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My First 7800 Experience!


StanJr

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My father-in-law found a 7800 and several games at a yard sale a few weeks ago, and I've been cleaning it up and testing it for him. I've never played a 7800 before and had no idea what to expect. But I'm pretty impressed. Its a great little system. Here are some of my random thoughts about my experience:

 

Controllers are ok. Better than the 5200, but the joystick is a pain in the butt (out of 3 controllers only one worked, the other two would NOT move in certain directions, can this be fixed easily?). It fits well in the hand, and the buttons are easy to use. Does the joystick also function as a paddle?

 

Games I played:

 

Food Fight: LOVED LOVED LOVED this one. Just like the arcade game I remember. Chuck moves a bit slow, but other than that, HOURS of fun.

 

Ms. Pac-man: Good times, very good port. More HOURS of fun.

 

Pole Position II: I know its the pack-in, but this is a really really good game. I did pretty well my first few races and plan to go back for more.

 

Ball Blazer: Confusion central. Aimee and I tried to play this, but it got frustrating really fast. Must need to read the instructions. It looked really good though.

 

Super Skateboardin': Its like old Skateboardin' but in a tall building with better graphics. Seems like it will be fun, if I get time to sit down with it and play longer.

 

Choplifter: Losts of fun, but had a lot of trouble shooting the tanks. Need to play more.

 

Donkey Kong Jr: As good as the NES version I have. When ported right, this is a great game.

 

Dig Dug: EXACT same sounds as the VCS version! HA! Hard to screw up Dig Dug, good game.

 

 

So all in all, my first exposure to a 7800 was a positive one. Not sure if I'm going to buy it off the in-laws, but it may be something to think about in the future. Should I go ahead and get it now? Are there even better games for it?

 

Ah, well thanks for humoring a rookie. ;) :) :)

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Well, the One on One has Larry Bird and Dr J. :D

Fight Night is a funny little boxing game.

Aces of Aces, hard at first, but a good title.

If you can find Mat Mania, thats worth it.

I first got my 7800, because my old system finally shut down.

I found some titles back then for 1.00 each. BOXED!

But that was a whlie back.

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Does the joystick also function as a paddle?

 

No. The top rotates using the shaft as an axis, but the rotation doesn't actually do anything.

 

You've got a lot of good games for it. BallBlazer is a game that you might want to spend some time to learn--it's truly one of the 7800's best. It's a particularly excellent two-player game, although the single-player game is great too.

 

I'd say the system is worth getting! Keep in mind that it can play 2600 games, so you can also use it for that purpose even if you don't get too many more 7800 titles.

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Ballblazer rocks, you should really learn how it works.

 

Now you just need to get a 2nd working controller and a copy of Robotron, and you've got fun for days.

 

And track down Commando sometime, that game is really friggin good-puts the NES one to shame.

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It should also be mentioned that for most of those games you have a 2600 joystick will work just fine.

Repairing the 7800 joysticks should be possible as well, they use those dome contacts like the Atari 2600 joysticks and are usually repairable.

 

Mitch

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Ball Blazer: Confusion central. Aimee and I tried to play this' date=' but it got frustrating really fast. Must need to read the instructions. [/quote']

 

Read them! The 7800 doesn't get much better than this! In fact, "Ballblazer" is the whole reason that I picked up a 7800 in the first place. I always loved the A8Bit version and the 7800 port tops it, IMHO.

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Controllers are ok... It fits well in the hand' date=' and the buttons are easy to use.[/quote']

You must not have played it for very long... :ponder: The cramps those "ProLine" sticks can produce are beyond belief! I personally prefer BOTH the 5200 joysticks AND the Intellivision controllers over the 7800 sticks.

 

Fortunately, most of the games I play on the 7800 don't require the second button, so I can use a good ol' CX40 with them!

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My First 7800 Experience

So what planet have you been living on? Its a great system and definitely a keeper - lots of great old arcade ports and plays the 26ers too - now buy it quick before they sell it for $20 at a garage sale and you'l be glad you did.

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If you can find ALien Brigade and Midnight MUtants, get them! THose are great titles too!

 

As for Ball blazer, the two most important things to remember:

 

1) When you do not have the ball, your sip will ALWAYS face the ball.

2) When you have the ball, your ship ALWAYS faces the goal.

 

Points:

 

1 point for pushing the ball into the goal

2 points for firing the ball in at medium range

3 points for firing the ball into the goal at long raneg

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My father-in-law found a 7800 and several games at a yard sale a few weeks ago' date=' and I've been cleaning it up and testing it for him. I've never played a 7800 before and had no idea what to expect. But I'm pretty impressed. Its a great little system. [/quote']

 

I had no idea you had never played a 7800. I should have hooked it up the last time you were at my place.

 

Totally agree with you on Food Fight. Robotron is another great one.

 

I've two copies of Pole Position II and both crash the system after 5 seconds. So I have no idea if this game is any good or not.

 

Oh, and use your favorite 2600 controllers for games when the second button is not needed.

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I agree with Room 34, those controllers are the worst of any system I've ever played. I plan to add a second button to my homebrew arcade joystick so I can use it with 7800 games that require two buttons.

 

-S

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I agree with Room 34' date=' those controllers are the worst of any system I've ever played. I plan to add a second button to my homebrew arcade joystick so I can use it with 7800 games that require two buttons.

 

-S[/quote']

 

I don't know - I'd take 7800 controllers over Intellivision controllers any day of the week!

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Only recently I bought some "new" 7800 games for the first time in a decade. Ballblazer continues to confound me; even with the computer playing at the easiest level, nobody ever scores. Love Desert Falcon, though I noticed that when there are lots of enemies on screen everything slows down a bit. Food Fight is loads of fun, and Robotron is better than I thought it'd be. After having it for less than a month, I managed to get over 1,200,000 on the novice setting with one joystick.

 

If anyone is interested, I have the following 7800 games with their boxes and instructions for sale and/or trade:

 

One-on-One Basketball

Realsports Baseball

Winter Games

Scrapyard Dog

DK Jr.

Barnyard Blaster

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've two copies of Pole Position II and both crash the system after 5 seconds.  So I have no idea if this game is any good or not.

 

Interesting... when my parents bought us a 7800 back in 1987, the first unit we got would usually crash within a few seconds of startup. As I remember it, it would go to a blank screen after showing the BIOS atari logo. I could eventually get it to run by just trying it over and over. In light of what I now know about the whole signature check procedure, I had recently concluded that the system must have been incorrectly flunking the signature check... but was there a bad batch of Pole Position II carts? Maybe there was nothing wrong with the actual system itself. Anyway the replacement unit and cart worked fine, but I had never considered that the cart could have been the problem.

 

 

As for the Proline controls, yeah they're not very sturdy. My original pair were ruined due to my siblings and I pushing the stick too hard. If you always use a light touch, and don't let kids touch them, then they'll be okay. My current pair are still working fine after many years, though I don't use them very often. I'm afraid to :) I prefer to use a genesis gamepad for single button games, and that's also a good thing to let kids use if you have any around.

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I agree with Room 34, those controllers are the worst of any system I've ever played. I plan to add a second button to my homebrew arcade joystick so I can use it with 7800 games that require two buttons.

 

-S

 

I don't know - I'd take 7800 controllers over Intellivision controllers any day of the week!

 

Nope, I have to stick by my original opinion. The INTV controllers are pretty bad, but IMO the prolines are worse.

 

-S

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If someone managed to take the stick from a proline and mate it up to the side buttons on an INTV controller they would have possibly made a controller so bad that it would cause a rip in the fabric of reality and possibly extinguish all life as we know it.

 

-S

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