For me Atari 8 bit systems and C64 will always be my all time fav' platforms.

[oky2000]

I owned most, played everything on the cutting edge but of all the systems I love it is the Atari 2600, 800 and C64 that keep my love of retrogaming alive.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like quite a few Colecovision games, ones I owned back then and some I didn't, and some nice Amstrad 464 games like Ikari Warriors but the bulk of my enthusiasm is solely for those 3 platforms.

 

How about you?

[CapitanClassic]

I cannot say I have much enthusiasm placed on any system hardware. The controller, the plastic shell, the CPU, nothing that defines the system itself has much meaning to me. It’s all about the software, and among those titles, it is mostly those games that you can play simultaneous multiplayer.

 

I placed countless hours playing Combat, Warlords, Indy 500, Slot Racers (Maze), Maze Craze, Quick Step, and many other 2600 games.

 

Similarly, I spent many hours playing with/against my brothers games on the Atari 800, Joust, Realm of Impossibility, Bruce Lee, Archon/(II), MULE, Ballblazer. When we got a Bally Astrocade, we would play 4-player Destruction Derby, Red Baron, or Checkmate.

 

Enjoyed playing NES and SNES with friends as well. Double Dragon II, Dodgeball, Contra, Tecmo Super Bowl and Street Fighter II, Super Mario Kart, Zombies ate my Neighbors, Mortal Kombat 2/3.

 

While hardware can enhance the play experience, I think the vast majority of the experience is the visuals/audio, and emulation gets you 90% of the way there.

 

As for what platforms software holds the most of my enthusiasm, I would say I appreciate the new homebrews for the 2600 and rarely play the old games except for the HSC challenge. After that I have been preferring SNES/Genesis and mostly the games I have played/beat many times before. Recently I have been on a Pico-8 fantasy console kick, where it is interesting to see what developers can squeeze out of 32k/8192 tokens. Also have been going back to DOS/Win95 games and playing some of those classics again on GoG / DosBox / or old hardware.

[Keatah]

I would throw in Intellivision as it was my 2nd cartridge-based console. And I'd go back'n'forth between it and the 2600. All depending on the mood and style of games I wanted to play that day.

 

Colecovision was important to me when it first came out because it brought arcade games home. Boxes had pictures of arcade cabs on them and that was crucial to a kid at the time - having arcade cab power in your home. Huge! EGM had heralded the CV as a true 3rd generation system. And I didn't disagree. EGM and sister publications ran a few pre-availability articles which managed to separate it from and put it above the pack. It was highly anticipated by us kids.

 

I only became disappointed and disillusioned by CV when the Super Games Module Wafer Drive failed to materialize. It was one of the first if not THE first vaporware experience I had.

 

As for what's most representative of my early gaming (that I'm still interested in today) is: 2600, Atari 400/800, Apple II. The 2600 was a staple and perhaps even slightly nostalgic even in 1984. After all, 1977-1984 is 7 years! That's a long time. Especially in the era of solid state electronic gaming. The 2600 introduced me to so many genres of gaming and it sported so many desirable characteristics that even modern contemporary systems can't match today.

 

When I had the 400/800 I didn't fully appreciate how arcade-like its games were. I was a green kid and and if something didn't look exactly like the arcade, it wasn't the arcade. And I tended to prematurely denounce it. But of course the games were 2600-like, fast and fluid with no lag. And there was Centipede, Defender, and StarRaiders, all fast and furious action in a manner only Atari could muster.

 

Apple II was a whole different and special animal to me because it was a real computer, with real expansion slots, with hundreds of chips (the more chips the smarter something is), a real DOS that integrated utterly seamlessly with Applesoft BASIC. Even supported a real printer and word processor as early as 1978-79.

 

And while I first learned BASIC through reading a TRS-80 book prior to getting A2, my learning curve turned logarithmic once I digested the 800 pages of Apple's included documentation. The manuals were well written and I felt like I had an instructor beside me. Every step of the way. Each chapter building on the previous one. Each chapter written well enough that either a kid or an expert could find it useful. Very easy to find something in the detailed table-of-contents and index.

 

Even just reading the manuals was an exercise in learning how to learn and look up things. Many concepts and skills were nicely delineated yet integrated into the whole. The whole Apple II experience (and it was an experience!) was versatile enough to introduce me into computers and lead to a degree in electronic communications/engineering. All the while providing me a platform for recreational experimental programming and problem-solving. Building up an Apple II was like being a kid-sized systems integrator!

 

And of course gaming. And while the games weren't as flashy and wowwy as any of the "Miner Machines" they were grand of scope and full of depth. A breadth not seen in cartridge-based systems. I liked that. And I liked how they were modifiable and hackable.

 

C64 you may ask? I was right there with it. And I had built up a library of games and demos and tools, about 1/8th the size of what I had going on A2. The sole detractor for me in the C64 ecosphere was the disk drive. The 1541 I had seemed slow-ass compared against the lightning fast Disk II. And it was unreliable. I'd pirate a disk and no sooner than 2 months later it seemed bad. And that was depressing. C64 also came at a heady time. I was full-tilt into A2, and learning C64 and its "DOS" all seemed counterintuitive and duplicitous. The Atari 800's DOS 2.5 wasn't any better. It seemed quirky compared against A2. The 810 was about on-par with the 1541 for reliability. So I didn't put any long-lasting effort into those. So ultimately the Atari and Commodore storage subsystems seemed to be limiting me. On A2 I was on the cusp of getting a real 10MB hard disk at an affordable $600 price. And that further cemented the notion in my mind that the A2 was a real computer and the rest were toys and game machines.

 

One other thing I liked about the Apple II disk sub-system was how simple the hardware was. And how well it was documented. AND the amount and quality of the tools & utilities that were available - which also came with their own comprehensive tutorial/reference manuals. You could know exactly where on a disk a file was. Or exactly how much disk space was available practically instantly. File manipulation was easypeasy and there were several ways to do the same thing thus making it more likely a certain method would make intuitive sense and fit your style of working.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Keatah

[Keatah]

34 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

I cannot say I have much enthusiasm placed on any system hardware. The controller, the plastic shell, the CPU, nothing that defines the system itself has much meaning to me. It’s all about the software, and among those titles, it is mostly those games that you can play simultaneous multiplayer.

This is generally true, yes. But the enthusiasm is there if you have your original old stuff, not ebay replacements, not garage sale or thrift store finds. But your original kid stuff.

 

34 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

I placed countless hours playing Combat, Warlords, Indy 500, Slot Racers (Maze), Maze Craze, Quick Step, and many other 2600 games.

Same.

 

34 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

While hardware can enhance the play experience, I think the vast majority of the experience is the visuals/audio, and emulation gets you 90% of the way there.

Yes it does. Emulation is a godsend if you had hardware as a kid but half-a your experiential memories are of fighting against the hardware. Battling intermittent connections or praying an unreliable 1541 (or 810) would somehow read a disk if you tried just one more time.

 

Emulation won't replace or fully replicate my nostalgic old A2 times. But will most positively definitively enhance them and add features. Add new ways of doing things. Even continue them on and further the experience into this brave, new, idiotic 21st century.

 

34 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

As for what platforms software holds the most of my enthusiasm, I would say I appreciate the new homebrews for the 2600 and rarely play the old games except for the HSC challenge.

I do play some of the early catalog releases, Like Miniature Golf. And then there are the arcade conversions. I prefer many of the 2600's versions over the arcade cabs. Mainly for the difficulty levels and more soothing color palette.

 

2600 homebrewing is definitely an interest holder. No doubt.

 

34 minutes ago, CapitanClassic said:

Also have been going back to DOS/Win95 games and playing some of those classics again on GoG / DosBox / or old hardware.

I have monster-sized backlog of PC games to play from the DOS 486/Pentium era. Some I want to revisit. Some I need to play for the first time. So much to do in this hobby!

 

But one thing I don't have much a desire for are the early Windows 95/98 3D games. I spent more time buying and tweaking hardware than I did playing. Quake and Unreal excepted!

[CapitanClassic]

27 minutes ago, Keatah said:

But one thing I don't have much a desire for are the early Windows 95/98 3D games. I spent more time buying and tweaking hardware than I did playing. Quake and Unreal excepted!

I guess it depends upon the 3D game. I still like many of the early 3D games. Tomb Raider, X-Wing, Star Wars Dark Forces, Descent, Red Baron, Earthseige, Mech Warrior 2/3, …

 

Even stuff like Heroes of Might and Magic  III, which is probably the best iteration of HoMM uses 3D models for some of the units. I had completely forgotten about that aspect of the game, and likely must have been remembering the beautiful hand drawn HoMM II unit art and my mind “fixed” it because it was the best game in the series. (I prefer the hand drawn art, but the 3D doesn’t look so bad. At least it isn’t HoMM 4 art).

 

I guess playing PSX with its horrible 256x224 resolution makes the early PC stuff not that bad in comparison. Sure, stuff like X-wing Alliance can run at 800x600 with fully textured ships, but there is a certain charm to the original graphics and missions. (Although the best of both worlds is when the hackers create the OpenXXX game, where HD graphics and other quality of life fixes can be given to old classic games)

[Keatah]

Tomb Raider, X-Wing, Star Wars Dark Forces, Descent, are good. I consider them pre-3D. Just before 3D hardware became all the rage.