• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Atari 2600 - 35th anniversary

A

antiquegamer

Member
Muffdraul said:
That's the Odyssey 2. We had the first one, it came out in 1972 and was basically the precursor to Pong. It came with a bunch of different games, but somehow they all boiled down to twiddling knobs to move a rectangle around the screen.

Do you mean Electronic Games magazine? Yes! I had a subscription to that, it was like getting a Sears Christmas Catalogue every month! Heaven.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's the Odyssey 2. I remembered having to buy KC Muchkin because Pac-Man was Atari exclusive. (Yes, kids there was console exclusive back then).

And yes Electronic Games magazine! That was it. Yeah it was so painful to read because all the games were coming out for Atari 2600. I learn how to read English from gaming magazine, so I guess video game is "educational"!
 
wondermega

wondermega

Member
my neighbor had this, it completely blew my mind. Video games were such an unusual and foreign thing back then (compared to how prevalent they are now). I honestly don't recall if I saw a 2600 or an arcade machine first (bowling alley, pizza joint?), they were probably within a similar time for me.

Even as a little kid it was evident the difference between arcade machines (so "hi-tech") and the extremely primitive home consoles. But it really didn't matter, you had the thing in your house, and you could play different games on the unit. Play a game as many times as you like without having to keep feeding it quarters.. it was seriously mind-blowing at the time.

Yepppp, I feel old!
 
A

antiquegamer

Member
Bdub said:
Bought mine in '82 (a little late to the party). Saved up the money from my paper route. That was the Christmas that Pac Man came out. The system came with Asteroids and Combat.

I bought Kaboom! for $46, Dad bought me Pac man for $58. I think the system cost me over $300.

Canadians got SCREWED. I think my XBOX cost me the same amount 20 years later.
Click to expand...

No, they cost just as much in the States. I saved my pool cleaning and birthday / Christmas money for over a year so I can buy 2600. Pac-Man if I recalled correctly was about $70.00 at our local "hi-fi" store.
 
B

bill0527

Member
My grandparents bought one for me in 1979 when I was 5 years old. I got the model that came with Space Invaders, Combat, 2 Joysticks, and 2 Paddle controllers. The good ole days when they put everything you needed inside the box and gave it to you for one price.

I would lug it to their house on weekends and my grandpa got so addicted, he went out and bought one for himself when PAC-Man came out for it.
 
D

DeFiBkIlLeR

Banned
My first 'proper' console, I wanted one for my birthday (September) but my parents said 'maybe' Christmas, so with the money I got for the Birthday, I bought the Space Invaders cartridge.

Looking at it & holding it daily for nearly 3mths was agony...when you're young, days seem like weeks.

Best Christmas day ever....
 
G

Gianni Merryman

Member
I must have mine somewhere.

Playing Pacman, Asteroids, Missile command and Space invaders at home - albeit inferior versions of original arcades - was something unbelievable back then.

Another milestone in my childhood memories was when the first third-parties - Activision - stepped in: Pitfall, Atlantis and Donkey Kong were more advanced than most of Atari's offering - I don't want to start an argument here, but as far as I can recollect Activision's games were better than anything I had played before on my VCS 2600.

BTW nice to see there are other gaffers in their 35 years and over.
 
B

bryehn

Member
First played when I was 3-4 ('80 or '81) and a cousin brought his over at Christmas. So much Combat. So much Empire Strikes Back.
 
M

megashock5

Member
speedpop said:
The memories. Hard to believe. I'm so fucking old.
Click to expand...

I hear you.

I wanted one for years, playing friends' systems. Then ColecoVision came out and we got that instead. It was awesome, and then we got the adaptor to play 2600 games and caught up with that library too.

Then when 2600s hit $50 near the end we picked on up to hook up to the 13" b&w TV in our new conversion van. Early 80s, man. What a blast.
 
sadmaker

sadmaker

Member
bryehn said:
First played when I was 3-4 ('80 or '81) and a cousin brought his over at Christmas. So much Combat. So much Empire Strikes Back.
Click to expand...

THIS! And Real Sports Football and Baseball, and Spider Man, and anything Activision or Imagic.

MY favorite times were after the crash, my dad would take me to the local drug store/kmart and there were stacks and stacks of cartirdges, all types, for as little as 50 cents apiece. He told to me to grab 4 or 5. It didnt matter, they cost nothing, I came home with my new games and my head was spinning.

I would sit in a laundry basket and pretend it was my race car as I struggled through Enduro or Pole Position.

Good times.

EDIT: Berserk, Jungle Hunt, Kaboom, ect <3
 
K

Kokonoe

Banned
I actually owned an Atari 2600 a few years after I had gotten a Genesis and SNES. I would turn it on every now and then and play a little bit of this brutally difficult Star Wars game.

qj7Gj.png


Commando was pretty hard too, and I think my favorites were Ms. Pacman and Pacman Jr.
Combat was a nifty little multiplayer game too.
 
G

gamefan

Member
I was 7 when the 2600 came out. It was my first console and had such great games (and still does). Combat, Asteroids, Space Invaders, River Raid, Frogger, Adventure, Joust, Berzerk, and Pacman, to name a few.

I know nostalgia plays a big role, but I miss the first years of the arcade and home consoles scene. You would go to the arcade and play the best of the best and then go home and play decent ports and some amazing original games. The 2600 and Colecovision is what my girls will start off playing (if they desire to play video games at all).
 
V

Valjean Lafitte

Banned
VALIS said:
*tunes laptop to channel 3*
Click to expand...

This should have been the first post. :(

Anyway, I'd probably be playing Yars Revenge, Smurfs, Demons to Diamonds, Kangaroo!, Piece O' Cake and many other cherished titles if my Atari 2600 didn't look so awful on my LCD. Then again, with Stella I guess I really don't have an excuse. :p

Tax Avoiders it is, then!

Juh48.jpg


Go2nY.png
 
M

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
I still think that Super Breakout has some of the most absurdly epic artwork ever.

You're this lone astronaut. Aged, experienced, knowledgeable. You can tell in that look in his eye. And there's this... rainbow of sorts. It's approaching the planet, and that could be bad. So, you have to take care of it... with your paddle. So with a paddle and ball, you attack that rainbow that looms over you...

Fight the good fight, weary space man.
 
V

Valjean Lafitte

Banned
mr jones said:
I still think that Super Breakout has some of the most absurdly epic artwork ever.

You're this lone astronaut. Aged, experienced, knowledgeable. You can tell in that look in his eye. And there's this... rainbow of sorts. It's approaching the planet, and that could be bad. So, you have to take care of it... with your paddle. So with a paddle and ball, you attack that rainbow that looms over you...

Fight the good fight, weary space man.
Click to expand...

Its like an alternate ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey almost.
 
Harlock

Harlock

Member
Too bad Imagic don´t exist anymore. People know Activision better, but Imagic made a lot of great games for Atari 2600, with a kind of mystical aura.

Laser Gates was impressive. That multicolored shield barriers is pure Atari 2600 hardware.

laser_gates.gif
 
S

speedline

Banned
My dad had a Sears Telegames system which was a 2600. The first game I ever played was Circus Atari and played the hell out of it when I was 4-5 years old...... then NES came out.


c_CircusAtari_Picture_front.jpg


also played some tank game all the time with my cousin back then.
 
MrCunningham

MrCunningham

Member
mr jones said:
I still think that Super Breakout has some of the most absurdly epic artwork ever.
Click to expand...

The artwork for most of these 2600 boxes were amazing in general:

Warlords-F.jpg


asteroids_box.jpg


b_missilecommand_color_front.jpg


indy500atari2600.jpg


Looking at all these covers along with the Super Breakout one makes me suspect that they were all drawn by the same artist. The painting style seems similar for all of them, maybe it was one of Atari's in-house artists?
 
M

megashock5

Member
Gianni Merryman said:
Aside from the artworks, I loved those colourful cardboard boxes as such, with the games' titles written on the spine in white bold characters.
Click to expand...

I love consistent box styles, I like things to look like they belong together.

2600 (the original look, anyway)
Intellivision
Colecovision
Sega Master System
Sega Genesis (original style)

Packaging doesn't have that in games today, apart from a banner along the top or side.

I liked Wii's all-white spines, then LucasArts went yellow and Nintendo used red and ruined it.
 
Muffdraul

Muffdraul

Member
Boney said:
I actually remember your thread about it!
Or was it a post? I don't remember actually heh, but I've heard that story!
Click to expand...

I've never started a thread with it, but I've posted it a bunch of times in other threads, I knew eventually someone would call me on it. =P

So many awesome memories are coming back. We used to meet at a particular house to play D&D on Saturdays, and while we were waiting for everyone to arrive we'd play Adventure or Warlords. Sometimes it was a bummer when everyone got there and we had to turn it off.
 
R

RM8

Member
It was my first system, but it didn't really "convert" me and honestly most of the games were really bad - and not because of tech, but because of incredibly bad game design (which is understandable given the period). Still, there are good games for it like Solaris and HERO.
 
F

flyover

Member
The Apple ][ was my first real gaming system, but the Atari introduced me to social gaming. Playing Warlords or Combat at a friend's house was great.

Also, killer ducks.

6mlRA.png
 
M

Marvie_3

Banned
Still have 2 2600's. Such a fun system to dig out every now and then. Unfortunately all my controllers are broken so I have to use Sega Genesis controllers instead.
 
Agent X

Agent X

Member
MrCunningham said:
The artwork for most of these 2600 boxes were amazing in general:

Warlords-F.jpg


asteroids_box.jpg


b_missilecommand_color_front.jpg


indy500atari2600.jpg


Looking at all these covers along with the Super Breakout one makes me suspect that they were all drawn by the same artist. The painting style seems similar for all of them, maybe it was one of Atari's in-house artists?
Click to expand...

Yes, Atari really had some impressive artwork on their 2600 game packages. Those were among some of the more memorable ones, primarily since most of those games (aside from Indy 500) were released right around the height of the 2600's popularity in 1981-1982, but they had a lot of other great box arts before and after that period as well.
 
Huevos de Oro

Huevos de Oro

Member
Just like with so many others, Asteroids was one of my first Atari games. That and E.T. but that one I didn't play that much, for good reason. Spent countless hours with it.

Thanks for the memories, and thanks to my dad for bringing it home as a christmas present. It kicked off something truly special for me.
 
K

-KRS-

Member
The 2600 was before my time, but I've been exposed to it enough through podcasts such as Retrogaming Roundup that I can appreciate it for what it is. I don't think I've ever seen one here in Sweden though, so it would have to be eBay only if I wanted to start collecting it. I've been thinking of buying some games just for their awesome box art. And of course for playing, but those box arts are godly. :p

Btw, how were the sales of the 2600 in different regions anyway? We all know it was popular in America but what about Europe and Asia? And what were its competitors there?
 
R

rdaneel72

Member
I was an Intellivision owner in an Atari world. I can talk about Inty for hours.

But, man, 4-player Warlords with my cousins on Thanksgiving. Defender, Missle Command, River Raid, and Yar's GODDAM Revenge! Once I got the timing right, I could hit that swirly star thing with the cannon every time. I could play Yar's Revenge forever.
 
P

ProtomanNeo

Member
I remember waking up with my brothers and sister Christmas morning, and being stunned. We had all asked for He-Man toys that year, and got them, but mysteriously there was something else off in a corner. Sitting beside brand new 13in tv was the 2600 in all its wood grained glory. While the tv was playing the demo screen for the 2600 knock off Pacman. That image is still a vivid one in my mind thirty plus years later, and still chokes me up a bit. A perfect Christmas, and the beginning of a life long hobby.
2600pac.gif
 
V

Vitacat

Member
Much love, good old 2600, my first console ever.

Don't have the system any more, but still have a few carts sitting in the closet, just for nostalgia.

Did anyone else used to LOVE reading the Atari catalogs back in the day? Something about the illustrations fascinated me as a kid. God I loved Adventure, Missile Command, Space Invaders etc.

synt4x said:
Btw, how were the sales of the 2600 in different regions anyway? We all know it was popular in America but what about Europe and Asia? And what were its competitors there?
Click to expand...

UGH.

No offense, but back then we didn't give a flying shit about that sort of thing. Yeah, there was Atari vs Intellivision, but it was about the games, not sales. I miss those days.

As for Asia... there were no Asian game systems (yet) when 2600 came around. Videogames being an American invention and all, ya know. ;-)
 
Wag

Wag

Member
clem84 said:
I remember getting this as a kid. I was the happiest kid you can imagine. 35 years... It feels like a lifetime ago. I feel old.


-
Click to expand...
I remember getting one as a kid too, fooling around with it a bit then getting bored. My parents returned it and got me a computer instead.;)
 
P

ProtomanNeo

Member
Vitacat said:
Much love, good old 2600, my first console ever.

Don't have the system any more, but still have a few carts sitting in the closet, just for nostalgia.

Did anyone else used to LOVE reading the Atari catalogs back in the day? Something about the illustrations fascinated me as a kid. God I loved Adventure, Missile Command, Space Invaders etc.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! Looking back I realize the perfect age to experience the 2600 and even NES. The games and catalogs sparked my imagination, inviting me to expand the world that was created before me.
 
V

Vitacat

Member
Anyone know if there are scans of the old Atari catalogs available to download?

I have a serious bout of nostalgia coming on right now... Would love to look at them again.

EDIT: nevermind, found some. Google is my buddy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

LttP / Game Opinion Summaries: Atari 7800 (& 2600) - 3rd-gen console, 2nd-gen games?
35
14K
dreamcastfan replied
Inventor of the home video game cartridge passes away
2
84
5K
GDGF replied
Microsoft's first party studios and a history of Xbox launches
2 3
100
15K
Izick replied
Skyrim: New(er) Screenshots and Previews
79 80 81 82 83
4K
296K
Mengy replied
Nintendo Downloads - October 2011
10 11 12 13 14
690
41K
Brazil replied
Top Bottom