Atari 2600

I forgot the year but I got an Atari probably in 87 or so. By that time my friends were getting Nintendo yet I kind of new our family wasn't going to be the customers for a Nintendo. The games were very expensive and our TVs didn't even have the ports to connect them.

When I got the atari 2600 Jr for Christmas, there had been a HUGE marketing blast for it. Even a jingle commercial. “The fun is back”. I had a lot of the commercial memorized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp1CbPpaWKw

I opened it Christmas morning and my memory is I had about four games to play that day. And all of them were quite good. Back then a lot of titles at the toy store were maybe $7.99 - $14.99 and some were even $3.99 depending. Just remembering being in the mall at KayBee toys and looking at the Atari game bin amongst everything else. Strong wash of nostalgia. Anyway the games I got that Christmas…

• Solaris
• Joust
• Battlezone
• Skateboardin'

I'm really glad it wasn't Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. Not that I would have really had much thinking of those games but just looking at the selection these games, my mother and mayby my aunt really made some good choices. The Atari itself actually had some video problems with it it turns out. Battlezone's graphics weren't entirely there and I think it may have been playing somewhat with limited colors. I recall once getting frustarted with battlezone and hitting the consule with my fist and suddenly the tank's full detail showed up. Shocking. I think at one point we may have returned that unit and got a new one but I'm not sure.

Solaris was a lot of fun as my sisters and I played it. It had an involved UI that was kind of cryptic and it also gave you a lot to do, not requiring constant action. The overall pattern of gameplay was smart. space shooting, navigating the galaxy grid where to go, then the planet hover play.

Skateboardin offered a large map and you had to find and jump all the ramps and go through all the tubes in order to beat the game. I think I beat the game once in the time frame. But it was almost too big a map for my young brain to comprehend. Some people are better at these things than others. But to be fair, these atari games leave little to distinguish from screen to screen. So if you travel across a grid of say 6 x 12 screens. You've got a lot of repetition and it runs together.

Joust to this day I think on 2600 is the tightest version of that game. I've played it on other consoles and arcade and I think the physics and hitboxes on the 2600 nailed it.

I spent a lot of time with the console and played it even when I owned my apple iic. At a certain point I had acquired from friends, garage sales, and wherever about 45 games. Some newish, some old. Some didn't even have the plastic cartridge they were just little circuit boards I had to shove into the center slot. But they played. I even had a colecovision too I think as part of a trade with my friend Tom.

Some standout games for me were california games, winter games, summer games, demon attack, crystal castles, galaxian, krull, moon patrol, frontline, mario bros, laser bast, chopper command, Beefsteak Tomatores, Kung Fu Master, DK Jr, river raid, intellivision baseball, activision tennis, and a few more, plus the titles mentioned earlier I remain fond of. It's a rudimentary gaming experience but what wasn't back then? Some of my friends had Nintendo, some had coleco, atari 7800, I think atari 5200 and of course early IBM pcs and apple IIs. I used to have this voricious appetite for who had what games, I'd go to houses and ask to see their games. I was certainly a nuisance. But it was curiosity and love for the graphics and gameplay experience.

I only got rid of my atari probably 2022 or so. Cant' recall exactly. Hadn't played it much after the TV connection problem and of course emulation meant I didn't need to open it but I regretted losing some things. Had some of the labels not gotten spotty I might have kept them. I kind wish I kept the first four games I ever got, but I could probably get them pretty cheap I suspect if I went to a retro game store or really tried collecting elsewhere.