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Atari with a 2-year-old


CaptainBreakout

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Minor update...

 

Game night was had Friday. F-ZERO made way lower an impression than I expected.

 

Mostly it was the difficulty... I way forgot that this game is intended for gamers who'd cut their teeth on Atari, and spent much of their formative years on the NES. If you don't know the basics of a controller... this game will ceaselessly embarrass you.

 

Me tho... Well I demonstrated by breezing through Mute City I in 1st place, despite a 20 year absence. Okay, so it's one thing to inspire your kids, it's another to be a jerk. Sometimes one is a jerk unintentionally. This was one of those times.

 

Anyway, after my little demo, the controller was passed around between my two kids and the two visiting kids (ages 6, 4, 3 and 2)... All the cars were sad time bombs with a short fuse.

 

Pretty much everyone wanted to stop playing after they'd each had a turn to watch the bewildering Mode 7 smoldering wreckage of their vehicle.

 

Everyone wanted to go back to playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

 

Oh yeah, we played a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

 

My two-year-old daughter wanted to be Tails the entire time. "Wanted" meaning "delivered ear-splitting screams" if I attempted to take the controller away from her.

 

So the rest of the futon shared Sonic. It was awesome and pathetic at the same time to see my son try to maneuver directly under a robot monkey, so he could jump straight up to knock him out, theoretically. Nine time out of ten, however, he'd walk too far to the left or right and the cyber-monkey would clonk my son with a lobbed coconut.

 

I was trying to be encouraging, but really after watching him over-step back and forth (and either get hit or barely miss) in a constant sequence... Well YOU try to keep from laughing!

 

Hmmm... I think those are the only two games we played. Sorry... The 2600 is currently disconnected while I do a little game center upgrade. You player collectors know how it is.

 

Oh, almost forgot to mention... My daughter, who as I mentioned invoked her screaming seniority to continuously control Tails... She showed an intense side of herself I've never seen (and believe me, she's intense all around). She played with the controller, watched what Tails did, and would occasionally make a cute 2-year-old comment about something she was doing. The whole time with a bemused focused grin on her face.

 

Most of the time, I was reffing Controller 1 (Sonic) amongst the three older boys. So my attention was focused there. Anyway, during a relatively quiet moment while I was sitting still and watching the screen, she stands up, walks up on my lap, and raises her arms up in the air. "I LOVE YOU!" she yells exuberantly and throws her arms around me.

 

Keep in mind she was holding a game controller and is barely 2. This was a soul warming moment, as I'm sure you could understand.

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I wish I had never got a console out in front of my youngest, now coming up to 3 years old. At two he is able to turn a 360 on, replace a disk by opening a dvd packet and turn it on with the controller.

 

My 2600 and 7800 experiences mostly consist of him pressing reset as that causes the most significant change. Teaching him that this is the only console where the label goes away from you when you insert the cartridge has also been difficult. He can with help play some games like pole position (1 and 2) and similar racing games. In fact Mario kart 8 is semi possible too.

 

CD / DVD consoles is also a mixed event, he can handle basic setup ones like 360 with a button for the drive, or the saturn that lifts the lid, I have to watch him with anything more complex (Commodore systems!).

 

He is so used to 360 that he doesn't understand the use of the caddy on the CDTV, he has tried to put entire CD jewel cases in, and has turned it off when I tried to save a sim city game on a floppy drive (needs reformatting now).

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...amazing how "foolproof" game systems have become.....C-64 and other disk/tape computers from the 80's seem so simple to us now, but they were not very forgiving!! I remember first few times i saw a "failsafe"...."ready to format.....Are You Sure Y/N?" that was it....no turning back, no rollback, no MS updates or recovery....YOU HAD TO KNOW WHAT YOU WERE DOING BACK THEN!!!!

 

Yet i miss the feeling of "complete control" over a system....

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  • 4 years later...

I have started to introduce my two and a half year old daughter to gaming and I thought Atari 2600 woud be a good place to start, after all that's where I started. After a quick search for good Atari 2600 games for my toddler I ended up here, I should have just searched here anyway!

 

We played a little Conquest of Mars on my laptop, newly purchased ROM, USB adapter with real Atari joystick, she likes it, it has made the best impression. Her squeals of delight at blasting a few things in a row, and her "Oh no!" when we die are really fun.  She holds the joystick andI  help her steer whilst she spams fire. 

 

She wasn't keen on River Raid, shame, will try again, and Air Sea Battle didn't land as I expected, perhaps we will try that one again too. I plan to mostly play on the 2600 Plus on the TV, but have been trying out ROMS on my laptop to see what captures her imagination. Any new suggestions?

 

I just picked up a driving controller and Indy 500 (currently have to use the old woody until it’s compatible with the Plus) and I think that the single player game where you collect the boxes (Or whatever they are meant to be! haha) could be a fun family pass the controller type game, how many boxes can you pick up in the time limit mode, great fun.

 

Edited by JetmanUK
Typos, missed words, as always!
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