An interesting comparison

[Bob Bytchin]

If you look back at a good percentage of the 2600 games, you have to admit that most of them were junk when it came to graphics. There were a lot of amazing games that looked like crud, but generally, the better games were the ones that looked the best. For instance, Donkey Kong Jr was a joke both graphically and in gameplay. But something simple like Barnstorming was a blast to play, and looked great.

 

Now if you look at games for the Gameboy for the first 5 years or so of its life, you notice that most of them look awful, and only a handful were fun. But now, near the end of the run, games are coming out that are just amazing achievements. Dragon's Lair, Donkey Kong Country, and the upcoming Alone in the Dark. I even saw a prototype (yes, a Gameboy prototype) of Resident Evil. All of these games are amazing...Dragon's Lair in particular. This has come about because the programmers have learned many tricks to squeeze the most out of the hardware.

 

I remember when Atari games made the leap from 2k to 4k....and then eventually 8k and even 16k. Most of this was due to the cartridges themselves taking over much of the work for the hardware. The guys at Activision must have known some tricks because most of their games just blew my socks off. Why didn't other programmers learn these tricks and release better, more graphically pleasing games?

[robsterman]

I'd like to add that we need to look at what we consider to be an outstanding game during that era.

 

As an example, when Pitfall debuted for the Atari 2600, people swallowed it up. In 1982, it was the creme de la creme.

 

Today, it is considered to be primordial.

 

Then again, Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 was always considered to be bleechy. Thank God for the remake.

[Bob Bytchin]

That's true. When pong first came out...or when the game "Tanks" first appeared, they were considered state-of-the-art. But that was mainly because there was nothing to compare them to at the time. But if you compare a game like Pitfall to a game like Donkey Kong Jr on the 2600, there is a vast difference. What if Activision had gotten the rights to the DK franchise? Do you think it would have been better or worse?

 

Sure, hardware limits you to the sort of games you can create, but the idea of "bankswitching" could have been taken to the extreme if they had wanted to do that.

[Joel D. Park]

I agree. It's really hard to determine that a game is bad unless you compare it to something else.

 

Back in the day, I never really played in the Arcades very often, the only games I ever remember playing was Pacman at our local PizzaHut and the original Mario Bros. at another restraunt in town.

When any really bad arcade conversions came out my brother and I had no idea they were bad, they were just another bitchin game for the Atari 2600.. My brother and I used to play the heck out of Donkey Kong and DKJr. They were top knotch as far as we knew.

If you don't compare to the Arcade version, or the versions on any other system, they are pretty good games..

[Bob Bytchin]

Good point. I bought my first 2600 in 1979, and at the time it was the greatest thing around. I had my friends begging to spend the night on the weekends just so they could play games. I was exposed to most of the newer arcade games, and you can't help but compare. I remember seeing games like Space War, Space Invaders, Galaxian, Defender, Missile Command, Asteroids, Centipede etc...and just hoping that they would be converted to the home systems. Most came through rather faithfully, and although they weren't identical, at least I could play them at home for free.