Atari VCS/2600 turns 38

[KnightWarrior]

I remember getting the VCS for Christmas with my brother in 80 or something, I don't have a clue what year

[johnnykonami]

My first game console was a Colecovision with expansion module #1 to play 2600 carts with.  I had some great Coleco carts, but they were outnumbered by 2600 carts easily.  Haunted House was one of my favorites, along with Maze Craze and Outlaw.

[KnightWarrior]

E.T got alot of hate by being a bad game

Read the Manual, Can be a good Game

[wilykat]

I can remember the first time I played it.  It was my cousin's in '79 when he had it hooked up at Grandparent's house one holiday.  My parent had a hard time getting me away and ultimately they got me and my bro one for Christmas '80.  It was the Sears "heavy" 6-switch model with pack in Tank Plus (Combat to Atari) and we got Circus as well.

They also discovered they had a hard time getting me off Atari when I visited my aunt's house (her son got one, different cousin) and Adventure game was the one game I spent the most time.  I ended up getting one later along with a few more games like Yars Revenge and Space Invaders.

I also remembered not liking Pac Man because it was so different from the arcade version. I didn't know until many years later it was a hack job because the person who was assigned to create it didn't like Pac Man and didn't bother to follow the pattern.  That and with slower CPU, only 128 byte of RAM, and all it had been made much simpler to make it work.

[SignOfZeta]

Proof that %80 of success is just showing up. This system pretty much sucked but with no competition there wasn't much else to play. f*ck...that controller. Kids complain about "Nintendo thumb" but the 2600 stick could have been sold as a strength training device. When you are five years old, trying to get that POS to register "left" was some real work. If there is another stick with a worse ratio of actuation effort versus leverage from the base of the stick, I'd like to know what it is.

Only until the Colecovision though....Once I had one of those 2600 activity was reduced to Warlords, Combat, Megamania, Star Raiders and Breakout...maybe two or three other games. The vast majority of the library is unplayable Stygian crapola.

[johnnykonami]

Proof that %80 of success is just showing up. This system pretty much sucked but with no competition there wasn't much else to play. f*ck...that controller. Kids complain about "Nintendo thumb" but the 2600 stick could have been sold as a strength training device. When you are five years old, trying to get that POS to register "left" was some real work. If there is another stick with a worse ratio of actuation effort versus leverage from the base of the stick, I'd like to know what it is.

Only until the Colecovision though....Once I had one of those 2600 activity was reduced to Warlords, Combat, Megamania, Star Raiders and Breakout...maybe two or three other games. The vast majority of the library is unplayable Stygian crapola.

Oh man, Megamania.  Had that one too.  Also Demon Attack!

[Gredler]

River Raid, Keystone Kapers, OUTLAW

[Black Tiger]

My family had Intellivisions. I got to play much less 2600 at friends' houses than I did Collecovision and Odyssey2.

[johnnykonami]

River Raid, Keystone Kapers, OUTLAW

I didn't ever have Keystone Kapers but I played it later on and it's great.  Outlaw, I played the hell out of, gotta be one of my favorite 2600 titles and one my original 2 player .VS experiences.

[johnnykonami]

My family had Intellivisions. I got to play much less 2600 at friends' houses than I did Collecovision and Odyssey2.

Always wanted to play Intellivision, didn't know anyone who had one though sadly.  That D&D game looked pretty sick.  My Grandparents had an Odyssey 2 which I inherited from them.  They had like 30 games in box, not in superb condition but complete.  I can't honestly say I had lots of good times with the thing, but there are a few good ones, mainly concerning this thing:



Typed every curse word we knew into that sucker.  Sitting right behind me on a shelf, thinking about getting it out again and involving it in some music production.

[TheOldMan]

It was the Sears "heavy" 6-switch model with pack in Tank Plus (Combat to Atari) and we got Circus as well.

My first Atari, too. Tank Plus sucked, Circus was fun... for a while. The Star Trek game was pretty good, too.

My first game console was a Colecovision with expansion module #1 to play 2600 carts with.  I had some great Coleco carts, but they were outnumbered by 2600 carts easily.  Haunted House was one of my favorites, along with Maze Craze and Outlaw.

Upgrade time. Had all the colecovision stuff (Turbo wa great).
Haunted House was okay, on the harder levels.
Keystone Kapers was fun, but got boring after a while.

#1 in my heart: Kaboom!

[johnnykonami]

It was the Sears "heavy" 6-switch model with pack in Tank Plus (Combat to Atari) and we got Circus as well.

My first Atari, too. Tank Plus sucked, Circus was fun... for a while. The Star Trek game was pretty good, too.

My first game console was a Colecovision with expansion module #1 to play 2600 carts with.  I had some great Coleco carts, but they were outnumbered by 2600 carts easily.  Haunted House was one of my favorites, along with Maze Craze and Outlaw.

Upgrade time. Had all the colecovision stuff (Turbo wa great).
Haunted House was okay, on the harder levels.
Keystone Kapers was fun, but got boring after a while.

#1 in my heart: Kaboom!

You know, we never had paddles, sadly.  I once picked up Demons to Diamonds and could not for the life of me figure out how to play it.  Turned out I needed a paddle controller of course.  Since we had the ColecoVision though those were my controllers.

[esteban]

My first console experience.

Tons of fun games, but Combat, Pole Position and Asteroids were some of the first that I became obsessed with.

Not surprisingly, KABOOM! will always have a special place in my heart.

I won't list all the games I loved.

[lukester]

Not a big 2600 fan, but I do like Yar's revenge, adventure, jungle hunt and Phoenix.

[MrBroadway]

removed