Atari_afternoon

I was always VERY excited. "Always", in the latter half of the 1980ies (Atari Junior here) means, every Christmas and birthday. Especially the first four ones, Midnight Magic, Ms. Pac-Man, Mario Bros., Jungle Hunt, plus one where my friends put together the vast sum of 20 DM (Deutsche Mark=10 Euro today), which was "Bobby geht nach Hause" (they laughed at me then ), each one of them I played more than the preceding one. Unwrapping the box, opening it and reading the manual (some but not all were not in German) and then "discovering" it, alone and then, over the next months, in multiple two-player sessions, yes, I´ll never forget this "Midnight Magic" ran all the time but most later liked the interactivity of "Mario". The Quelle (Sears-alike) company had many games but most were of unreachable 30-40 DM (including the Donkey Kong-disappointment) so I swapped a few from friends and finally got 3 collections totalling 20 cartridges. This was different from "waiting for weeks for one new game", getting a batch of used ones. A bag of many afternoons of fun, no doubt, but different. They were "too easy to obtain" haha. In retrospect, and OT, I find it strage that noone here I knew at that time had a Colecovision or NES, and only one had a C64 and Amiga 500. Next thing I know was the leap towards PCs. Anyway, them being expensive, me being young and having to wait for these twice-a-year periods made me full of expectations and a sense of "killing the old highscopre" that I´ve never had since then in the same intensity...

Wow - thanks so much for compiling this exhaustive colelction!

...Your most favourite DS "game" is StellaDS, starting with Berzerk ...Your most favourite GBA game of all times is the comparatively rare "Activision Anthology" (which grabbed me by my collar to join the retrogaming community early last year) ...You are, after all these years, still sad that your father threw away your terrific and collected-over-many-years 30-cartridge childhood collection during your first year at university Damn, it was only one joystick. All the rest was intact and should have been passed down the family tree !

Greetings from Germany Long time lurker here. Well.... My little list is slightly different but nevertheless reflects how I, in retrospect, spent many early home-from-school-first hours: 1. Solaris Yes. Imcomparable IMHO. With self-drawn map and all. Played only at night 2. Midnight Magic It has the benefit of being the first. Yes, I played it like mad, almost always got the million. Or twice at least 3. Mario Bros. Many funny two-at-once-playing sessions spent before doing homework. Third cartridge. 4. Jungle Hunt. I don´t know how often we were making fun of it, actually mocking it. Still like it a lot. 5. Mrs. Pac-Man My second. A steady runner / chomper. 6. Space Invaders. Well. Hardly a surprise. 7. Pressure Cooker Still one of my favourites today, after some 22 years! 8. Threshold Don´t know why, I liked its simplicity. One could talk through it. 9. Joust. Like Mario Bros for me; only I had it for a short time only, hence it made no greater impact 10.California Games Which as far as I am concerned could have consisted out of the BMX alone! Nowadays I have returned, by the GBA Activision Anthology, and by DS emulation software. That gave me at last the opportunity to check out H.E.R.O., Pitfall II, Robot Tank, Keystone Kapers etc, which I didn´t know then. And of course the homebrew top five, which, in my case, is only one: 1. Skeleton + It´s creepy, I like it.