The 5 Best & Worst Atari 7800 Games As Voted On By 7800 Users

[BassGuitari]

 

The only game without any best or worst votes was Desert Falcon, which I guess would make it the ultimate "Meh" game in a way.

Scrapyard Dog only got "Worst" votes. It has its fans, but none who like it enough to give it Top 5 status.

I feel like Desert Falcon gets forgotten about to a degree. It's not a bad game by any stretch (I think it's pretty good, myself), but people seem to prefer the Centipedes and Ballblazers and Ms. Pac-Mans.

 

Scrapyard Dog is just kind of weird to me. For starters, what's the deal with the goofy guy with the giant, infected-looking nose? It's like he got stung on the nose by a hundred hornets. Anyway, the game just looks and feels generic. The 7800's twilight titles seem to run hot and cold in that department: one on hand you have really good, wildly original titles like Midnight Mutants and Ninja Golf or really good (if sometimes blatant) clones of other games like Alien Brigade (Operation: Wolf) and Basketbrawl (Archrivals), and then on the other hand you have these generic, middle-of-the-road, greatest-common-denominator games like Scrapyard Dog and Planet Smashers which aren't really bad but don't stand out in any meaningful way.

 

(I actually like Planet Smashers but I suck at it.)

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

The only game without any best or worst votes was Desert Falcon, which I guess would make it the ultimate "Meh" game in a way.

Scrapyard Dog only got "Worst" votes. It has its fans, but none who like it enough to give it Top 5 status.

I didn't get to try this one because Atari2600.com was out of stock when I attempted to order it years ago when I first started collecting. I think I may have later picked a used copy somewhere though, need to pop this one in sometime...

 

I feel like Desert Falcon gets forgotten about to a degree. It's not a bad game by any stretch (I think it's pretty good, myself), but people seem to prefer the Centipedes and Ballblazers and Ms. Pac-Mans.

 

Scrapyard Dog is just kind of weird to me. For starters, what's the deal with the goofy guy with the giant, infected-looking nose? It's like he got stung on the nose by a hundred hornets. Anyway, the game just looks and feels generic. The 7800's twilight titles seem to run hot and cold in that department: one on hand you have really good, wildly original titles like Midnight Mutants and Ninja Golf or really good (if sometimes blatant) clones of other games like Alien Brigade (Operation: Wolf) and Basketbrawl (Archrivals), and then on the other hand you have these generic, middle-of-the-road, greatest-common-denominator games like Scrapyard Dog and Planet Smashers which aren't really bad but don't stand out in any meaningful way.

 

(I actually like Planet Smashers but I suck at it.)

I actually picked up Planet Smashers a while back. It's a bit on the brutal side, but not terrible.

 

Having played Scrapyard Dog on 7800 and JJ & Jeff on the Turbografx, both are cultish but generic platforming games with slightly bad physics, but I prefer JJ & jeff immensely.

 

Scrapyard Dog would have been a forgotten trashcan if it released on the NES bitd, but it stands out as being one of the only side-scroling scrolling platformers on the 7800. I think they could have done better. Plenty of examples of scrolling games on 7800, both vertical and horizontal, to show that a better platformer should have been possible. Commando makes an excellent run-n-gun for instance.

[Trebor]

Having played Scrapyard Dog on 7800 and JJ & Jeff on the Turbografx, both are cultish but generic platforming games with slightly bad physics, but I prefer JJ & jeff immensely.

 

Scrapyard Dog would have been a forgotten trashcan if it released on the NES bitd, but it stands out as being one of the only side-scroling scrolling platformers on the 7800. I think they could have done better. Plenty of examples of scrolling games on 7800, both vertical and horizontal, to show that a better platformer should have been possible. Commando makes an excellent run-n-gun for instance.

 

They definitely could have done better with Scrapyard Dog. Kevin's hack (Download from the HHDP archive), that improves graphics and adds infinite lives, helps the game considerably; especially in view of the game's original "continue" feature not taking you to the beginning of a Level, but to the beginning of the World.

 

The way continues are handled wouldn't be so brutal if the game had implemented a Vitality bar like JJ & Jeff, which takes many-several hits for the player to lose a life against enemies/obstacles. Under Scrapyard Dog, it's essentially two hits and you're out with no easy obtainable 'power-up' opportunities throughout the level.

 

POKEY sound for a more elaborate background melody, of course, would also have been a big plus.

[DracIsBack]

 

Expand it to Top 10 Games, and Desert Falcon would make at least my list.

 

I'd probably extend the same courtesy to Scrapyard Dog myself.

[AtariKid81]

Once again, I feel the need to stick up for Impossible Mission. The fixed version, I'd place nowhere near the bottom five. It's a decent port.

Impossible Mission rocks! I've played this more hours than any other 7800 game. The graphics and sounds are great. Game mechanics are flawless(as far as I'm concerned).

I do understand why people are disappointed by it, due to the "bug" - but a "Dishonorable Mention"?! I just can't see it.

[+save2600]

Yeah, the game Impossible Mission in and of itself isn't flawed per se (besides the stupid 7800 bug), but was a good enough game that it called for a sequel - on computers of the time at least.

[+thegoldenband]

Well, the bug is sort of unforgivable, since it puts a player who tries to beat the game in the unenviable position of Charlie Brown vs. Lucy and the football. But the fixed version of Impossible Mission is a fine game.

[BydoEmpire]

I get why people don't like Hat Trick, but I'm a little surprised it was so high on the worst list. It doesn't look good, of course, but it's very playable and there's fun to be had. I think this is one of those games that got a lot of votes because it's so common. I don't think it's nearly as bad as a lot of other games. Diff'rent strokes and all that...

 

I loved the short clip of Karateka in the "worst" video - it sums up the game so perfectly.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I came extremely close to buying Karateka on Atari2600.com at one point; glad I dodged that bullet!

[Dauber]

Hey, about a year ago I bought a CIB Karateka in excellent condition for $3 at Sean Kelly's store. People told me I got ripped off.

[DracIsBack]

Hey, about a year ago I bought a CIB Karateka in excellent condition for $3 at Sean Kelly's store. People told me I got ripped off.

 

I have extra hate for Karateka partly because it represented a bigger letdown for me. We didn't have a computer when I was a kid, so I regularly played computer games on the computers of friends. I had played Karateka many times on the Apple IIe and loved it.

 

I was so excited when I got the 7800 because - now - with a console - I was going to be able to play great computer games that I loved without needing a computer.

 

I had planned to buy Karateka with the system when I bought it, but it was sold out. I ended up getting Xevious instead (which I loved). When it finally got in stock, I took a 45 minute bus ride to pick it up and same home after saving my paper route money.

 

Well - you can imagine my horror when I plugged it in. Animated sequences ... almost all gone. Kicking doors, falling gates and breaking bricks .... gone. The random number of guards based upon speed ... gone. The cool hawk was replaced by a drunken duck that you couldn't hit.

 

But worst of all - the horrific, horrific control. Tap. Wait two seconds. Man kicks. Tap, wait to seconds, man kicks.

 

My buddy who had the Apple II had become a big NES fan. He didn't believe that "An Atari" would be any good. He liked Pole Position II a lot. But Karateka? He tried that and said it was an abysmal, awful, unplayable piece of shit.

 

And he was right.