Funny how things change..

[elviticus]

I was just playing Battlezone on my 2600. This is one of the games that I actually got right when it came out. A relative was visiting and gave me $50 or something and I remember going right out and blowing it on the coolest new Atari game I could find.

 

Anyway, playing it just now I was remembering some funny stuff like how cool I thought it was that the score and copyright info was streamlined and small - unlike the huge blocky letters/numbers of the early games. I also loved the sharp graphics and excellent gameplay.

 

Nevermind how much it strayed from the original! I accepted that it was a translation and not a real port of the arcade game. Nowadays, if we get a port of an arcade game and ANYTHING is amiss, it's considered a big deal. Missing frames of animation, slightly worse audio, anything off is picked to pieces. Back then, we were surprised if all the levels were there (in some form or the other) and if we recognized what was supposed to be what!!

 

To tell the truth, that's one thing I love so much about collecting for the 2600 to this day. When I play an old arcade favorite on the 2600, it's like playing a whole different game. It's always cool to see how the programmers tried to capture the magic of the original game on the Atari.

[Lord Helmet]

I remember feeling the same way about Ms. Pac-Man. I was just glad the friken music was right and that it had 4 different screens with all of the different fruits. I didn't care that there were no intermissions etc.

[Stella'sGhost]

I was to young to really be bothered too much that the 2600 version was not as good as the arcade version but I knew even at 9 years old that the aracde machines had better (computers), or as I thought, better tv's.

[Godzilla]

to this day I maintain the fact that the 2600s arcade conversions are better than the arcade game. I feel that the nature of the 2600s limited hardware forced developers to make games that sold themselves on better gameplay. I love they way most 2600 arcade ports capture everything about an arcade games core gameplay, but usually make it more fun to play and give it more replay value with lots of differnet options. Man I miss the days of games with 200+ variations. Just imagine how much fun halo would be with a ricocheting shot option, invisible mazes, etc etc.