Atariperson23 Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 In this post, make sure to drop some personal unpopular opinions about the 2600. It can be about the games, the console itself, the hardware, or even the company itself... I'll start... -Pitfall II is overrated (without the music, the game is just a far longer, more "underground" version of Pitfall-the motive is still the same: dodge bats and animals, collect treasure) -Most 4K/8K games are "better" than 16K games (16K games focus a lot on fancy graphics and music and all that, but 4K/8K games focus on making gameplay fun due to limited space) -Ray Kassar was the best fit for Atari (he helped bring it to relevance in 1979-1982, and created a lot of hit games- however, he was too authoritarian with his employees) And finally... - The great video game "crash" of '82-'83 wasn't that serious. You could still get new video games in '83-'84 from Atari, Activision... the reason so many companies died is because they just weren't innovative enough. People just lost interest in the 2600 eventually, and they wanted something new... and Atari didn't give them anything new (besides the 5200-7800), which is why they fell off so badly. These are just a few unpopular opinions, looking forward to hearing some really interesting ones soon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Atari_Warlord Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 E.T. is actually a fun game. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 8 hours ago, Atariperson23 said: Ray Kassar was the best fit for Atari (he helped bring it to relevance in 1979-1982, and created a lot of hit games- however, he was too authoritarian with his employees) Well as awful as he was, he does have the best track record of all Atari CEOs as far as I can tell 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CapitanClassic Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 @Atariperson23, your second claim about 4K/8K versus 16K would be difficult to prove. There just weren’t that many 16K games, but there are tons of 4K/8K games. The 16K games appear to be mostly arcade ports, and have good gameplay. As a percentage, I don’t think that the 4K/8K games would have as many hits (I.e. all the shovelware would likely be 4K games). Of the 25 games below, how many have good gameplay? (I would venture at least half) http://www.classic-games.com/atari2600/bankswitch.html Dig Dug, Crystal Castles, Stargate/Defender II, Millipede, Jr. Pac-Man, Midnight Magic, Realsports Boxing, Solaris, Crossbow, Desert Falcon Dark Chambers, Super Baseball, Super Football, Sprintmaster, Double Dunk, Fatal Run, Secret Quest, Commando, River Raid II, Double Dragon, Winter Games, Summer Games, California Games, MOTU: Power of He-Man, Burgertime The video game crash of “83 was a big deal. 93% of the market shriveled up. There were likely many causes of the crash, but I would argue the biggest cause is that too many companies saw it as a way to get rich quick and flooded the market with horrible games. When that happened, and they couldn’t make back their investment, stores liquidated their stock, causing better games to not be able to sell as well (who wants to pay $30 for a game when so many are $5 each). The computer price wars probably didn’t help video game sales either. Similar to 1994, there were too many incompatible platforms (PS1, Saturn, 3DO, ….) and consumers didn’t know which platform was going to succeed before spending their money. Many people went on to buy 8-bit computers, but video games wouldn’t start to gain back large market share of entertainment dollars until several years after Nintendo entered the video game market. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Most Activision games are boring simple games that dazzled us with fancy graphics. Especially the early ones. They good stuff later on, but Freeway? Sky Jinks? Barnstorming? They are barely even games and the fun doesn't hold up 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Strawberry Shortcake: Magical Musical Mixups was the pinnacle of interactive entertainment. It’s all been downhill since then. 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 The Atari 2600 was the only system to ever do dungeon crawling right. It’s dark and confusing and you can’t see. No system since was ever able to replicate the experience as well. 2 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+jgkspsx Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 (I'm not saying I hold these opinions necessarily, but they are unpopular ) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 2 hours ago, Atari_Warlord said: E.T. is actually a fun game. I had to: 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Frogs and Flies is my go-to two-player game, and can be a lot of fun. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 ET is just "Haunted House" reskinned. Find 3 pieces of an object (plus a 4th 'magical' object) Avoid the 'spooks' and escape! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 10 hours ago, Atariperson23 said: -Pitfall II is overrated (without the music, the game is just a far longer, more "underground" version of Pitfall-the motive is still the same: dodge bats and animals, collect treasure) Totally agree. And I didn't even like the first Pitfall, despite the raving reviews it got. It wasn't a flight simulator. So there! 10 hours ago, Atariperson23 said: -Most 4K/8K games are "better" than 16K games (16K games focus a lot on fancy graphics and music and all that, but 4K/8K games focus on making gameplay fun due to limited space) Agree again. The 2600 had limited graphics ability to begin with, so pushing graphics at the expense of gameplay wasn't my cup of tea. Was nice to try the flavors however. 10 hours ago, Atariperson23 said: - The great video game "crash" of '82-'83 wasn't that serious. You could still get new video games in '83-'84 from Atari, Activision... the reason so many companies died is because they just weren't innovative enough. Right. I saw it as a transition from cartridge based systems to disk based systems. Consoles to computers. Never mind several home systems could already accept 4 kinds of media. Tape, Disk, Cart, Type-in. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 3 hours ago, zzip said: Most Activision games are boring simple games that dazzled us with fancy graphics. Laser Blast suckedadickus. To me as a kid it was one of those games where you randomly died. No indication that the enemy was preparing to fire. Any "skill" I could muster wasn't good enough. There's a term for this sort of gameplay. Cheap death? Was that it? 3 hours ago, zzip said: Barnstorming? Barnstorming was good, it had airplanes in it. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mushroom Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 The 2600 sucks. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keithbk Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 I hate the Atari 2600 factory joysticks. Their internals are too complicated, they wear out, and they're sloppy. Give me a Slik Stik ANY day! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 24 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said: The 2600 sucks. Found the Coleco Gemini owner! 8 minutes ago, keithbk said: I hate the Atari 2600 factory joysticks. Their internals are too complicated, they wear out, and they're sloppy. I hate that they self-center, I mean who though that was a good idea? If you want to get through all 255 screens in Pitfall in a single session, you hand is going to be hurting from pushing left by the end of it. And Asteroids is a much better game if you can let your ship spin constantly! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mushroom Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 1 minute ago, zzip said: Found the Coleco Gemini owner! The Atari 2600 was the first console we had, and it was great in its day, but now I think it sucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 If you took the color scheme and sound effects from 2600 Pac-man and applied them to 2600 Donkey Kong, you'd have the perfect home port! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynicaster Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Arcade ports on the 2600 are pointless and painful to play nowadays and are thus best left in the past. (at least, I think this is an unpopular opinion amongst 2600 fans...) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiddlepaddle Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 Games shouldn't be rated by popularity. (btw, I like Barnstorming and Freeway, and find Pitfall boring) 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrTrust Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 - Pac-Man on the 2600 was an adequate port and a fine game in its own right. They didn't butcher the gameplay or graphics any worse than they did with Defender, Asteroids, or Missile Command, and your personal story of how profoundly disappointed you were when you got it is fake and I will never believe it. - The aggregate level of quality of "fly by night" third party companies was as high if not higher than those of Atari/Activision/Imagic on the 2600. - Atari/Activision/Imagic made some of the lamest games on the system. - Tax Avoiders is a good game, and aged better than many perennial favorites. - Arcade accuracy is overvalued. I appreciate it is as a technical achievement, but as a player, all that matters is if the game stands on its own - 2600 Star Raiders is a joke. - There aren't enough paddle games on the 2600. Not 2600 related but still unpopular: - Nintendo won the market in the mid-80s because they had a better product line than Sega or Atari did. - Bill Murray is nowhere near as funny or brilliant as people insist he is. - The Empire Strikes Back is mostly boring and the weakest of the original trilogy. - The 5200's controllers are fine. - U2 are a crappy band. 2 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brainworm Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 Unpopular Opinion #1: Atari 2600 manuals are the wrong size. The correct size for a manual is roughly the same height and width as a cartridge. That way, you can store them alongside each other in whichever kind of case you favor. Witness my patent-pending Mini Manuals (TM). (The post-it notes are for scale.) They fit neatly inside a Universal Game Case (or really in just about any case or rack you'd use to store your cartridges). At reduced size, even the small-print Atari copy on the back cover is perfectly legible. Unpopular Opinion #2: The time and effort I spent printing a reduced-size manual for every one of my cartridges was absolutely worth it. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insertclevernamehere Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 Gas Hog is a decent game. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 . 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 Nothing beats a Discwasher Thrustmaster joystick, Notihing! Well except for an Amiga Joyboard of course! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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