So, What was your Best 2600 Game..

[Joel D. Park]

In my personal experience, I could play most any game, but there were some games where I had a special gift and I could play forever..

 

Seems like I could play Yar's Revenge and Video Pinball until I got physically tired of playing. Seems like Asteroids was another, but man I suck at it today.

 

Later,

Joel D. Park

[Bob Bytchin]

My 2600 list would comprise of : Missile Command, Yar's Revenge, Defender, Ms PacMan, and Centipede. When I was younger I could play one of those games all night long without having to reset. I played some non-stop Missile Command the other night, and still have a bit of magic left, but if I try to play Defender on MAME, I can't do a damn thing.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

For me I would say that DragonFire, Adventure, Vanguard, and Yars Revenge were the games I could find that "Zone" in and could play forever.

 

For my favorite games...that would simply be Solaris, Pitfall 2 and Starmaster.

[Bob Bytchin]

Crossbow, you brought up a few more, and made me think of a few more: Dragonfire, Starmaster, Enduro, Robot Tank, and Demon Attack were others that I could play forever.

[Ian Primus]

I can play Asteroids for hours, I once rolled the score three times in one sitting. (then the fire button on the joystick wore out )

 

I don't know if this is a good score, but I got 12395 on Space Invaders last night. (first time I ever rolled Space Invaders)

 

Ian Primus

ian.primus@usa.net

[videotwit]

Here are mine:

 

Asteroids: I'd play this one for hours on end. I think the furthest I got was rolling the score 3 times - then finally giving in to boredom and turning to this next game...

 

Bermuda Triangle: This seems like a strange one to be hooked on, but I played it endlessly. Then there was...

 

Donkey Kong: Sure it wasn't all that great of a conversion of this arcade classic, but I still played it like mad. Finally...

 

Video Pinball: This is still one of my favorites. As a kid I played over and over. Now it's one of those "play until you roll the score a few times, become bored, and turn it off" kind of games for me. I love it!

 

~Scott

[MattyXB]

My:

 

Asterix

Bobby geht nach Hause

Dragonfire

Ice Hockey

Indy 500

Frogger

Human Cannonball

Peter Penguin

Pitfall 2

Pooyan

Q*bert

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Video Pinball

 

and some more

 

MattyXB

[Guest]

I was good at pac-man'combat'barnstorming

'asteroids'donkey kong and Tapper

[Thomas Jentzsch]

My favourite is still Starmaster. I costed me about 120 DM in 1982 or 3. But it was worth the price, i played it day and night.

 

For me, it was the first card, where i needed some strategy to get the best results. And finally i managed to save all stations in game 4. The score went over 9999 and was displayed quite weird. (I have disassembled that part some month ago, just to see what happpened

[PeeknPoke]

Missle command

Possibly one of the best coin-op conversions for the Atari (I even like it better than the arcade game)

 

Lee

[Mountain King]

For me there were games that I was good at and there were games that I just really enjoyed.

 

Games I was good at were,

Yar Revenge

Space Master X-7

Demon Attack

Dolphin

 

Games I really enjoyed, but not necissarily good at;

Frankenstein's Monster

Mountain King

Solaris

Pitfall

Pitfall 2

Star Trek

[Tempest]

My "Zone" games were/are:

 

Crystal Castles

Spacemaster X-7

Missile Command

Quadrun (strangely enough)

Turmoil

Astroids (but only because it was too easy)

Atlantis

Reactor

 

And of course Tron, but that's only in the Arcades.

 

Tempest

[ascetic]

I could play River Raid forever. That and stampede, oh and Missle Command one day I played all night

[dollopx]

I played Pitfall, River Raid and Kung Fu Master endlessly. Never finished any of them though (came close on Kung Fu). But I'd spend hours trying. Anyway, back to work

[Scooterb23]

As for me, I was always a little different when it comes to my games I could play forever.

 

My favorite was easily Activision Decathlon, I played that game all the time, literally, I would run solo 4-player games just to play it even more! My personal best game was when I scored (roughly) 8900, 9300, 9750, and 10100 in the same game!! I recently found a copy, plugged it in and...arthritis is a terrible thing to have, especially in your right wrist at 26 years old...6650 is my current high

 

Other games I loved were Defender, Pac-Man (I know it's a bad translation, but IT'S FUN!!! and my mom would like to play it too, we both have high scores over 350,000), of course Yars' Revenge, Artillery Duel (dad's fave), Kaboom!, Pitfall!, Realsports Baseball...I could go on, but I'll stop here. Thanks for reading my rambling.

 

Scooterb23

[Tempest]

That's exatcly why I gave up playing Decathlon. When you start getting shooting pains in your wrist you know that's not a good thing. I even tried it with the track and field controller but found that it didn't work well unless you had it attached to something to hold it down (like a piece of wood or something). Otherwise your trying to hold it in your lap and smack the buttons and the controller moves all over the place (and it looks like your whacking off).

 

Is it just me or does everyone else thing that the 1200M race was just a wee bit excessive?

 

Tempest

[Bob Bytchin]

I bought Decathlon when it came out, and I had developed a technique where I would hold the controller flat against the side of my right leg, and I would just use two fingers in a "V" shape to move the joystick. There was actually very little wrist action involved, it was more of a "vibrating" action I developed that would cause my Decathlete to move at blurring speeds. I never did care for the 1200m race though.

 

That summer I became friends with a guy and he had the game "Summer Games" for his AtariXL computer. I remember going over to his house for the first time, and there were 4 or 5 of us sitting there playing games. He loaded up Summer Games, and when it came to the 100m dash, he said "Don't worry, I play this game a lot...so if I beat you, it's just a game." The mechanics were the same as on Decathlon, so when I held the controller on the side of my leg, the guys knew that something was up. Suddenly we were on the starting line, the runners were lined up, the signal came....and BANG!!!, I shot off the starting line and before he knew what was going on, my guy was off the screen (literally) and was at the finish line before he got to the end of the screen. There was a silence in the room. They were all stunned. Those are the only games I could ever really beat my friends at....Decathlon and the "Games" series.

[Scooterb23]

actually, not to be a stickler, but it was a 1500M race at the end of Decathlon, even worse. And while it is a boring event in the game, it IS a real decathlon event in the Olympics, always at the end to show who has the most stamina.

 

I'm just shocked to see that nobody has crucified me (yet) for liking the Atari 2600 version of PacMan, you are my new best friends

[Tempest]

Oops, your right! I knew 1200 didn't sound right for some reason. I guess it is a Decathlon event so it had to be included. The secret was to pace yourself like the real runners do, if you start whacking away from the start your hand will cramp up half way through.

 

I guess it is pretty realistic after all.

 

Tempest

[khryssun]

Hey bob, I'm using almost the same technique.... that improve the speed ++ and allow to get great scores easely.

 

scooterb23, I won't blame you.... cause I love Pac Man too (but my eyes don't like the twinkle effect)

 

My other favorites games are :

 

- Haunted House

- Defender

- Yar's revenge

- Star Wars : Empire strikes back (uh, I broke a joystick with that one !)

- Star Raiders

- Adventure

- Vanguard

- E.T. (YES it's possible - got lot of fun with that game - just need to be familiar with the pit problem)

[Tempest]

Hehe... Here's an interesting sub-question: What's the first game you broke a joystick on?

 

My first game was Crystal Castles, just reefed on it too hard and wham! The stick came up out of the socket!

 

I also broke a joystick on Popeye.

 

Tempest

[Scooterb23]

My first broken joystick was an Epyx 500XJ, the cool little ergonomic black and red striped one that clicked evwery time you moved it. That's sick I remember that. I broke it on (surprise) Decathlon. During the (surprise) 1500 meter run, I lasted, but my joystick didn't!! (I would have had a 12,000 point game if I would have just gotten 800, but I didn't have a replacement so I quit). I also broke one in hour 7 of my 10 hour Defender marathon in '83 (at the start of my 3rd game). Recently I snapped my Gravis Gamepad in half playing Enduro on Stella. I was really pressing around a turn when snap! Oh well, I have a place where they are only $5 to replace, no big loss there.

[Mountain King]

Believe it or not. I still have and still use the original joysticks I had when I was 11 when I first got my Atari. I was never really rough with them except for Decathalon. Which you really had no choice. When I got my left hand operatoed on I got really good playing with one hand. So I never broke any joysticks.

[Tempest]

I had that EPYX joystick, I never liked it because of the click click click it made (drove me nuts!). I suppose I would have broken a joystick on Decathlon too if I had it back then (I think Activision made it to sell joysticks for Atari).

 

The 2600 sticks were pretty durable, but the 5200 sticks brake if you look at them wrong. I can't believe they made Track & Field and Decathlon for it, what were they thinking??? I wonder if T&F was going to come with a special controller like the 2600 version? I've never seen the 400/800 version boxed, did it come with the controller (it works, but I don't know if it came with it).

 

Mountian King, I can relate. I had to stop playing my Atari for awhile when I was a kid because I was having inflamation problems in my wrist due to the joysticks (they had a catchy name for it like tennis elbow, I think they called it joystick wrist or something cute like that). I stopped playing for a few weeks, the pain went away and I went back to playing but I was more careful to take breaks every 20 min. or so. Never had trouble with it agian.

 

Tempest

[videotwit]

Tempest-

 

I remember those hand problems all to well. I also remember these VCS-related repetitive strain injuries being diagnosed as "Atari Thumb."

 

No kidding.

 

~Scott