Games you were excited for..then disappointed with

[toiletunes]

As a kid, Pitfall. First few minutes of the game were okay, then I had a herd time keeping focused. I have a longer attention span now and it's more fun.

[Miss 2600]

lets not forget Raiders of the lost ark for the 2600 that was a dud for sure

Not for me it was.

I was fascinated by it from start to finish.

 

 

I loved it too. I wish there were more games like it on the VCS

I still have no idea why people talk down about Raiders, it was a cool game and how about all those screens. Good game, maybe not the best but pretty damn good overall. It would make my top 100 no problem.

 

 

 

 

Yep.....This was the first game I solved by myself without any help......I was sooo proud of myself

 

Great game.

 

Ditto! I don't know how I did it because I wasn't the brightest kid, but I did it. It's a unique game and will always be special to me.

 

The only games I got really excited about were Defender and Pitfall II. Neither disappointed me and I was able to finish Pitfall II--another proud moment. I knew what Defender was on the 2600 beforehand because a neighbor kid had it, so I knew what to expect.

 

Two games my father bought for me out of the blue did disappoint me, however. Swordquest: Earthworld and Final Approach. I couldn't figure out how to play either one of them.

[Dweller7777]

I don't understand the topic. Mainly, because I was eight when I got my VCS (my birthday in 1983, a Sears Video Arcade II, still have it, still works!) and I wasn't disappointed with any of them.

 

I loved them all. Mine came with Pac Man, and played the HELL out of it. For hours and hours. And E.T. Love it, still do. And, even at eight years old, I figured out how to finish it. Defender, Space Invaders, Asteroids..

 

Even when Kay Bee had their bargain bins of "lousy" games for $1.99 each, I loved 'em all. I bought twenty at once with my $40 birthday money circa 1984. China Syndrome (a game people say is 'boring' today) got a TON of play. I loved it!

 

So, I was excited for ALL of them, and disappointed with NONE of them. It was a different time. We had no expectations. Just the ability to play a game on my television was enough for me.

 

Even when my grandmother bought me Basic Programming with the Keyboard Controllers, I was in HEAVEN. I screwed around with that for what seems like a week straight. But I loved it.

[telengard]

Hands down for me, Defender for the 2600.

 

~telengard

[GameGirl420]

don't think i was ever disappointed with an Atari game.

 

 

NES however.....i remember playing Gauntlet on NES the first time and feeling disappointed.

 

was'nt like the arcade at all,prolly the first home game i played that really sucked.

[Torr]

don't think i was ever disappointed with an Atari game.

 

Same here. It's funny. I remember I had Donkey Kong on the C64 and then I got it for the Atari. Even tho the C64 version had much nicer graphics, sound and actually included ALL 4 scenes, I still played the hell outta my Atari cart just as much. Looking back it seems like I should of been let down by it, because it's inferior in almost in every way. But I wasn't. And I had no idea that Donkey Kong was originally an arcade games in these days!

 

I remember being disappointed in a way with Defender II. It looked SWEET and played so much smoother and cleaner than the original I grew up playing. But it was just too damn hard, playing with 2 joysticks requires dexterity I don't have, and the difficulty level makes playing with only your Laser (IE one joystick) pretty hard. Once again, I had no idea that Defender was originally an arcade game in these days.

 

Hmmmm.... I just had an idea. There must be some way of forking two plug ends of controller/joystick cords into one Sega Genesis Pad and connecting the right wires/pins you could map your Lasers, Invisio, Hyperspace & Smartbombs to A, B, C, & Start on the controller.

Could also be used for Indiana Jones A=Inventory Left, B=Attack/Use Item, C=Inventory Right, Start=Drop Item

Edited April 25, 2011 by Torr

[Cynicaster]

By the time I was old enough to visit local arcades with any kind of regularity, most of the “golden era” games (Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Defender, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Asteroids and the like) had already started to be rotated out in favor of more current titles (think Double Dragon era). In fact, out of all the “golden era” games, I think Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga might be the only ones I had a chance to play before the advent of MAME.

 

What this meant for me was that the Atari 2600 versions of these games were the first ones I saw, and therefore I wasn’t in a position to be “disappointed” with how faithfully the games were ported from the arcade.

 

I’ve defended VCS Pac-Man many times, and I do still like it, but now that I’ve spent a fair bit of time playing the original version on MAME I’m starting to see why people were so disappointed with the 2600 port. The arcade version just oozes style and charm and the 2600 version just doesn’t channel it.

 

Space Invaders on the 2600 is the very first videogame I ever played in my life. I hear some people say this port stinks but I don’t understand that sentiment. To me, the 2600 version of the game is and always will be the definitive version. Of course, that’s just because I played it first—sometimes it’s just a matter of perspective.

 

I was thoroughly disappointed with Title Match Pro Wrestling. I had played wrestling on a friend’s SMS and thought it was the most amazing game ever, so I just had to get wrestling for Atari. But the game just blows; for me, it was probably the last nail in the coffin for the 2600, convincing me that it was high time to start begging the parents for a new system.

[Gorfy]

Laser Blast. This is one of a handful of carts I got as a teen back in the day, so each one was a big deal to me. Excited about a new space shooter by Activision, I snatched this up at a local video game store when it came out. Was not happy to discover that it's the most mind-numbingly repetitive game ever created.

[Atari_afternoon]

Donkey Kong was the only game I really felt let down by.

Same here!

We played Donkey Kong at a friend´s birthday party on his C64 and from then on I was saving the 40 DM needed for Donkey Kong on the 2600.

Man, was I disappointed.

And my then sister´s boyfriend, who was an arcade visitor, says it´s nothing like the original and two stages missing.

 

Nevertheless, i played it a lot LOL it was just my 5th game then. Strange how I have never forgotten the order of newly-bought/gifted 2600 games.

[K.Michael]

I was disappointing with defender, until I found out that difficulty 'b' made the ship move faster. It still flickers a lot, but now that I don't feel like I'm piloting a snail the game is much more enjoyable.

[Jinks]

Donkey Kong worst game ever. Very expensive and very horrible game.

 

Haunted house was crap too. But I played it lots to enjoy it some.

[Zonie]

DK 2600...

 

Stumbled across it at Smitty's (Grocery + sundries, like a super Target today) and bought it on the spot.

 

I returned it the next day.

 

That was a turd.

[IHATETHEBEARS]

Swordquest Earthworld - without a doubt. I wrote a blog article about it once.

[+cvga]

Miner 2049er for me. I read about how great that game was and really really wanted it. My mom felt bad for me when I was sick and missed a week of school so she bought it. What a disappointment. I didn't mind so much that it only had 3 of the 10 levels but I couldn't get past how slowly everything moved. I still think it could have been a fun game if it wasn't so slow.

[Hyperboy]

Pong on the abacus.

[Nukey Shay]

Biggest Disappointment: Laser Blast. This was not the first Activision game I bought, and so I expected the same level of quality. Topped out the score on the very first day, and pretty much never touched it again.

 

Runner-up: Sorcerer. Saved from the #1 spot only due to the lower price tag (a $10 game when new stuff was priced at $30 or $40).

 

(Dis)honorable mention: My first letdown came with my first purchase ever...Space Invaders advertised 112 games on the box. Turned out that over half of them just mixed up controllers in confusing ways, rather than featuring game-changing variations as the pack-in Combat did. But the original 16 variations got a LOT of play.

[Keatah]

I'm voting LaserBlast too. Especially since my grandparents made a big stink about it and how cool it was to have another company making videogames. They automatically thought it would be the cream of the crop and couldn't understand why I didn't play it after the first day. They knew nothing of what elements go into making a good game.

 

I rather liked Space Invaders, who cares how many variations it had. I just picked the one I liked and jammed away. In fact, in a nebulous way, SI promised to be challenging forever because it had those variations I could grow into (I did not).

 

The other disappointment was Yar's Revenge. I didn't like the control feel. And the concept was too abstract for me (as a kid) at the time. Things like Video Chess or Air-Sea-Battle made sense, YR did not.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Keatah

[Emehr]

I was pretty young during my golden Atari years ( 5 - 8 ) so I had no expectations. Plus, we only ended up having 9 games anyway. I did realize Pac-Man was different than the arcade when I saw the coin-op at the barber shop but figured that's just how the Atari did it. I still played it and enjoyed it along E.T. and Defender and six other commons.

 

Speaking of the Space Invaders "112 Games" claim, yeah, that was a huuuuge stretch. Especially when one variation is "Player 1 moves the ship left, player two moves the ship right". How fun! I only ever played Variation 1. Hold Reset while powering the console up = double shots. That's all I needed!

Edited March 7, 2015 by Emehr

[edladdin]

I remember being shocked at how lame the PacMan port was in appearance and everything else, but at the end of the day it was still a very playable game that got a lot of use until the Ms. showed up a couple years later. Likewise, while I definitely did not play ALL those Space Invaders variations, I had enough that just a couple weeks I astonished The Bride by clearing three or four screens of "invisible invaders".

 

For me the giant diappointments were Swordquest Waterworld and Activision's Space Shuttle. SO BORING!

 

Plenty of "meh" games that were playable but not favorites, depending on boredom level. I'm looking at you Home Run, Football, and 3D Tic Tac Toe!

[Keatah]

A lot of counterpoints!

 

And of course, Basic Programming had me thinking this was going to turn my humble 2600 into a somewhat powerful home computer for running BASIC games, at the very least.

 

Basic Programming was awesome! I read and understood the limitations straight away and just had fun with it. It fueled my imagination more than actually doing anything worthwhile.

 

 

I for one really enjoyed playing Superman on the 2600... rented Superman on the NES and enjoyed it. It was an interesting game... as for the 64 version... I made sure I stayed away from it as I heard countless claims of lameless on that one.

Now for my choice of big disappointment:

Donkey Kong (2600) - Begged and pleaded with Pops to mail order it and $50 US and some extra duties and taxes later I had it! Complete with a crushed box (but I didn't care then!) I eagerly slapped it in the 2600 and was somewhat like... ugh. But it was okay... then I played it for a while and realized it only had two levels. Then about 2 months later we saw the game at a local department store for $3.99 Canadian. Whoops...

 

Superman on the VCS rocked! I played it for hours after watching my typical 70's and 80's TV shows. Especially right after getting out of the bathtub. I'd have a bag-a-chips and dip at the ready. An astronomy book. And Superman. I must have mind-mapped that game a hundred different ways!

 

I disliked a lot of the coleco conversions for the VCS. There were little or no innovative programming techniques involved in those. And they typically missed some levels.

 

 

Almost forgot about Slot Racers. Bought it purely for the spectacular artwork and the description on the back of the box only to be totally gutted when I finally plugged it in. The same was true for Space War, what a con

I'll second Slot Racers. I saw the artwork and thought it would be some futuristic racer instead of a bunch of slow moving blocks of crud. Thankfully I didn't buy it, I borrowed it first!

Tempest

 

Slot Racers was cool in that I enjoyed the abstractness it posed. No library is complete without it.

 

 

I had always wanted to try Sky Diver because it looked neat, but when I finally played it I was truly disappointed.

 

We used to have SkyDiving "championships" all the time!

 

Popeye looked bad but played rather like the arcade game.

Congo Bongo really sucked but the arcade game wasn't all that great either.

That's not to say they weren't a disappointment to some4 people

 

I always thought CongoBongo was a sophisticated elite game. I never understood what it was about. And because of that I placed it in the category for the smarter, bigger. non-retarded kids, and went back to playing VideoChess.

 

 

What this meant for me was that the Atari 2600 versions of these games were the first ones I saw, and therefore I wasn’t in a position to be “disappointed” with how faithfully the games were ported from the arcade.

 

I rather welcomed the simplicity of the home games when compared to the arcade games. Arcades were too difficult for me. And people with hi-scores were like beyond godhood to me.

 

 

I’ve defended VCS Pac-Man many times, and I do still like it, but now that I’ve spent a fair bit of time playing the original version on MAME I’m starting to see why people were so disappointed with the 2600 port. The arcade version just oozes style and charm and the 2600 version just doesn’t channel it.

 

If anything I was wrongly "pre-conditioned" to dislike the VCS version of Pac-Man. I never liked in the arcades to begin with though. Again, it was a bigger-kids game.

 

 

Space Invaders on the 2600 is the very first videogame I ever played in my life. I hear some people say this port stinks but I don’t understand that sentiment. To me, the 2600 version of the game is and always will be the definitive version. Of course, that’s just because I played it first—sometimes it’s just a matter of perspective.

 

I downright didn't like the arcade version of SpaceInvaders either. I liked all the Apple II clones and especially the VCS. To me, like for many, the VCS version is the definitive standard setter. It had color graphics and playable by my simpleton self. Whether or not I played the VCS version first it would always be that way.

 

 

I was thoroughly disappointed with Title Match Pro Wrestling. I had played wrestling on a friend’s SMS and thought it was the most amazing game ever, so I just had to get wrestling for Atari. But the game just blows; for me, it was probably the last nail in the coffin for the 2600, convincing me that it was high time to start begging the parents for a new system.

 

There wasn't any "last nail in the coffin" for my VCS gaming experience. I stopped VCS gaming for entirely different reasons not attributable to any one game or lack of advances on the platform.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Keatah

[+save2600]

Was pretty disappointed with RealSports Baseball when it came out. So much promise, but the mechanics of the game sucked big time. Thankfully, we had SuperChallenge which was our go to BB game for years.

[BassGuitari]

I don't know if I'd say I was disappointed, but I expected Adventure to be a bigger, more sprawling game. Once I started playing with the randomization and max difficulty on, that didn't bother me as much.

When I first got into collecting, Defender was one of the first games I wanted to track down (Adventure being another, incidentally). I thought it was weird that the ship disappears when you fire, and that your lasers are big rainbowy zig-zaggy looking things. And I thought the sprites would be bigger. Again, I wasn't disappointed really, I was just expecting something different. (My only gripe with the game now is that it's too easy.)

[BassGuitari]

Was pretty disappointed with RealSports Baseball when it came out. So much promise, but the mechanics of the game sucked big time. Thankfully, we had SuperChallenge which was our go to BB game for years.

I'm still partial to Home Run myself.

[Shatter]

I'd have to echo all the thoughts on Swordquest: Earthworld. I honestly thought it was going to be this grand quest, along the lines of Adventure or Raiders of the Lost Ark and it...wasn't. You just wandered from room to room picking up things and dropping others. I can recall one of my best friends and I dedicating a Saturday afternoon to "solving" Swordquest. We managed to find two clues, then gave up and started playing Turmoil.

 

At least it had a cool title screen.

[Zonie]

I gotta say X2 on Superman Rocks. I got it with my console for Christmas because my parents couldn't find my requested "Target Fun" (They didn't go to Sears). I couldn't believe the gameplay and player sprites on Superman.

 

...Then I saw Adventure.

 

On game Variations... Maze Craze 256??? Then later renumbered to 16, I think. The multiple variations on the VCS was part of what made it better.

 

Combat has been redone, I'd like to see an update of Air Sea Battle / Target Fun with some better graphics, and get rid of that 2:16 game time.