My two Atari 2600 disappointments in fall 1977

[Rob Mitchell]

Dad and I bought the Atari Video Arcade with Target Fun and Tank Plus back in Fall 1977.  Those were the only two carts available initially.  One by one the other launch titles became available at Sears and we would trek to get them.  (I'm sure I annoyed the Sears sales force by calling every day to ask if a new cart was now in stock.)  I would read the manual on the way home to become familiar with the game play and get ready to challenge Dad on the TV screen.

 

Back in the early 1970s I visited the computer center at the local university and played a text Lunar Lander game.  I remember running out of fuel and seeing the altitude numbers scroll up the screen as my lander then crashed with dramatic text at the end.  So when we bought the Outer Space cart, I remember being excited to see the Lunar Lander game and then reading the instructions .. thinking it cannot be this bad, can it?  Ugh! it was and still is that bad.

 

Another time I visited a friend's house and playing a game called Catch on their Super Pong.  What fun!  So when Pong Sports arrived at Sears we had to get it.   So I scanned the manual .. What?  NO CATCH game!  People describe Video Olympics has every conceivable Pong game .. Not so!  Yesterday I was talking with a friend who has a Pong but doesn't know about Catch so I sent this picture to him.  I'm going to bring my Super Pong to the Southern Fried Gaming Expo in July for people to play.

[delmero]

Good morning 

Very interesting post, you see many times than not you won't get what you've seen at a friend's house. Of course at that time we were children and didn't know better. 

 

Same with toys ads on TV you saw for example a big doll with a big stroller but my Mom ruined it every time:

–Don't believe what you see, that doll and stroller are very small.

The only doll that was announced as big and it was in reality was Tiernecito, this baby doll could pass as a real baby and you had to do a double take seeing a very young girl with Tiernecito in her arms. 

 

What Mom said was true by the way, so I as an adult today, research what I would like to have in terms of games. 

 

Cyberpunk 2077 was a very hyped game until gamers were met with pesky and annoying bugs etc. 

 

Thanks for sharing

D. 

[Rob Mitchell]

That's why I keep the Super Pong C-140 so that I can play Catch with my wife!

[Leonard Smith]

Good post.  I think you capture the sense of wonder, unknowns and sometimes disappointment with being a gamer in the earliest days.

It was a lot of work to acquire new games (everything from calling the stores, scouting other shops, and lack of funds), so when we did finally get something new, we played the crap out of it whether it was good or bad -- it was just great to have something new.

 

And the disappointments.  Rarely did a game fully meet our expectations.  But also, many of the concepts and what could actually be achieved on the VCS was still somewhat unknown.  I miss those days.

 

[zzip]

1 hour ago, Leonard Smith said:

It was a lot of work to acquire new games (everything from calling the stores, scouting other shops, and lack of funds), so when we did finally get something new, we played the crap out of it whether it was good or bad -- it was just great to have something new.

 

And the disappointments.  Rarely did a game fully meet our expectations.  But also, many of the concepts and what could actually be achieved on the VCS was still somewhat unknown.  I miss those days.

My friends got 2600 before I did,  but they frequently got new games, so I got to play a lot of the early ones.    I don't remember being disappointed,  I went into each game without really knowing what to expect.   Some were more fun than others.    I think it was also clear to me that the 2600 was only capable of crude blocky graphics based on games released before 1981 or so.   

 

After Space Invaders and the Pac-Man craze, there was suddenly a rush to make arcade ports.   After seeing games like Berzerk and Phoenix ported,  it became clear to me that the 2600 could have games that were more like the arcade version than I ever thought possible.   Also Activision was forcing everyone to up their 2600 graphics.   So gone were the early blocky titles like "Air-Sea Battle" or even Adventure and we had an increased level of detail, even though it clearly still paled compared to what other systems were capable of.

 

But this is when I started to have expectations.  This biggest, obvious one was how they could get Pacman so wrong when Atari seemed to be on a roll with arcade ports at the time?   I also remember being somewhat disappointed that in Centipede you were shooting blocks instead of mushrooms but it was still fun to play, and then the Swordquest games were disappointing because they were not much fun after Atari released great adventure games like Adventure and Raiders.

[+jeremiahjt]

19 hours ago, Rob Mitchell said:

Dad and I bought the Atari Video Arcade with Target Fun and Tank Plus back in Fall 1977.  Those were the only two carts available initially.  One by one the other launch titles became available at Sears and we would trek to get them.  (I'm sure I annoyed the Sears sales force by calling every day to ask if a new cart was now in stock.)  I would read the manual on the way home to become familiar with the game play and get ready to challenge Dad on the TV screen.

 

Back in the early 1970s I visited the computer center at the local university and played a text Lunar Lander game.  I remember running out of fuel and seeing the altitude numbers scroll up the screen as my lander then crashed with dramatic text at the end.  So when we bought the Outer Space cart, I remember being excited to see the Lunar Lander game and then reading the instructions .. thinking it cannot be this bad, can it?  Ugh! it was and still is that bad.

 

Another time I visited a friend's house and playing a game called Catch on their Super Pong.  What fun!  So when Pong Sports arrived at Sears we had to get it.   So I scanned the manual .. What?  NO CATCH game!  People describe Video Olympics has every conceivable Pong game .. Not so!  Yesterday I was talking with a friend who has a Pong but doesn't know about Catch so I sent this picture to him.  I'm going to bring my Super Pong to the Southern Fried Gaming Expo in July for people to play.

How long do you get the new games? Did you snag all 9 original "launch" titles and stop or did you keep getting the newer games as they were released?

[Rob Mitchell]

On 4/18/2022 at 1:15 PM, jeremiahjt said:

How long do you get the new games? Did you snag all 9 original "launch" titles and stop or did you keep getting the newer games as they were released?

I got 8/9 launch titles as they became available one by one.  ($20 for Math .. naah).   Then continued to get the games one by one in 1978 ..'79.   Got the Keyboards in '78 so we could play Codebreaker.   Got a second set of Paddles so we could play 4 person Pong games   We ended up with 22 carts.  It was magic for those three years ..

 

Every now and then my wife and I will play as though it is 1977-78 and they are brand new.  We will look at the instruction manuals to see how to get a different twist on whatever game.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Rob Mitchell