The "Holy Cow - I can't believe it's a 2600 cart!" Thread

[VectorGamer]

Which Atari 2600 cart totally blows you away? This is more geared towards what they were able to do graphically without the excessive flicker.

 

My vote is for Stargate. I am simply amazed at what they were able to do with this cart. Last night I tested to see if I could get to outer space and they even included that after shooting all the humanoids. The sound effects are just about dead on. The game play is challenging as well.

 

My second place vote goes to Medieval Mayhem. What the author was able to produce graphically is stunning along. Props also for the options menu.

[BigO]

"Holy Cow - I can't believe it's a 2600 cart!" was pretty much my thought when I first fired up Solaris.

[tillenterprises]

I remember my jaw dropping when I bought Pitfall II in 1984 and popping it in my Atari. The waterfalls, the balloon, and just how big the game was amazed me. I also was blown away when my friend showed me the Ms. Pac-Man game he just bought and saw how good it was, after how disappointing Pac-Man was. I bought Stargate when it came out, and felt the same way, although I did like the Atari 2600 Defender. Stargate looked and played very much like the arcade, even though I'm not crazy about having to use both joysticks. As for the newer homebrew games, Ladybug, Medieval Mayhem, and Toyshop Trouble are amazing.

[VectorGamer]

"Holy Cow - I can't believe it's a 2600 cart!" was pretty much my thought when I first fired up Solaris.

 

How the heck do you play Solaris? I've been trying to figure that one out...

[Lauren Tyler]

Pole Position.

[Red 5]

Tunnel Runner

 

(back off, I haven't mentioned this game in like 10 posts...)

[aftermac]

My second place vote goes to Medieval Mayhem. What the author was able to produce graphically is stunning along. Props also for the options menu.

 

Agreed... I've said it before, but the dragon is the single best animation on any 2600 game.

[Recycled]

Millipede.

 

Tons of them for me, really.

[+Ransom]

I'd like to pick "Lady Bug," as it is a great port, but it does have flicker and the placement and shape of the "dots" give it away as a 2600 game.

 

So I'll say "Solaris," since it's the first 2600 game that made me rethink what the 2600 was capable of.

[Dauber]

2 things:

 

1) Jr. Pac-Man, at least when I first got it...but it really is amazing how they were able to do that.

 

2) I don't know if supercat ever showed it publicly, but I did see a little intro animation he designed for Defender just for fun. Really amazing, IMHO.

[classicgamingguy]

I would have to vote for Ms. Pacman personally, especially compared to it's less than stellar Mr. version released earlier. I was totally shocked at the thought and implementation of Ms. Pacman...most impressed with everything about this cartridge. The music, the mazes, the moving fruit, everything was "spot on".

 

Second place would have to be Solaris (as mentioned). That game was simply awesome. Third place was Demon Attack. Just the way I compared it to Space Invaders and Phoenix. The game rattled my cage on more than one occasion with it's fast-paced gameplay. Great graphics, too. I liked the Imagic lineup in my youth.

 

-Steve

[keilbaca]

Tunnel Runner

 

(back off, I haven't mentioned this game in like 10 posts...)

 

 

So true on both counts.

 

Second place (because its a homebrew, not an official release) is definitely Medieval Mayhem. I loved helping working with it with Spiceware, and especially loved playing it. I threw it on the Krok cart and brought it to a pinball party. It was the single most played game there, and I took like 40 carts along with me including all the great games.

[NE146]

Ok 2 opinions.

 

My "modern day" opinion with all my 2009 gaming wisdom in me says it's Ladybug. There's lots of other homebrew candidates though in recent years because if you think about it, most of those games such as Medieval Mayhem, Thrust, and a bunch of others would have blown our collective brains had we seen them back in the day.

 

My "1982" opinion is a second vote for Ms. Pacman. I still remember the total amazement that stayed with me for weeks playing that game. Prior to that it was Demon Attack, now THAT was one of the first games that I couldn't believe was on the Atari. Really, it was the first fast paced true arcade style game that most any of us saw that brought us out of the Surround and Street Racer days.

[moycon]

I think it was probably Pitfall 2 that REALLY blew me away.

[VectorGamer]

Pole Position.

 

Pole Position's graphics and recycled sound effects for oncoming cars is little to be desired. However, everything else is pretty good for a 2600 arcade port.

[VectorGamer]

2 things:

 

1) Jr. Pac-Man, at least when I first got it...but it really is amazing how they were able to do that.

 

2) I don't know if supercat ever showed it publicly, but I did see a little intro animation he designed for Defender just for fun. Really amazing, IMHO.

 

I haven't played Jr. Pac-Man until recently as I just purchased it at the Too Many Games expo. I have been playing this quite a bit lately as the graphics are well done and the game play is superb (and tough!).

[Emehr]

Solaris and Jr. Pac-Man blew me away in the late 80's. Space Shuttle, while not graphically exciting, was amazing just for the sheer depth (and the size of the manual!).

 

Current games that blow my mind and have me thankful for modern homebrews are Thrust and Medieval Mayhem (just off the top of my head).

 

The grand "holy crap!" award (though premature and/or presumptuous ) goes to Boulder Dash.

[littleman jack]

H.E.R.O. and Montezuma's Revenge both were eye openers for me. And they're still two of my favorites.

[+Random Terrain]

When it comes to no flicker, the first games I remember being 'blown away' by were Lock 'N' Chase and E.T. A maze game with no flicker? Holy crap! An adventure game with no flicker? Holy double crap!

 

Flicker or no flicker, I was pretty darn impressed with Moonsweeper (which came out years before Solaris). Pitfall II: Lost Caverns sure was pretty and had cool music, but after beliving the hype about what a great adventure game it was and how much better it was than Pitfall, I was disappointed that it really wasn't an adventure game (no Adventure-like game 3 to be found here). I hated going back to a save spot after dying (how about letting the player set the difficulty to easy if they want the enemy to disappear after they die and instead of being sent back, they get to stay right there and receive their punishment). I also hated how quickly it was all over. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had replay value, but it was the usual 'everything in the same place' wipe and flush game from Activision. It was an impressive game, but I quickly grew to hate it, so I took it back to the store for a refund.

 

I didn't get Stargate until a couple of years after it was released and it was good enough to pull me away from my Commodore 64 for a while.

[Rastignac]

What about BoulderDash (very impressive prototype) ? JunoFirst is great. The CastleVania project is promising. The incoming Ferreira cars racing will rulez. KungFuMaster looks like fine. LadyBugs is cool. Many "better remakes" are just perfect (PacMan, SpaceInvaders, etc). Etc...

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

"Holy Cow - I can't believe it's a 2600 cart!" was pretty much my thought when I first fired up Solaris.

 

 

Dito!

[128bytes]

I had one of those moments the first time I played Keystone Kapers back in the day.

[Lord Helmet]

My "1982" opinion is a second vote for Ms. Pacman.

 

Agreed 100%

 

After the debacle that was Pac-Man, and the way that most of the other arcade translations of the era had looked up to that point Ms. Pac-Man simply blew me away. It was a bright moment for the 2600...all of the silver box arcade ports that were so much more like the real thing came out after that.

[+Omegamatrix]

How about Winter Games? Pretty good graphics IMO.

[mos6507]

All the really good coinop ports Atari did before the crash were as technically impressive as anything 3rd parties were doing. Dig Dug, Stargate, Gravitar. A pity they had already blown their rep with Pac-Man (and to a lesser extent, Defender, which was fun but merely a reimagining of the coinop).