Favorite Atari Corp. system?

[Skippy B. Coyote]

Definitely the Jaguar, it's just a shame that they cost a small fortune to get into these days. The 7800 would be my second place pick, but it's not faring much better price wise as of the past year or so.

[Duke75]

I still have a soft spot for my Jaguar. I had fun with various games (Alien vs. Predator, Iron Soldier, Wolfenstein 3D), but I played Tempest 2000 probably more than any other console game in the 90s.

[Schizophretard]

I don't consider systems that were designed under Atari Inc. as Atari Corp. systems so I will go with the Lynx but if I had one I would probably go with the XEGS.

[+davidcalgary29]

Probably won't be the popular answer around here with the fan base and age group, but in all honesty big picture here, none of them. But, of the ones I have tried out before extensively enough to be fair, I think I found the Lynx to be the one I'd likely find the most fun owning and the Jaguar a ways back in second. There was something about the games on those systems between the uniques and the ports that were just well done and quite fun to play. Austin said what I was thinking basically about the Lynx: solid hardware, impressive to look at today, most well rounded library.

 

I never did bother with the 5200 ever and 7800 was extremely limited, but the 2600 stuff I had access to at times and I guess it makes me a snob, even of the 80s, but I didn't like how limited the hardware was. I was fine pushing my expectations down to the level of the coleco or the vectors on a vectrex to really enjoy myself, but going further back home console games were just thin and crappy, even the arcade conversions I felt were just not good to bad so I'd just blow my quarters there instead.

I’m curious: why do you think that the 7800 was limited for its time? Sound?

[+LS650]

I like them all except the 5200 - and only because of the analog controllers (the 8-bits are great).

 

That said, if I have to pick a favorite it would be the Jaguar. For me mid-90s systems strike the right balance between old school gameplay and more modern technology.

[Lost Dragon]

2600 Jr for as someone said earlier, the nostalgia itch.

 

So many fond memories of that time as a nipper, so many friends had the 2600 in 1 incarnation or another, so you were never short of games.The artwork on the carts, manuals and boxes, let alone the UK adverts in comics etc, just amazing.

 

 

The XEGS passed me by as an 800XL owner.

 

We never received the 5200 here in the UK despite initally being annouced, the 7800 arrived far too late to have any real impact.

 

 

I would of liked to of nominated the ST as thanks to that i got into 16 bit gaming early on, but....

 

I found the soundchip a huge step back from Pokey and SID, out of place on a 16 bit machine, no hardware scrolling and yeah i know the ST was more of a buisness machine but Atari UK really pushed the gaming side of it.

 

Plus Atari a little too keen to try and make the STFM redundant when annoucing the STE (that always narked me at the time having paid for the STFM with my own money, suddenly Atari tell you you own yesterday's hardware)..and i really gated the position of the joystick/mouse ports.

 

 

Jaguar? Well she gave me AVP..DOOM..Rayman..Wolfenstien. .I.S and Tempest 2000, but too few titles like this and her potential squandered by Atari.

 

So it has to be The Lynx.

 

I came to the Lynx after owning the Game Gear and that low resolution screen was a somewhat hard pill to swallow at times, but man alive, it had some amazing games, even with missing features at times.

 

Rampart.

APB

Blue Lightning

Toki

Pacland

Dracula

Stun Runner

Ninja Gaiden

Rygar.

 

 

Yep..Lynx it is.

[newtmonkey]

If the 7800 doesn't count (and maybe even if it does), I'd go with the Lynx. I never had one back in the day and just got my first Lynx a month ago or so and am extremely impressed with it. Simply an amazing system for its time, and it's got a killer library compared to most portables and even some consoles.

[Tanooki]

I’m curious: why do you think that the 7800 was limited for its time? Sound?

Limited was kind of a short cut for a loaded answer. To me it was limited on shelf space, limited on games for it that were't compatible 2600 titles, and also limited on unique games that weren't arcade conversions. Also really I felt the performance of it when I had seen it was limited too against both the NES and SMS at the time. There just wasn't any appeal, too little too late. Not wanting to or trying to start some 7800 fan fight over it, just how I saw it then and really still now. If I had to go back in time pre-NES I'd grab a Colecovision given the choice.

[+davidcalgary29]

Fair enough, although the released library certainly doesnt do the hardware justice. You can see deeper skills developed in Sirius and Plutos, and in the upcoming Rikki & Vikki. Stock sound is underwhelming, but the graphics hardware seems competitive for its time.

 

And I suppose its really an Atari Inc. product anyway, and may not fit in the parameters of this discussion.

[christo930]

2600 Jr for as someone said earlier, the nostalgia itch.

 

So many fond memories of that time as a nipper, so many friends had the 2600 in 1 incarnation or another, so you were never short of games.The artwork on the carts, manuals and boxes, let alone the UK adverts in comics etc, just amazing.

 

 

The XEGS passed me by as an 800XL owner.

 

 

 

Can the 8 bit line play XEGS cartridges? If so, can all of them play the cartridges? I know the XEGS can play some of the 8 bit carts, but how about the other way around?

[+davidcalgary29]

Can the 8 bit line play XEGS cartridges? If so, can all of them play the cartridges? I know the XEGS can play some of the 8 bit carts, but how about the other way around?

Many XEGS games require 64K, and will therefore not work on stock memory unexpanded systems. And the 800XL is much nicer than the XEGS for Tower Toppler due to artifacting (on a CRT).

 

Cart compatibility problems are isolated to a very few older games released for the 400/800, but its not a common issue and there are fixes available.

[DracIsBack]

Fair enough, although the released library certainly doesnt do the hardware justice. You can see deeper skills developed in Sirius and Plutos, and in the upcoming Rikki & Vikki. Stock sound is underwhelming, but the graphics hardware seems competitive for its time.

 

 

One of the challenges with the 7800 is it felt like Atari first dusted off the old GCC titles. Then they cheaply tried to port computer titles, while focusing on the XEGS. By the time they started working on NES like games (ala Plutos, Sirius, Commando, Alien Brigade, Scrapyard Dog, Midnight Mutants, Basketbrawl, Klax, Toki etc), the system was losing shelf space to the 16-bit systems and many people never saw the games that were released, let alone the ones that got mothballed. To this day, there are people that think it's nothing more than an advanced Centipede playing machine.

 

Rikki and Vikki and Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest are two nice gems made by homebrewers.

[DracIsBack]

Many XEGS games require 64K, and will therefore not work on stock memory unexpanded systems. And the 800XL is much nicer than the XEGS for Tower Toppler due to artifacting (on a CRT).

 

Cart compatibility problems are isolated to a very few older games released for the 400/800, but its not a common issue and there are fixes available.

 

The XL has a nicer keyboard, IMO. I always am nostalgic for the XE form factor and its detachable keyboard, but the system has a bunch of ergonomic annoyances, IMO.

[+GoldenWheels]

Gotta count me as a 7800 fan too. It's the swiss army knife of the Atari consoles, sleek looking, with a good modern homebrew scene. Has a surprisingly good RF picture in my experience too.

 

Just ditch the POS Pain Lines and get either a Sega pad or an Edladdin converter (for the two button games). Great little system.

[+davidcalgary29]

Gotta count me as a 7800 fan too. It's the swiss army knife of the Atari consoles, sleek looking, with a good modern homebrew scene. Has a surprisingly good RF picture in my experience too.

 

Just ditch the POS Pain Lines and get either a Sega pad or an Edladdin converter (for the two button games). Great little system.

 

You know, I really didn't like mine when I first got it ten years ago due to the fact that I didn't like the 2600 library (at all) and found the 7800's native library to be pretty mediocre. And then I discovered Chetiry and Strat-o-gems Deluxe and Beefdrop and my opinion (and use of it) dramatically improved.

[CatPix]

I looked, and only Beefdrop is an Atari 7800 game?

I stil lthink that the Atari 7800 should have been based on an Atari 800 computer, or better (basically, it should have been the XEGS). It's still a decent system but it certainly slowed down development of new games for the system. With maybe improvements to takin in account that the Atari 8 bits base was from 1979; like a double Pokey chip, or a more powerful GTIA? or adding a blitter, scrolling and sprites support?

 

Like here, the limitation is that sound and graphics are handled by the CPU, so the more graphics effects are added, the less sound can be squeezed in the game. Making the sound processing less dependant would allow to use POKEY for sound effects AND music.

 

Of course, what's done is done, and the 7800 suffered mostly from not being developped by Atari and thus, leaving less chances for the developpers to learn about the system. And also, having a conception stuck in the past, such as having a vertical scrolling well suited for old arcade titles, but not suited for the upcoming trend of platformers.

Edited February 9, 2019 by CatPix

[+davidcalgary29]

I looked, and only Beefdrop is an Atari 7800 game?

I stil lthink that the Atari 7800 should have been based on an Atari 800 computer, or better (basically, it should have been the XEGS). It's still a decent system but it certainly slowed down development of new games for the system. With maybe improvements to takin in account that the Atari 8 bits base was from 1979; like a double Pokey chip, or a more powerful GTIA? or adding a blitter, scrolling and sprites support?

 

https://youtu.be/P_g_tPfMclo

https://youtu.be/YYX5IoPta1s

https://youtu.be/0RTfiTus8zo

Like here, the limitation is that sound and graphics are handled by the CPU, so the more graphics effects are added, the less sound can be squeezed in the game. Making the sound processing less dependant would allow to use POKEY for sound effects AND music.

 

Of course, what's done is done, and the 7800 suffered mostly from not being developped by Atari and thus, leaving less chances for the developpers to learn about the system. And also, having a conception stuck in the past, such as having a vertical scrolling well suited for old arcade titles, but not suited for the upcoming trend of platformers.

I’m not following here. Okay, I was a little sarcastic in my last post — yes, Chetiry and Stratogems are (incredible) 2600 games — but am not suggesting that the 7800’s “native modes” suck, to put it bluntly. MARIA seems to be pretty flexible to me, and not even the A8s had dual POKEY until this century, so it’s probably not fair to use that yardstick for measuring performance.

 

The 7800 is a really well designed machine. I’m not sure what else could have been done given the goal of backwards compatibility.

[newtmonkey]

I will always love the 7800. It's very nostalgic for me (it was my first system that I actually owned, as I had inherited my 2600 from my older brother), and I think the library is pretty great—it's a small library of games, but there's an excellent ratio of good games in there.

 

I somewhat recently imported a 7800, and it's got a place of honor on a little table next to my desk in my office, ready to be played at any time hooked up to a small CRT I have here just for that purpose. Loved this system back in the day, love it now.

 

Homebrew games like Donkey Kong PK, Beef Drop, B*nq, and the many games from Pacmanplus have shown that the 7800 was no slouch. I mean, compare even the official 7800 Donkey Kong with the official Atari 8bit computer version (or even the excellent homebrew version); it's clear that the 7800 had some nice hardware. The 7800 version of Desert Falcon is also amazing at higher difficulty levels—smooth scrolling and no flickering even with MANY enemies onscreen.

Edited February 9, 2019 by newtmonkey

[+GoldenWheels]

Just tossing it out there...7800 has THE best version of Joust. Better than every other home version, and better than the arcade, and better than any rip offs that came later (Balloon Fight, pfft).

 

(you might guess, I am kind of a Joust fan)

[mbd30]

The Atari computers look really cool, but I never owned any.

 

The 7800 is probably the best Atari console if only because it also plays 2600 games without the need for a separate adapter. Its biggest weakness is poor sound.

[+davidcalgary29]

Just tossing it out there...7800 has THE best version of Joust. Better than every other home version, and better than the arcade, and better than any rip offs that came later (Balloon Fight, pfft).

 

(you might guess, I am kind of a Joust fan)

Agreed. The biggest beef that I have with the system is the library, not the hardware. The GCC/84 games are all excellent, and then game development just stagnated and Atari didn’t move on with the times. I suspect that the 7800 will have an exciting second life with the great new homebrews we’re now seeing.