Atari confessions. Confess your sins

[totallyterrificpants]

I don't own Pitfall. I have a HES compilation with it, a clone called Tom Boy and Pitfall II but no Pitfall. Every copy I find is overpriced.

 

E.T. is one of my favourite 2600 games.

[Flojomojo]

I like to call the old woodgrain system the VCS. It seems like a better name for an almost-analog system that is so primitive yet so cool.

 

 

I know everyone else likes the 2600 number, but that seems colder, more robotic. It seems like something the Tramiels would push to make it seem more computerlike -- and to sell the 7800. I will call it Atari VCS every chance I get.

 

Also, I like your Brak avatar. The world needs more Space Ghost stuff in it.

[Cambouis de l'Atari]

I open the sealed cartridges I buy to play them...

[Flojomojo]

I open the sealed cartridges I buy to play them...

That is what I would call a virtue.

I threw away all the boxes I had in the 80s and 90s.

[gauauu]

I prefer to play on an emulator instead of on hardware. I hooked up my Atari for the first time in about 20 years and bought a Harmony only when I needed to test my own game on hardware.

 

 

E.T. is one of my favourite 2600 games.

 

That's because it's one of the best. HSW was a genius.

[mikey.shake]

I also call it the VCS. It makes for the occasional confused look, but damn it, that's what it was called back in the day. Well, when we didn't just call it "the Atari".

 

I confess, I don't give two hills of beans about chasing rare games. There are a few that I wanted on my shelf, but nothing over about $20. All the heavy hitters that the collectors froth about couldn't really matter less to me, I just want to play what I want to play. I'd easily pass on a cheap copy of someone else's Holy Grail if I weren't interested in playing it. Maybe not a sin, but tell the wrong person that and you get "sacrilege face". Like you just farted on a baby.

 

And I'm ashamed that I'll occasionally buy a sealed game just 'cause it's cheap, and I already have a loose copy (Defender and Warlords and maybe one other). With no intention of opening them anytime soon. I have a $12 limit on "fancy boxes", though. I know to some people, the idea of opening a sealed game is terrifying. But to me, not opening and playing a game is a sin.

 

Also, I'm guilty of trying to track the market price of my "landfill carts". I'm not a "value collector", I just like playing video games. I paid very little for the dig carts (relatively speaking to what they go for now), and they're "historical" to me -- proof that sometimes childhood playground legends are real, even if it seems too far-fetched to be true. I'll never part with them, but I like watching the silly online prices going up, knowing that I got a piece of "gaming history" as cheap as they'll ever be.

 

Oh, and until last year, I never liked Asteroids.

[+sramirez2008]

I prefer the Atari Flashback Paddle Controllers.

[+sramirez2008]

Oh, and until last year, I never liked Asteroids.

 

Now that is truly blasphemous!

[Rick Dangerous]

I go long spans without playing 2600....favoring later 8 and 16 bit systems

 

I think many 2600 games look ugly as sin, and can barely stand to look at them

 

I collect loose 2600 carts and don't bother to track down boxes or manuals, instead looking them up online

 

Now that I have a harmony cart I don't think i'll be bothered to buy many more carts unless they are top 100 games in great shape or are new homebrews

 

I judge people who don't like River Raid

[Place Logo Here]

I do not own a 2600, only a 7800. Cannot understand why would one choose to do otherwise.

 

And I own zero original 2600 carts (although I do own several homebrews), thanks to my Harmony cart.

[Shawn]

I do not own a 2600, only a 7800. Cannot understand why would one choose to do otherwise.

 

And I own zero original 2600 carts (although I do own several homebrews), thanks to my Harmony cart.

 

I stick to the 7800 machine for both my 2600 and 7800 gaming needs as well. I don't think it's as uncommon as you might think.

[BassGuitari]

I, too, prefer the name "Atari Video Computer System." It's a name that sounds as sophisticated as the system itself must have seemed in the late '70s, quaint as it is now. Context permitting, I also prefer simply "the Atari."

I collect to play and to put on my shelf. I collect numerous systems but the VCS is one of the few where I'll try to get my hands on just about anything I can, within certain parameters. That approach to collecting has really gone out of style lately. Call me a shelf queen if you must, but my collection's almost as fun to look at as it is to play.

Asteroids and Yars' Revenge are overrated as hell.

I actually had Pitfall II before I got the first Pitfall. Not really a sin but maybe unusual?

I like Pac-Man.

The system's early era (1977-80) is my favorite.

E.T. ain't that bad. It's hard as hell, though; I have to play the easier games instead of the default or I just get pissed off.

Adventure was kind of a let-down...at first. I love the game now, though I do wish the item placement was more random; you tend to find items in more or less the same locations, and the vast majority of the game world will rarely give you any reason to go there, mitigating any reason to explore it. And exploration seems like pretty big component of an adventure game.

Sears systems and box/label art looked better than Atari's.

[toiletunes]

I took a 7800 cart, broke off the extra bits, forced the PCB into a vader's cartridge port, and turned it on.

 

Anyone know how to fix a fried Vader?

[xybot67]

I never liked Adventure and back in the day, I disliked anything Intellivision related (including its fans).

[Nebulon]

I've never been a big fan of the classic Atari joysticks so I use aftermarket ones instead.

[atariactionman]

Apparently its a sin to have an Atari VCS under my telly according to my friends, when I should have a PS 4 or an Xbox One. Hell, im damn proud to have my Atari under my telly, and yes I still play it most days. And its still the one system I would pick from all of them to have under my telly. BTW the Harmony cart is amazing! I love super breakout thats my confession. And now I will say my Hail Marys....

Edited August 9, 2016 by atariactionman

[+D Train]

My parents gave our atari with all of our atari cartridges to cousins in vermont. We never got it back!

 

My best game was Activision Space Shuttle. We had the overlay for the six switch version.

 

I loved Superman and could not figure out why more marvel games were not made based on that template.

 

[+save2600]

I too threw away boxes in the 80's and super early 90's. Still trying to recoup some of them to this day. Pengo and Atari Video Cube come to mind.

 

Traded away a nice T-handle Condor Attack in the late 90's for something(s) I can't remember now, which tells me the deal really wasn't all that great.

 

Lent a bunch of my games out to a friend sometime in the mid 80's, but before I was allowed to, my Dad engraved a small "x" in the lower left hand corner of every game as a form of identification. Hey, at least we had the gee-whiz NOT to write our name on them! Some of those games never found their way back to me either.

 

Sold my Supercharger, but wouldn't have if it were not for the Harmony cartridge.

 

And the greatest "sin" of all is not setting aside the time to play my Atari as much I would like to!

[zylon]

I go out of my way to not call it an Artari as most folks around here seem to do.

[Professor Gull]

2 things I guess. I got my 7800 from childhood and for whatever reason ( yeah its been troubleshooted to the extent I care) it wont play 2600. I do like the 7800 controller paddles though and mostly because my fellow gaming buddies never experienced them so I get an edge when playing Xenephobe for over an hour while I watch their hands turn into sweaty cramped messes. Then I offer them a Genny controler.

 

2nd thing is I like to use my Ascii Genesis stick for defender on the 2600 over the original CX-40's I got. Is that really so bad though?

[EdwardK]

I actually like Night Driver, ET and the infamous Pac Man(still can't figure out why this one draws so much hate)

 

I have multiple working VCS's, some in the attic in a box somewhere, and I don't care if any of them are light, heavy, 4 or 6 switch. They were all bought on the cheap, or traded for under the assumption that eventually one of them would break, and I didn't want to be without one or at very least without repair parts. Haven't had to make a single system repair to date. The fact that they're collectable never occurred to me until I got on the internet. Still don't care if one model is more sought after than the other.

 

I once got a group of people hooked on Warlords with the Catch option turned on, when they'd all gotten proficient with that variation and in a very competitive spirit, I switched the game mode to normal for the next round, didn't tell them they didn't have catch, and laughed my ass off at the chaos that ensued. For whatever reason (probably the beer and lack of an xbox controller) they couldn't figure out how to get catch mode back, and kept trying to use the same tactics they employed in the other game mode. (Note: I don't feel any guilt for this one. Best moment of the whole thing was one of the players getting the ball between his paddle and wall, resulting in his death as he yelled "Catch Catch Catch!" and frantically mashed his button.)

 

I like the way mine looks hooked up via RF and can't understand why anyone would want to do any AV mods to the system.

[AtariTexas]

Bless me Father for I have sinned

It has been 18 years since my last Atari confession and these are my sins:

 

I smashed my Pac Man cart out of frustration

I have killed............killed many spiders on Spider Fighter

I have taken a second glance at the girl in the shower in Porkys

[Keatah]

Your penance includes calling the VCS, the VCS at every opportunity. I'll be watching

[ave1]

1) I don't mind Pitfall, but it is not really fun for me personally.

2) I got so burned out playing River Raid at the age of 12 or 13 (maybe 1981 or so) that I can't truly enjoy it anymore.

3) I love paddle games more than most other 2600 games!

4) I traded Tooth Protectors away for a Shrinkwrapped 7800 Super Skateboarding in the early 90s- and opened it...

5) I just never liked playing Adventure over at my friend's house when I was 10... so I never bought it.

Edited August 10, 2016 by ave1

[Mountain King]

I took apart a heavy sixer when I was a kid to see how it worked, and couldn't put it back together, so I threw it out.

I used to keep all my boxes until a friend made fun of me for it and I threw them all out.

I should have asked the girl at Kay Bee Toys out who used to sell me Atari Games, but I was too dumb to realize she was flirting with me.