A Black Falcon
Member
Threads in this series: Odyssey 2, Atari 7800 (& 2600 games), Game Boy (B&W), Super Nintendo, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Playstation 1, Nintendo 64, and PC Racing Games.
I'd never owned an Atari system before, and had barely ever played one, but that changed when I got an Atari 7800 back in April. It's an interesting system to have... and yes, I do like some of the games. The Atari 2600 is a true classic, certainly one of the most important videogame consoles ever. The games are generally EXTREMELY simple, as was true in all consoles up until about 1984. Think basic cellphone-game level stuff, only often with even less variety. Prices are similar too, though... most 2600 games cost between $0.50 and $5 for the slightly pricier ones. More than that is only for the true rarities. 7800 games cost a bit more; it's maybe $3-5 for the cheaper games, $30-50 for the rarer ones. There are hundreds of 2600 games, but only about 65 for the 7800, which is about the same number as the system Atari had in between those two, the Atari 5200.
On that note, Wikipedia and GameFAQs may call the 5200 a "second gen" console, but the non-NES new systems of 1982-1983, including the 5200, Colecovision, Sega SG-1000, and Vectrex, came 2 1/2 to 3 years after the last system released, and were called "next-gen" at the time. They clearly should be considered third generation, along with the NES, 7800, and Sega Master System. Yes, Sega and Atari both had multiple third gen consoles, one early and the other later. Atari did that because of the crash, Sega because they liked releasing new hardware at an unhealthily steady pace.
The Atari 2600 was one of the most important consoles ever. Released in 1977, the system was the first console to be a huge hit, and it won its generation (the second) by a huge margin. I didn't play the 2600 during its life, though; the NES was the first console I knew. It actually wasn't until I bought this system that I owned an Atari console. I had played some emulated Atari games before, but that's not like the real thing, and I had spent almost no time with 2600 games, even there. So yeah, a lot of this is new to me. The first 2nd gen console I got was the Odyssey 2, which I got last year. See my thread on that system for my thoughts on that console; I like it. O2 graphics are in some ways better than the 2600, but they are more limited. The 2600 can be pushed in all kinds of crazy ways, while the O2 runs faster and more smoothly, but with extremely limited graphical variety (I don't know if it can even do curves at all, for example, beyond round sprites and the like...). It's interesting to compare the two; the 2600 can put more colors on screen and has been hacked to the base of the hardware in many ways, while the O2 is much less alterable (in addition to being pretty much all lines for environments, you also see the same sprites a lot across games, and can't really do behind-the-character/vehicle games either), but is faster and doesn't flicker, which can be a major problem in many 2600 games. I like 2600 games which do stuff like bright shaded color palettes, because that stuff looks great.
Unfortunately, my 7800 doesn't display properly on my HD television. I have to use the system on my SD CRT TV. The O2 works on the HDTV; colors are slightly off, but it's entirely playable. The 7800, though? Nope. Not playable at all. Ah well. The 2600 has several kinds of controllers, including regular joysticks, which have a stick and a single button (I have several of these), paddle controllers, which are a rotating dial with a button, and have two on each wire so that you can play four players on a single system with these (I have one pair of paddles, which do work), the racing controller, which is similar to the paddle but spins all the way around (and works only with one game; I don't have this), and the keypad, which is used by Star Raiders and a few other things (I don't have this either yet). The paddle controller is fantastic; it's really too bad that newer systems haven othing like it! The regular controllers, or 7800 controllers, are stiff digital sticks, but the paddles give you extremely smooth analog control. It really needs to be experienced to be understood; I'd heard before about how much Atari fans like paddle controllers, but until I actually used it myself, in a game, I didn't get it. Well, now I do. Paddle controllers are really great.
The Atari 7800 was originally designed in 1984, as the 5200, and the rest of the industry, collapsed. The system has solid graphics for the time, which are better than the NES in some respects and worse in others, but very poor audio; it only has the 2600's audio chip for sound. The excuse was that games would have sound chips in the carts, but that was a questionable idea. GCC, who designed the system, should have designed it better -- the audio is simply awful. Only two games ended up using that audio chip. The graphics are solid, though. Games generally are small, for reasons explained below (almost no games make use of anything beyond the smallest cart sizes available), but look decent enough for their size. As with the Sega Master System, the system is poorly designed and has the Pause button on the console, instead of on the controllers. That was a terrible idea on both systems; I know the 2600 had the access buttons on the system, but the 5200 had had a pause button on the controller! Dropping that was stupid. At least it really is only used for pausing here; it's not like the SMS, where some games use it as an essential options selection button.
The Atari 7800 system feels a bit cheap. Buttons are squishy. It does still work, but this isn't exactly the best build quality externally. It also doesn't have a color/B&W switch, so some 2600 games are not properly playable, and is incompatible with a few 2600 games (including one I have). Some 7800s work better than others, compatibility-wise; there's really no way to know if you have a good one or not without trying the games. Weird. Some have an expansion port on the side, others don't. Mine does have the port. It's not used by any official accessories, though some homebrew ones that use it may be coming.
I've mostly been playing everything with the regular US 7800 controllers. They are two button joysticks, with a long and narrow design, two buttons, one on each side, and a stick in the middle. I know 2600 games, and 1-button 7800 games, can work with Genesis controllers, and I tried that too, but the 7800 stick's not so awful that I want to switch controllers all the time just to use a better one (since 2-button 7800 games require 7800 controllers, Genesis controllers only work with 1-button games or 2600 games). Maybe sometime I'll get one of those gamepad-style controllers they released in Europe. The US stick 7800 controllers are moderately uncomfortable, and the buttons are squishy, but there's worse out there. At least they work.
Atari built some and test-marketed them in one city, with a handful of games (~9), all arcade ports. Releasing a new system just two years after their last one was a stupid idea, but Atari was going to do it. However, Warner Bros., who owned Atari at the time, decided to get out as the crash got worse, and the system went into legal limbo. Finally, Jack Tramiel bought Atari Consumer in late 1984. Atari Games, the arcade branch, was separated out into an independent studio. Atari Games would go on to form Tengen as their home division, would get bought by Warner again, and then got sold to Midway (before getting shut down in 2004, some time after which Warner once again bought up those rights by buying Midway's remnants.). Tramiel got the home computer and console side of the company, which lasted until its shutdown in early 1996. Tramiel was focused on making a profit more than anything; Atari was losing a lot of money when he bought it in 1984, and he turned things around by being incredibly cheap. Tramiel's Atari never had much in the way of internal game development, quite unlike the Atari of old. He also couldn't get the rights to many of the major arcade games, because of course Nintendo had their illegal monopoly going. He eventually sued Nintendo and won, but that didn't help sell systems. Anyway, 7800 games were mostly all outsourced. Many are from different studios, as Tramiel always searched around for the lowest bidder. Few push the system well; the 7800 graphically actually is as good or better than the NES, but few games show that off. Blame that on Tramiel's cheapness in not allowing larger cartridge sizes, spending to build up internal development teams or fund enough development in a timely manner, those onboard audio chips, and also not releasing the system's high score backup passthrough cartridge that GCC had designed (nice idea!).
Overall, the Atari 7800 is an okay system hamstrung by poor decisions. The system could have been interesting, but instead, it's a system with a small library heavy on last-gen ports. The popular 7800 games are mostly ports of old arcade games like Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Donkey Kong (since Atari had DK, DK Jr., and Mario Bros. rights, they did 7800 versions), and the like. The system has some later titles which push it more, such as Commando or Ninja Golf, but few were released; Atari didn't seem to get significant resources aimed at the system until 1989, and then stopped developing for it by the beginning of 1991. It really was a failure of leadership, I think. I mean, there was a legal battle over the 7800's rights that delayed Tramiel from starting plans to release it until May 1985, but after that, what did he do? Well, he released the system sometime in 1986, with those games that had been made back in 1984 by GCC available at launch. But as for new games... those took quite a while. The original 1984 games were re-released again in 1987, this time with cheaper cartridges (the sliding cartridge pin connecter that the 1986 editions have was removed; I have only one 1986-edition cart, Galaga) and 1987 license dates, but as for new games... uh, wait for 1987, it took that long until new games started appearing. Why didn't he immediately start developing games for it as soon as he had the system rights in May 1985? Pure cheapness, I assume, but trying to run a console without putting any money into making first party studios was a very bad idea. Atari may have managed to succeed despite that with the 7800, but the Lynx and Jaguar's failures were in large part to the paucity of first-party output, as well as Atari's consistent failure to get many third parties on board, even after the Nintendo monopoly was broken down. If you can spend less for something Tramiel may not have really cared about about as a core element of his business anyway, why not do it? He seems to have thought of the 7800 as a system to make a cheap buck off of, not as something that should be a great videogame console. Too bad. And so, the 7800 was aimed at the budget market, for people who wanted to spend less to get a console. For people who wanted to spend more, Atari later released a THIRD third-gen console, the Atari XE, which is a consolized Atari 8-bit (Atari 400/800) computer. Yeah, that's way, way too much competing against yourself there. Choose one system, and stick to it.
Despite the dated, thin library, though, the Atari 7800 sold decently in the US and Europe. The system sold 3.9 million systems in the US, and is said to have sold that much or better in Europe. Not bad, considering all its limitations. I'm not sure if it deserved that level of success or not, but I will admit that it does have some pretty solid ports of classics. However, so does the NES... they just weren't focused on as much as they were on the 7800. Atari almost completely missed most of the stuff that made the NES a hit, such as Super Mario Bros., only edging into making some slightly larger games in 1989-1990. There is only one true Super Mario-esque platformer on the system, for example, Scrapyard Dog, and it was a late release. As some people have said before, where was, for example, the Bentley Bear (Crystal Castles) platformer, earlier on in the system's life? That kind of thing could have sold more consoles. Their sales show that some people were interested in this more 2nd-gen-esque game selection, though, so it worked out. Despite the tiny budgets, the 7800 was profitable for Atari. That would not continue with their next two systems, the Lynx and Jaguar, thuogh, of course; both bombed hard at retail, and also had very little software. What had worked on the 7800 didn't continue to, and once again, Atari's failure to build up a better first party studio, and make third party relationships, hurt it badly.
Still though, yeah, the 7800 is a decent system. It's a single system that plays both the 7800 games, which are interesting to see, and also most 2600 games, and that 2600 has a massive library. It's worth having, I think, though probably more so for the 2600 than the 7800 part, though the 7800 has a few good exclusives, anyway. Just make sure to keep a notebook handy, because 2600 and 7800 games are very frequently score-focused games where the only thing that matters is how many points you got, because you can't actually win. Since the games don't keep track of your score, you will have to do so yourself, at least when you get a good score, or else there isn't much point to playing.
I have not had the system long enough yet to say for sure what a top 5 or top 10 or something are, but I will list some games that I particularly like here (in no order).
Atari 7800
--
Desert Falcon
Galaga
Pole Position II
Honorable Mentions: Centipede, Asteroids
Atari 2600
--
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom!
Enduro
Megamania
Dodger Cars (Dodge 'em)
Warlords
Honorable Mentions: Dragonfire, Amidar, Astroblast, Commando Raid, Pheonix, Demon Attack, Space Invaders, Demons to Diamonds, Moonsweeper, Kangaroo, Turmoil
I will say a little bit about each 2600 and 7800 game that I have. I say how many players each game supports, and if they support the save cart.
Atari 7800 games frequently have four difficulty settings, and have an ingame menu to choose the options. There's a pause button on the console, as in the Sega Master System. It only works with 7800 games, not 2600, and, well, pauses the game. The other buttons on the system are generally not used by 7800 games; they're for the 2600.
Atari 7800
--
Asteroids - 1-2 player simultaneous or alternating, supports score save cart. Asteroids on the 7800, part of the original 1984 library, is an enhanced remake of Atari's classic single-screen rock-shooting game. The game has a graphical overhaul and looks pretty nice. The gameplay is the same as ever, as it's still an endless game you just play for score. The controls work well, and one button fires while the other warps you to a random point on the screeen. As ever, the controls are momentum-based, so you'll keep moving in the direction you're pointing; there's no gravity in space, after all. To slow down you have to turn and move in another direction. Left and right rotate, and up turns on the thrusters. Asteroids' controls take a lot of getting used to, and I've never liked them all that much; it's fine while you aren't moving, but once you start moving, it gets difficult. It works with practice, but isn't natural. This version has several exclusive multiplayer modes, including a versus mode where the two players shoot at eachother while also dodging asteroids, and another where the two players work cooperatively to see how far they can get. Pretty cool stuff, those modes make this version worth owning for sure. The game also has four difficulty levels to choose from, a common theme in 7800 games from Atari. Overall, I may be a bit of a skeptic of Asteroids, but I will admit that this is a quite good version of the game. I like the colorful graphics, and the gameplay is about as good as it gets for Asteroids. They probably should have added some kind of campaign game with an ending, in addition to the endless main game, but this is pretty good as it is. Nice added content.
Centipede - 1-2 player simultaneous or alternating, supports score save cart. As with Asteroids, Centipede is a part of the original 1984 library, and it's a nicely enhanced remake of a true Atari classic. The arcade game of Centipede used a trackball, but here you have to make do with a digital pad. It works decently well, though it's not quite trackball smooth. It's unfortunate that the 7800 never got a version of Millipede, but it did get this game, and it's a great version of this great classic shooter. The game has co-op and versus modes, and is a quite good port of Centipede all around. Centipede is a classic single-screen shooter where you can move around the bottom part of the screen, while shooting up at mushrooms, centipedes which break apart as you shoot their segments (which then sometimes turn into mushrooms after being shot), and tricky-moving spiders. Yes, the bugs are out to get you! Shoot them down. It's a good version of an addicitive, very good game. Oh, and yes, there are four difficulty levels, on top of the very cool exclusive co-op and versus modes. This is a game to definitely play.
Choplifter - 1 player. Choplifter is a mediocre port of an Apple II classic. The game is a scrolling shooting/rescue game, where you control a helicopter and have to rescue people taken prisoner in some bases. You can shoot angled at the ground, or straight down to hit tanks, which can't be hit with the angled fire. Your goal is to rescue as many of the hostages and get back alive. It's a fun game with solid controls, mediocre graphics (seriously, the tanks look pretty bad...), and poor audio. Despite those issues, Choplifter is a fun game, and series, so this is fun to play. However, the game has a crippling flaw. As with most versions of Choplifter, this game is based on the Apple II original. That means that it has only one level, period. So, win or lose, Choplifter will be over in minutes. Very disappointing. Sega expanded on the game in Choplifter for the Master System, which is a fantastic game, but this game pales badly in comparison. I like Choplifter a lot, which is why I got this game anyway, but overall, I can't recommend it; just get the great Master System game. Also on Apple II, other computers, Atari 5200, etc. etc.
Dig Dug - 1 player, supports score save cart. Dig Dug is another one of the 1984-original 7800 games. It's a port of Namco's popular game Dig Dug, the game where you go around a side-view underground screen shooting enemies with this odd pump weapon. YOu have to inflate and then pop all of the enemies. Once only one is left it'll try to run away, so you'll have to be positioned to be able to cut it off. Simple concept, and the port is good. However, while Dig Dug is an okay game, I find it gets boring quickly. The game just doesn't have enough variety, and it kind of wastes its underground setting since you rarely have to make many tunnels. I think that Mr. Do (Colecovision/Arcade/SNES) is a much improved version of a similar concept. It's too bad that that game isn't on 7800, or NES either for that matter. Dig Dug's just a bit too repetitve and simplistic; all you do is kill the enemies, there's nothing to collect or anything. You can dig around underground, but the only reason to do so is to get to enemies. It's okay, but is kind of boring compared to Mr. Do!. Also in the arcades, on the Atari 2600, and on many, many other platforms. The game has sequels as well, including Dig Dug 2 (NES) and Mr. Driller (franchise).
I'd never owned an Atari system before, and had barely ever played one, but that changed when I got an Atari 7800 back in April. It's an interesting system to have... and yes, I do like some of the games. The Atari 2600 is a true classic, certainly one of the most important videogame consoles ever. The games are generally EXTREMELY simple, as was true in all consoles up until about 1984. Think basic cellphone-game level stuff, only often with even less variety. Prices are similar too, though... most 2600 games cost between $0.50 and $5 for the slightly pricier ones. More than that is only for the true rarities. 7800 games cost a bit more; it's maybe $3-5 for the cheaper games, $30-50 for the rarer ones. There are hundreds of 2600 games, but only about 65 for the 7800, which is about the same number as the system Atari had in between those two, the Atari 5200.
On that note, Wikipedia and GameFAQs may call the 5200 a "second gen" console, but the non-NES new systems of 1982-1983, including the 5200, Colecovision, Sega SG-1000, and Vectrex, came 2 1/2 to 3 years after the last system released, and were called "next-gen" at the time. They clearly should be considered third generation, along with the NES, 7800, and Sega Master System. Yes, Sega and Atari both had multiple third gen consoles, one early and the other later. Atari did that because of the crash, Sega because they liked releasing new hardware at an unhealthily steady pace.
The Atari 2600 was one of the most important consoles ever. Released in 1977, the system was the first console to be a huge hit, and it won its generation (the second) by a huge margin. I didn't play the 2600 during its life, though; the NES was the first console I knew. It actually wasn't until I bought this system that I owned an Atari console. I had played some emulated Atari games before, but that's not like the real thing, and I had spent almost no time with 2600 games, even there. So yeah, a lot of this is new to me. The first 2nd gen console I got was the Odyssey 2, which I got last year. See my thread on that system for my thoughts on that console; I like it. O2 graphics are in some ways better than the 2600, but they are more limited. The 2600 can be pushed in all kinds of crazy ways, while the O2 runs faster and more smoothly, but with extremely limited graphical variety (I don't know if it can even do curves at all, for example, beyond round sprites and the like...). It's interesting to compare the two; the 2600 can put more colors on screen and has been hacked to the base of the hardware in many ways, while the O2 is much less alterable (in addition to being pretty much all lines for environments, you also see the same sprites a lot across games, and can't really do behind-the-character/vehicle games either), but is faster and doesn't flicker, which can be a major problem in many 2600 games. I like 2600 games which do stuff like bright shaded color palettes, because that stuff looks great.
Unfortunately, my 7800 doesn't display properly on my HD television. I have to use the system on my SD CRT TV. The O2 works on the HDTV; colors are slightly off, but it's entirely playable. The 7800, though? Nope. Not playable at all. Ah well. The 2600 has several kinds of controllers, including regular joysticks, which have a stick and a single button (I have several of these), paddle controllers, which are a rotating dial with a button, and have two on each wire so that you can play four players on a single system with these (I have one pair of paddles, which do work), the racing controller, which is similar to the paddle but spins all the way around (and works only with one game; I don't have this), and the keypad, which is used by Star Raiders and a few other things (I don't have this either yet). The paddle controller is fantastic; it's really too bad that newer systems haven othing like it! The regular controllers, or 7800 controllers, are stiff digital sticks, but the paddles give you extremely smooth analog control. It really needs to be experienced to be understood; I'd heard before about how much Atari fans like paddle controllers, but until I actually used it myself, in a game, I didn't get it. Well, now I do. Paddle controllers are really great.
The Atari 7800 was originally designed in 1984, as the 5200, and the rest of the industry, collapsed. The system has solid graphics for the time, which are better than the NES in some respects and worse in others, but very poor audio; it only has the 2600's audio chip for sound. The excuse was that games would have sound chips in the carts, but that was a questionable idea. GCC, who designed the system, should have designed it better -- the audio is simply awful. Only two games ended up using that audio chip. The graphics are solid, though. Games generally are small, for reasons explained below (almost no games make use of anything beyond the smallest cart sizes available), but look decent enough for their size. As with the Sega Master System, the system is poorly designed and has the Pause button on the console, instead of on the controllers. That was a terrible idea on both systems; I know the 2600 had the access buttons on the system, but the 5200 had had a pause button on the controller! Dropping that was stupid. At least it really is only used for pausing here; it's not like the SMS, where some games use it as an essential options selection button.
The Atari 7800 system feels a bit cheap. Buttons are squishy. It does still work, but this isn't exactly the best build quality externally. It also doesn't have a color/B&W switch, so some 2600 games are not properly playable, and is incompatible with a few 2600 games (including one I have). Some 7800s work better than others, compatibility-wise; there's really no way to know if you have a good one or not without trying the games. Weird. Some have an expansion port on the side, others don't. Mine does have the port. It's not used by any official accessories, though some homebrew ones that use it may be coming.
I've mostly been playing everything with the regular US 7800 controllers. They are two button joysticks, with a long and narrow design, two buttons, one on each side, and a stick in the middle. I know 2600 games, and 1-button 7800 games, can work with Genesis controllers, and I tried that too, but the 7800 stick's not so awful that I want to switch controllers all the time just to use a better one (since 2-button 7800 games require 7800 controllers, Genesis controllers only work with 1-button games or 2600 games). Maybe sometime I'll get one of those gamepad-style controllers they released in Europe. The US stick 7800 controllers are moderately uncomfortable, and the buttons are squishy, but there's worse out there. At least they work.
Atari built some and test-marketed them in one city, with a handful of games (~9), all arcade ports. Releasing a new system just two years after their last one was a stupid idea, but Atari was going to do it. However, Warner Bros., who owned Atari at the time, decided to get out as the crash got worse, and the system went into legal limbo. Finally, Jack Tramiel bought Atari Consumer in late 1984. Atari Games, the arcade branch, was separated out into an independent studio. Atari Games would go on to form Tengen as their home division, would get bought by Warner again, and then got sold to Midway (before getting shut down in 2004, some time after which Warner once again bought up those rights by buying Midway's remnants.). Tramiel got the home computer and console side of the company, which lasted until its shutdown in early 1996. Tramiel was focused on making a profit more than anything; Atari was losing a lot of money when he bought it in 1984, and he turned things around by being incredibly cheap. Tramiel's Atari never had much in the way of internal game development, quite unlike the Atari of old. He also couldn't get the rights to many of the major arcade games, because of course Nintendo had their illegal monopoly going. He eventually sued Nintendo and won, but that didn't help sell systems. Anyway, 7800 games were mostly all outsourced. Many are from different studios, as Tramiel always searched around for the lowest bidder. Few push the system well; the 7800 graphically actually is as good or better than the NES, but few games show that off. Blame that on Tramiel's cheapness in not allowing larger cartridge sizes, spending to build up internal development teams or fund enough development in a timely manner, those onboard audio chips, and also not releasing the system's high score backup passthrough cartridge that GCC had designed (nice idea!).
Overall, the Atari 7800 is an okay system hamstrung by poor decisions. The system could have been interesting, but instead, it's a system with a small library heavy on last-gen ports. The popular 7800 games are mostly ports of old arcade games like Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Donkey Kong (since Atari had DK, DK Jr., and Mario Bros. rights, they did 7800 versions), and the like. The system has some later titles which push it more, such as Commando or Ninja Golf, but few were released; Atari didn't seem to get significant resources aimed at the system until 1989, and then stopped developing for it by the beginning of 1991. It really was a failure of leadership, I think. I mean, there was a legal battle over the 7800's rights that delayed Tramiel from starting plans to release it until May 1985, but after that, what did he do? Well, he released the system sometime in 1986, with those games that had been made back in 1984 by GCC available at launch. But as for new games... those took quite a while. The original 1984 games were re-released again in 1987, this time with cheaper cartridges (the sliding cartridge pin connecter that the 1986 editions have was removed; I have only one 1986-edition cart, Galaga) and 1987 license dates, but as for new games... uh, wait for 1987, it took that long until new games started appearing. Why didn't he immediately start developing games for it as soon as he had the system rights in May 1985? Pure cheapness, I assume, but trying to run a console without putting any money into making first party studios was a very bad idea. Atari may have managed to succeed despite that with the 7800, but the Lynx and Jaguar's failures were in large part to the paucity of first-party output, as well as Atari's consistent failure to get many third parties on board, even after the Nintendo monopoly was broken down. If you can spend less for something Tramiel may not have really cared about about as a core element of his business anyway, why not do it? He seems to have thought of the 7800 as a system to make a cheap buck off of, not as something that should be a great videogame console. Too bad. And so, the 7800 was aimed at the budget market, for people who wanted to spend less to get a console. For people who wanted to spend more, Atari later released a THIRD third-gen console, the Atari XE, which is a consolized Atari 8-bit (Atari 400/800) computer. Yeah, that's way, way too much competing against yourself there. Choose one system, and stick to it.
Despite the dated, thin library, though, the Atari 7800 sold decently in the US and Europe. The system sold 3.9 million systems in the US, and is said to have sold that much or better in Europe. Not bad, considering all its limitations. I'm not sure if it deserved that level of success or not, but I will admit that it does have some pretty solid ports of classics. However, so does the NES... they just weren't focused on as much as they were on the 7800. Atari almost completely missed most of the stuff that made the NES a hit, such as Super Mario Bros., only edging into making some slightly larger games in 1989-1990. There is only one true Super Mario-esque platformer on the system, for example, Scrapyard Dog, and it was a late release. As some people have said before, where was, for example, the Bentley Bear (Crystal Castles) platformer, earlier on in the system's life? That kind of thing could have sold more consoles. Their sales show that some people were interested in this more 2nd-gen-esque game selection, though, so it worked out. Despite the tiny budgets, the 7800 was profitable for Atari. That would not continue with their next two systems, the Lynx and Jaguar, thuogh, of course; both bombed hard at retail, and also had very little software. What had worked on the 7800 didn't continue to, and once again, Atari's failure to build up a better first party studio, and make third party relationships, hurt it badly.
Still though, yeah, the 7800 is a decent system. It's a single system that plays both the 7800 games, which are interesting to see, and also most 2600 games, and that 2600 has a massive library. It's worth having, I think, though probably more so for the 2600 than the 7800 part, though the 7800 has a few good exclusives, anyway. Just make sure to keep a notebook handy, because 2600 and 7800 games are very frequently score-focused games where the only thing that matters is how many points you got, because you can't actually win. Since the games don't keep track of your score, you will have to do so yourself, at least when you get a good score, or else there isn't much point to playing.
I have not had the system long enough yet to say for sure what a top 5 or top 10 or something are, but I will list some games that I particularly like here (in no order).
Atari 7800
--
Desert Falcon
Galaga
Pole Position II
Honorable Mentions: Centipede, Asteroids
Atari 2600
--
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom!
Enduro
Megamania
Dodger Cars (Dodge 'em)
Warlords
Honorable Mentions: Dragonfire, Amidar, Astroblast, Commando Raid, Pheonix, Demon Attack, Space Invaders, Demons to Diamonds, Moonsweeper, Kangaroo, Turmoil
I will say a little bit about each 2600 and 7800 game that I have. I say how many players each game supports, and if they support the save cart.
Atari 7800 games frequently have four difficulty settings, and have an ingame menu to choose the options. There's a pause button on the console, as in the Sega Master System. It only works with 7800 games, not 2600, and, well, pauses the game. The other buttons on the system are generally not used by 7800 games; they're for the 2600.
Atari 7800
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Asteroids - 1-2 player simultaneous or alternating, supports score save cart. Asteroids on the 7800, part of the original 1984 library, is an enhanced remake of Atari's classic single-screen rock-shooting game. The game has a graphical overhaul and looks pretty nice. The gameplay is the same as ever, as it's still an endless game you just play for score. The controls work well, and one button fires while the other warps you to a random point on the screeen. As ever, the controls are momentum-based, so you'll keep moving in the direction you're pointing; there's no gravity in space, after all. To slow down you have to turn and move in another direction. Left and right rotate, and up turns on the thrusters. Asteroids' controls take a lot of getting used to, and I've never liked them all that much; it's fine while you aren't moving, but once you start moving, it gets difficult. It works with practice, but isn't natural. This version has several exclusive multiplayer modes, including a versus mode where the two players shoot at eachother while also dodging asteroids, and another where the two players work cooperatively to see how far they can get. Pretty cool stuff, those modes make this version worth owning for sure. The game also has four difficulty levels to choose from, a common theme in 7800 games from Atari. Overall, I may be a bit of a skeptic of Asteroids, but I will admit that this is a quite good version of the game. I like the colorful graphics, and the gameplay is about as good as it gets for Asteroids. They probably should have added some kind of campaign game with an ending, in addition to the endless main game, but this is pretty good as it is. Nice added content.
Centipede - 1-2 player simultaneous or alternating, supports score save cart. As with Asteroids, Centipede is a part of the original 1984 library, and it's a nicely enhanced remake of a true Atari classic. The arcade game of Centipede used a trackball, but here you have to make do with a digital pad. It works decently well, though it's not quite trackball smooth. It's unfortunate that the 7800 never got a version of Millipede, but it did get this game, and it's a great version of this great classic shooter. The game has co-op and versus modes, and is a quite good port of Centipede all around. Centipede is a classic single-screen shooter where you can move around the bottom part of the screen, while shooting up at mushrooms, centipedes which break apart as you shoot their segments (which then sometimes turn into mushrooms after being shot), and tricky-moving spiders. Yes, the bugs are out to get you! Shoot them down. It's a good version of an addicitive, very good game. Oh, and yes, there are four difficulty levels, on top of the very cool exclusive co-op and versus modes. This is a game to definitely play.
Choplifter - 1 player. Choplifter is a mediocre port of an Apple II classic. The game is a scrolling shooting/rescue game, where you control a helicopter and have to rescue people taken prisoner in some bases. You can shoot angled at the ground, or straight down to hit tanks, which can't be hit with the angled fire. Your goal is to rescue as many of the hostages and get back alive. It's a fun game with solid controls, mediocre graphics (seriously, the tanks look pretty bad...), and poor audio. Despite those issues, Choplifter is a fun game, and series, so this is fun to play. However, the game has a crippling flaw. As with most versions of Choplifter, this game is based on the Apple II original. That means that it has only one level, period. So, win or lose, Choplifter will be over in minutes. Very disappointing. Sega expanded on the game in Choplifter for the Master System, which is a fantastic game, but this game pales badly in comparison. I like Choplifter a lot, which is why I got this game anyway, but overall, I can't recommend it; just get the great Master System game. Also on Apple II, other computers, Atari 5200, etc. etc.
Desert Falcon - 1-2 player alternating. In Desert Falcon, you play as a falcon soaring over the Egyptian landscape. There are a bunch of different enemy types to shoot, obstacles such as obelisks and pyramids to avoid, and at the end of each level, a sphinx boss to defeat. After each level, there's a short bonus area where you collect powerups, and then the screen theme color changes for the next stage. Levels are long and get tough, and there are no continues of course, so I don't know if the game has an ending or not; it gets very difficult. It goes on for a while, at least. Desert Falcon's development was started in 1984, but says 1987 on the title screen, so they must have added something to it later. Unlike the other 1984 games, this one's an original game. The game was inspired by Sega's classic arcade hit Zaxxon, and is an isometric shooter with depth which plays very similarly to that classic, but it has its own unique elements, and is a quite good game overall. This and Galaga are my favorite 7800 games so far for sure. Once I got the 7800 I knew I had to have this game -- I mean, it's a game where you play as a falcon! Come on. My username may refer to the legos, but falcons, the birds, are awesome too. This falcon is kind of cute, too. If you land on the ground, it hops along (aww!), and you have to press for each hop (or stroke through the water); in the air, however, you automatically fly forward. Good stuff. You'll want to land for a few reasons. First, it's much easier to actually hit things on the ground (in the air, lining up shots is hard), second, some obstacles are hard to avoid while flying, and last, you can only collect the powerups if you land. On that note, the powerup system is maybe the game's most unique element, other than playing as a falcon -- that's rare in games! On the ground, there are various hieroglyph tiles. If you land and walk over tiles, the tile will appear in part of the status bar on the bottom of the screen. Once you get three tiles, something happens. Each different hieroglyph combination does a different thing, so if you don't want it to all just be guesswork, either get a complete copy or print out the list of combinations from a scan of the manual (on AtariAge, for instance); knowing what the hieroglyphic combinations are makes the game more fun for sure. The game is fun even without paying attention to that, but paying attention to the combinations does make the game better and more interesting. Desert Falcon is, as with most 7800 games, a simple game. It has little variety, and hitting enemies in the air can be tricky, due to perspective issues. But the great graphical style, good gameplay, and interesting powerup system carry it through. Recommended, if you have a 7800 anyway. I just wonder if it has an ending or not...
Dig Dug - 1 player, supports score save cart. Dig Dug is another one of the 1984-original 7800 games. It's a port of Namco's popular game Dig Dug, the game where you go around a side-view underground screen shooting enemies with this odd pump weapon. YOu have to inflate and then pop all of the enemies. Once only one is left it'll try to run away, so you'll have to be positioned to be able to cut it off. Simple concept, and the port is good. However, while Dig Dug is an okay game, I find it gets boring quickly. The game just doesn't have enough variety, and it kind of wastes its underground setting since you rarely have to make many tunnels. I think that Mr. Do (Colecovision/Arcade/SNES) is a much improved version of a similar concept. It's too bad that that game isn't on 7800, or NES either for that matter. Dig Dug's just a bit too repetitve and simplistic; all you do is kill the enemies, there's nothing to collect or anything. You can dig around underground, but the only reason to do so is to get to enemies. It's okay, but is kind of boring compared to Mr. Do!. Also in the arcades, on the Atari 2600, and on many, many other platforms. The game has sequels as well, including Dig Dug 2 (NES) and Mr. Driller (franchise).