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What is your favorite Activision game...


Army Of 2600

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good game but highly recommend reading the manual.

IIRC all there really is to know about it is the Color/BW switch toggles between cockpit view and the map. Otherwise, aim and shoot (or move and warp). It's Star Raiders but simplified and cleaned up.

 

Is there something I'm missing?

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IIRC all there really is to know about it is the Color/BW switch toggles between cockpit view and the map. Otherwise, aim and shoot (or move and warp). It's Star Raiders but simplified and cleaned up.

 

Is there something I'm missing?

 

It's nice to understand the energy feature so you can budget it and know how to refill it accordingly. As well it's nice to know there's a damage indicator and what the letters mean. And the scoring mechanics if you plan on playing for a maxed out score. A few more useful tidbits of info in there too. There's a little more to it than just jumping from cluster of enemy ships to cluster of enemy ships. So I don't know if I'd say it's Star Raiders simplified, maybe even expanded because there's multiple groups of enemies scattered around to engage. But it IS definitely cleaned up. Simpler more accurate controls, and no touch pad required.

Edited by Torr
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Megamania is actually quite good.

 

I'm a faithful fan of Star Raiders and for the 2600 and we had Star Master, which was just amazing, and Phasel Patrol on the SuperCharger which was also quite good for something closer to the Atari 800 Star Raider experience. Star Master wins for me.

 

I will always remember how I drooled over Laser Blast back in the day so that would be my second place.

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Another vote here for Megamania. I still play it a lot! Kaboom! would be a close second. Keystone Kapers, Seaquest and Beamrider are great too.

 

Starmaster I could just never get into. We played it a lot, and yes, we read the manual but there just wasn't enough there graphics-wise or gameplay-wise to inspire me. Imo Activision did much better games. Dragster is also at the bottom of my list, though we did play that a lot too.

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Kaboom! is timeless. You might not play it every day for weeks on end - it isn't that type of game - but it is one I keep going back to for years. I recently set my 2600 up in work rigged up to a projector via a VCR and ran a Kaboom! high score challenge for 3 days. People were mesmerised by the game. The younger folk (several years younger than the hardware) though it was great.

 

I love the fact that it turns the screw on you when you lose a life; removing the bottom-most bucket is a brilliant twist. It's one of those games you have to play yourself into form with. The physicality of the paddle control scheme probably has something to do with that. Some days you just can't play it well and on others you just click with it - it is the original zen or "in the zone" game and for those who think they have mastered it there is always the diff A setting.

 

My 2nd choice would be Megamania. It looks and sounds great and is better then the arcade game that inspired it (at least I'm guessing that Astro Blaster inspired it).It really comes to life in the 2nd loop where it cleverly introduces changes to the waves and it really puts up a stiff challenge.

 

I beat this game back in the day (on diff A - both with steerable and non-steerable bullets) but when I get my recently acquired NTSC 2600 modded and working I intend to try and repeat that with the 60Hz version of the game.

Edited by davyK
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Seaquest

Just to thread piggyback for a moment, I just had a thought regarding Seaquest: when you power the game up, is it supposed to just start immediately when you turn it on? Most Activision games boot up to a static screen or a demo, but my Seaquest just starts. Is that normal or do I have a weird cart?

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Since it would be too hard to pick just one, I will list the games I still play frequently from them..

 

1. Rampage

2. Ghostbusters

3. Commando

4. Kung Fu Master

5. Space Shuttle

 

I guess Rampage would be my favorite, but it's such a close tie with Ghostbusters I couldn't say it's a definite. I play Commando and Kung Fu Master regularly and Space Shuttle still has a lot of shock appeal for me. Double Dragon (7800) would be in there if I felt this was a 7800 topic, but I really don't like the 2600 version.

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It's true, there are so many good VCS games by Activision.

 

I love Pressure Cooker, never owned it, used to borrow it from a friend back in the day and still load up the ROM once in a while.

Enduro just blew my mind back in the day. I remember thinking a driving game could never get more real than this! You had day and night, fog and snow, tail lights glowing through the dark, just awesome.

I know we can't vote for HERO, but this was another game that had me floored. It had the qualities of the post-crash era of gaming before it arrived. It was an excitement to reach a new level to explore.

Sky Jinks was simple, but you always felt you could shave a few seconds off your time with ONE more try! Basically Barnstorming, but better in my opinion.

What was more fun than 2 player Ice Hockey? We used to say the the two teams were the Montreal Canadians and the Dallas Stars due to their color schemes! Tons of fun packs into 3 minutes.

River Raid, the progenitor to the Vertical Shoot-em-up genre. Galaga/Galaxian may have introduced the scrolling background, but this this game introduced a background that meant something and looked good, not just a pile of dots.

And more...

 

I can't pick a favorite, even if I WERE allowed to pick any title. Just can't.

Edited by Torr
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