blame Atari for everything released for the VCS? While Atari had absolutely no control over the games released by third parties, NES games had to be approved and manufactured by Nintendo, regardless of the developer.

 

I guess you need to do a little more "critical thinking" on your part.

[empsolo]

 

None of those were actually made by Atari (Zaxxon and DK Jr. were released by Coleco, Empire Strikes Back by Parker Bros, and it isn't an arcade port). Zaxxon is actually a pretty fun game on it's own merits, but as a port it's terrible. ESB was one of the earliest (maybe the earliest?) uses of parallax scrolling. Not the most inventive gameplay, but not a horrible game.

 

Donkey Kong Jr. is garbage.

 

Why are you willing to forgive Nintendo for the bad third party games released for the NES, but so eager to blame Atari for everything released for the VCS? While Atari had absolutely no control over the games released by third parties, NES games had to be approved and manufactured by Nintendo, regardless of the developer.

 

I guess you need to do a little more "critical thinking" on your part.

Because, for the most part, a lot of the"shitty" NES games were still pretty fun to play even if they were extremely punishing affairs. They weren't completely broken or unplayable like many games for earlier formats. It also helped that most of the truly egregious offenders like Action 52 and Wisdom Tree's stuff were kept to Christian Bookstores and third hand electronics stores.

Edited November 21, 2015 by empsolo

[high voltage]

Nevertheless an awful load of shitty games on FamicomNES, who did the quality control for Nintendo?

[AtariORdead]

The nes did have a lot of shitty 3rd party games released for it.

 

But lets be honest, the 2600 was flooded, completely flooded by unplayable broken games that should never have been released.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

Because, for the most part, a lot of the"shitty" NES games were still pretty fun to play even if they were extremely punishing affairs. They weren't completely broken or unplayable like many games for earlier formats. It also helped that most of the truly egregious offenders like Action 52 and Wisdom Tree's stuff were kept to Christian Bookstores and third hand electronics stores.

 

That just sounds to me like you giving Nintendo a pass because you prefer the NES. There are plenty of 2600 games I can look at objectively and say are bad but still sit down and play for an hour and legitimately have fun. Zaxxon is a perfect example. The graphics are blocky, it has almost no resemblance to the arcade game, the collision detection is iffy and it gets obnoxiously hard after the fourth time through. I still enjoy playing it. Meanwhile, there are only a handful of my absolute favorite NES games that hold my interest for more than a few minutes at a time. You seem to be saying the same thing, just with the systems the other way around.

 

Honestly, which company is more at fault for the bad third party games released for their console? Atari, who did nothing to prevent a problem that didn't exist when the VCS was released, or Nintendo, who saw what happened to Atari, instituted a bunch of monopolistic policies to control what got released, and still allowed their fair share of bad games through?

[Alp]

I can't speak for others, but as an artist, one of the variables is the lack of pixels. The Atari exclusively used raster-effects, no?

Though, I have considered making an Adventure-styled game in the past.

[empsolo]

Honestly, which company is more at fault for the bad third party games released for their console? Atari, who did nothing to prevent a problem that didn't exist when the VCS was released, or Nintendo, who saw what happened to Atari, instituted a bunch of monopolistic policies to control what got released, and still allowed their fair share of bad games through?

I came into this thread because people were dumping on the NES and here I was giving the perspective of my generation as to why we didn't look to too fondly over the legacy of Atari. And yet I when I try to explain why I or anybody else felt that way, it really dissolves into a pissing contest over who had the worst games. If I really wanted to get into a pissing match, I could retort that atlast the NES titles are playable and that the games are only bad in a certain aesthetic sense. But I won't. The fact of the matter is that people apparently still are bitter that none of the original companies ended up surviving the Crash.

Edited November 21, 2015 by empsolo

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I came into this thread because people were dumping on the NES and here I was giving the perspective of my generation as to why we didn't look to too fondly over the legacy of Atari. And yet I when I try to explain why I or anybody else felt that way, it really dissolves into a pissing contest over who had the worst games. If I really wanted to get into a pissing match, I could retort that atlast the NES titles are playable and that the games are only bad in a certain aesthetic sense. But I won't. The fact of the matter is that people apparently still are bitter that none of the original companies ended up surviving the Crash.

 

I didn't mean to turn this into a pissing match. I read your comments as a Nintendo fanboy dumping on Atari. If I misinterpreted them, that's on me. I'm certainly not bitter. While I have no reverence for Nintendo and find some of their practices questionable, I do recognize that they revived the video game industry, and for that alone they will always be an important part of video game history.

 

It sounds like you've at least spent some time with the 2600 and given it a chance. I think that's all any of us on the Atari side of the fence ask. You don't have to like it, but at least play a few games before you dismiss it. Yes, Atari made some mistakes, but rather than just reading a blog saying E.T. was the worst game ever, written by someone who never actually played E.T., and dismissing an entire generation of gaming, try a few of the other 600 games for the 2600 and come to your own conclusions.

[totallyterrificpants]

I think a big reason why NES is massive with collectors besides nostalgia is that the system had a lot of odd accessories, odd games, the unlicensed games etc. Plus Nintendo dominated pop culture. Watch a show at the time and if they had a video game it was usually the NES. But these to me is why the Atari is awesome, too. Most shows back then had an Atari. In E.T. they had a VCS on top of their TV. However, the episode of Diff'rent Strokes where Arnold and Dudley were being targeted by the creep who owned the bike store, he had an Intellivision in the back of his store...with some wine and Playboys.