Why Atari 2600 Adventure is such a fun game

ataritimes.com ^ | Warren Robinett

[rdb3]

The Atari 2600 was more than just a game-playing console to me. It convinced me what I should pursue when I grew up.

How? A very good friend of mine didn't have an Atari because his parents said that hooking that up to the TV would break it. Anyway, he was left-handed and couldn't play very well with a joystick made for the right hand. I figured out a way to rewire that joystick so the orange button would be on the right.

It worked. Not bad for a 10-year old, eh? I knew what I wanted to be from that day forward.

[grundle]

Of course you knew it was me. You know where my handle comes from!

[grundle]

I love Pitfall too!

[jpl]

I'm still pissed that they never made a sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide. (speaking of which, has anyone seen the promos for the movie? I caught the promo for the first time yesterday - looks awesome!)

Several years ago, Adams hooked up with an obscure company called the Digital Village and they created a game called "Starship Titanic", which was kind of the unofficial official sequel to Hitchhiker's.

While the graphics were quite beautiful (for the time), the game itself was difficult, annoying, and just generally pretty horrible, and not really worthy of the genre.

[Duke809]

I still have my 2600. My nephew wanted it, I told him to take a hike. I have Adventure, River Raid, Stargazer, or Starfighter or Star something, Breakout and maybe 10 or 12 more games. I though the Activison games were the best as far as graphics and such. My father-in-law has the Mattel Intellvison, with that Navy game everyone was talking about, Olympic Skiing, Golf and a few others

Me, I'm still a VAX systems manager. No Qix on them though

[Charles Martel]

Does the Commodore 64 one have Load Runner on it? If so I've gotta get one.

Sadly, Loderunner is a glaring omission. It's still darned neat, though. When you power it up, the TV displays the blue Commodore boot screen, complete with "LOAD,8,1".

The game list is as follows:

Championship Wrestling, Cyberdyne Warrior, Cybernoid, Cybernoid II, Eliminator, Excelon, Firelord, Gateway to Apshai, Impossible Mission, Impossible Mission II, Jumpman Jr., Paradroid, Pitstop, Pitstop II, Ranarama, Silicon Warrior, Speedball, Summer Games, Supercycle, Sword of Fargoal, Tower Toppler, Uridium, Winter Games, World Karate Championship A, World Karate Championship B and Zynaps.

Check it out before buying - I believe the company intends to enable a future version of the joystick game to accept downloadable game files. QVC is selling a two-player version now, as well - looks like it comes with a patch cord.

[4mycountry]

So what do you do for a living, program technology?

I can understand being 'life-inspired' by video games. Strange how things like that happen.

[hattend]

M.U.L.E. was my favorite

[rdb3]

So what do you do for a living, program technology?

Yep. I'm a software developer, now specializing in the Symbian Development Platform (C++/Visual Basic .NET/Java) for cell phones and wireless applications.

[4mycountry]

Kewl. :)

[Nowhere Man]

I had the 2600 and Intellivision and I have to say that Intellivision was better.

Nah, silly boy, Atari was better!!!! B-) B-D Just kidding! B-D I just had to do that, takes me back to my junior high days when we had the Atari/Intellivision fights. I remember one of us had an Odyssey 2 with KC Munchkin. Then in high school, we had Apple/Commodore 64 wars with Atari and TRS-80 tossed in. BTW, in the video games, I remember Colecovision entered into the fray too.

Looking back, Intellivision DID have some things going that the Atari did not have or you needed special controls for but those disc joysticks were a pain in the butt though. Astrosmash was cool though.

[Myrddin]

I played the Woods and Crowther version on a Model 33 teletype in 1980. It was running on the original mainframe where the game was created. When that style of game turned into fully animated video, it ripped all the mental effort out of creating the "picture" of the maze of rooms. That was the end of my interest in the video form.

[Nowhere Man]

I once knew someone who could call out to California on his 300 baud modem and download stuff that wasn't due to be released until the next year, he got hold of 1985 releases in 1984 and so on. He used a Franklin Ace 1000 (Apple ][+ clone) with a 10 megger Sider HD. I thought 10 megs, wow, never fill that thing! He avoided long distance charges by "phreaking" too, bypassing the phone company accounting system and so on. Then he told us this, I thought, "dude, what if you start seeing Black Ford LTD's with small FoMoCo hubcaps and radio antennae hanging around you along with guys in suits, dark sunglasses and radio earpieces on their heads?" He said, "my father is a Lt. Colonial in the Air Force (he was) and he'll get me off." We lost contact as we graduated school and moved on, so far as I know, he was never caught but I wonder where he is now? I've heard rumors he is/was laying low but I can't confirm nor deny.

[Liberal Classic]

Fear the Grue!

[Mannaggia l'America]

I still have my 2600. My nephew wanted it, I told him to take a hike.

There are 2600 emulators available on the web that run on the PC. Tell him to download one of those.

[Sprite518]

Oh yeah we use to play that game on the C-64. I said some friends that were really good at it, but toward I learned how to beat them. Which was to sell everything but your land.

[Malsua]

WOW was ok, too much like DAOC for my Taste.

I'm digging Guild Wars. Woot. The babes are hotter and not green :)

[Starter]

Ah, Starflight. Beat the first one. Kept getting killed in the final battle in the second. I never did go back and finish it. It'd be nice to see the Grand Imperial Royal Spemin Death Fleet back in action again.

[BigDaddyTX]

It's not really all that small. It's built solid using 3/4 inch Melamine-laminated wood (Black with matching Black T-molding trim). The ArcadePC Mega cabinet measures 29.5" wide, 26" deep, and 29" tall and weighs approx... 200 lbs.

It has a PC with Intel Celeron 2.2Ghz (Pentium 4 class, 400MHz FSB, 128k cache)runs MAME gaming system emulator, Viewsonic G810 17 inch diagonal SVGA high resolution, Altec Lancing 2 piece sound system.

[BJClinton]

I happen to dig green chicks, I have that in common with Capt. Kirk.

I'm still addicted to WoW and haven't had time for a new MMP, I might try GW sometime.