What Atari 2600 Game Has Your Favorite Sound?

[Colmino]

Sound on the Atari 2600. This is actually one of my favorite things to think about.

 

The inherent limitations - primarily meaning the fact that there are only two voices, but also the fact that the scaling of pokable values doesn't match well with 12-tone polyphony, especially at higher registers - meant that only a very small number of games bothered to employ music, and especially not during gameplay. (Pitfall II is a unique exception as its internal guts afforded a grand total of four voices.) This gave Atari games a reliable patina of stark impersonality. It's the console of bleeps and bloops and mechanical indifference, and often just utter silence - a phenomenon naturally helped along by its graphical limitations. Not a criticism; I personally relish that about the 2600.

 

As for my favorite "sound", my answer has to be Journey Escape. The game has music playing almost 100% of the time, only taking short breaks for the (also musical) sound of colliding with an enemy. The main BGM increases in intensity the longer you progress without getting tagged. And even though the tune is very short and repetitive, I very much like it. It doesn't hurt that the game is also one of the few solidly playable games out there that can be legitimately beaten, and without excessive frustration or ease.

[+DrVenkman]

As for my favorite "sound", my answer has to be Journey Escape. The game has music playing almost 100% of the time,

Ditto Gyruss.

 

 

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[AtariTexas]

On Defender, when you cant catch the human and he falls splat on the ground

 

Its bone crunching and smushy all at once

 

Good times!

Edited September 16, 2015 by BadHornet

[ave1]

Definitely Yars Revenge and Dodge 'Em.

[Metal Jesus]

I always loved that powerful loud shooting sound from Chopper Command. Makes you feel like a bad-ass

[+FujiSkunk]

Yars' Revenge. They could have made an arcade game with those sounds and it still would have been awesome.

[bigfriendly]

Yars Revenge is one of the all time greats. I also like the sound while playing Atlantis if the little ship that races across the screen. One of the more funny sounds was when you died while playing Dragonfire. The sound plus the little man flipping end over end.

Edited September 17, 2015 by bigfriendly

[chuckwalla]

The sounds I love most (and since my early teenage years) are:

 

Super Breakout (and getting to select the sound effect!)

Starmaster (the sounds of warping through space)

Pitfall (Harry vine swinging, jumping, and losing a life - which makes up most of the games sound fx)

Demon Attack (chime when clearing a screen)

Defender (laser fire and the splat of humanoids crashing down)

[24Fanatic365]

I've always really liked all of the sound effects in Atari's Pac-Man. Guess it's a nostalgia thing, but it just makes me happy every time I hear those 4 notes just before game play begins.

 

And along with several others here, Missile Command definitely makes the top of the list.

 

I also just recently discovered the amazing game that is Kool-Aid Man. The bouncing sound just cracks me up for some reason. I like to leave the game running after I die just so I can hear the bouncing around sound over and over.

 

I just read this post to my wife, and she laughed and said, "You're such an Atari geek."

Yes. Yes I am! [emoji106][emoji106][emoji109][emoji109]

 

 

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Edited September 17, 2015 by 24Fanatic365

[Agent570]

Tunnel Runner - the sound of a new maze being created.

 

I also like how they made the enemies (Zots?) theme music sound like the Doors' song "Riders on the Storm. :-)

Edited September 18, 2015 by Agent570

[+SpiceWare]

While it is biased, my favorite are the sound effects PacManPlus created for Space Rocks - they rock.

[The Mr. Video]

The sound in quadrun for when you get a game over and the sound in California games for when you preform a table top stunt in the BMX mini game.

[netspecter]

I love the music from Medieval Mayhem.

[GameGirl420]

Oh gawd,too many to name. I sample alot from 2600 games for my radio mixes.

 

I really like the sound in Zaxxon when you move the spaceship,it's trippy.

 

The sound in Warlords when the ball hits the bricks is really cool too.

 

All the sounds in Solaris. The glitchy "beep" sound in Q*Bert.

 

I always loved the sounds in Pac-Man 2600 as well despite what anyone thinks about that game. They're so iconic actually. I think I am the first DJ on FM radio to play sounds from the 2600 and rare consoles.I can't think of no other DJ that's done that on the air before me.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Does Pitfall II count?

 

Some homebrews have pretty rad TIA music on the title screens...

 

Dishonorable mention: Firefly.

Edited September 25, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Does Pitfall II count?

 

Some homebrews have pretty rad TIA music on the title screens...

 

Dishonorable mention: Firefly.

Yes. Yes it does.

And no doubt, there is some downright amazing music on so many homebrew games. Lead in particular comes to mind. As cliche as the song might be at this point, I still think there needs to be a version of Lead that plays a 2600 rendition of Darude's Sandstorm in place of the normal music. It would just fit the game so well!

[Colmino]

I just realized that there actually is a game that has my favorite sounds (not my favorite music, as with Journey Escape). Realized it because I've spent my whole life imitating the sounds in question.

 

Mousetrap. The simulated cat meow, and the odd lower-register noise it makes when you change into a dog (presumably the best attempt at a dog bark). The meow is rather remarkable, even if it definitely sounds like typical 2600.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Colmino

[Army Of 2600]

Missle Command, Yars' Revenge and Berzerk.

[Lord Innit]

I liked the way the sounds dulled when the snow stage of Enduro came up.

Or am I remembering it wrong? On well I'll have to fire up the ol' VCS to check.