Atari VCS/2600 turns 38

[johnnykonami]

My first was Pole Position. I can't play it now, but I do still have this nostalgia for games like it. I now have 59 2600 games with a few homebrews. I never understood why nullity hated it, but I think he's just jealous.

Some favorites:

Demon Attack, HERO, Kaboom, Missile Command (best with the trakball hack), Pitfall and Pitfall 2, River Raid, Solar Fox, and Yar's Revenge.

I'd own and list a lot more, but after getting a ColecoVision, I traded out a bunch of 2600 games for the better ColecoVision versions, like Defender, Jungle Hunt, Moon Patrol (homebrewed!), and Venture.

I had Pitstop instead.  It was pretty cool.  Don't worry though, I played Pole Position in the arcade along with Turbo, Super Sprint, Outrun, and well, you name it.

[gheebee]

I wanted a Nintendo as a kid but my parents would never buy it for me because they thought it was a waste of money. Instead my dad came home from work one day with an Atari 2600 and a bunch of games that he got from a co-worker. It was disappointing since it wasn't a Nintendo and didn't look or sound nearly as nice but it was the only system I had at the time, I had a few of games, and it was fun playing it for hours on end.
I just hooked it up and played a few games, Demon Attack was by far the best revisit, but as fun as it was it didn't take long for most of the games to annoy me like they used to. The controls are so bad on this thing even with a control pad.
Happy Birthday, Atari 2600! :]

[johnnykonami]

I wanted a Nintendo as a kid but my parents would never buy it for me because they thought it was a waste of money. Instead my dad came home from work one day with an Atari 2600 and a bunch of games that he got from a co-worker. It was disappointing since it wasn't a Nintendo and didn't look or sound nearly as nice but it was the only system I had at the time, I had a few of games, and it was fun playing it for hours on end.
I just hooked it up and played a few games, Demon Attack was by far the best revisit, but as fun as it was it didn't take long for most of the games to annoy me like they used to. The controls are so bad on this thing even with a control pad.
Happy Birthday, Atari 2600! :]

I didn't have a NES either, but I had a couple of buddies who did so I could go over and play theirs.  My best friend got pretty much everything that came out so I didn't miss out on much.  In retrospect, I think I preferred it that way (I did eventually pick up my own NES well into adulthood).  The ColecoVision was a hand me down from my sister who is 8 years older than I am, and of course I enjoyed it, and I also rocked a Commodore 64 which was probably my main gaming platform all the way up to the TG-16.

I think there is definitely something to say about the Atari experience, though.  I think it gave us time to also play outside (or whatever else) as the games didn't require you dedicate so much of your time like they do now.  Classic arcade games are the same way.  You just put in a little of your time, blow some shit up or whatever, and get a little fun from it.  Now you can be glued to a game forever without getting anywhere in it.  I had a couple great experiences but I find it hard to self monitor even in my thirties when everything is designed to psychologically keep you playing!  Case in point, Hearthstone running in the background of this window this very minute...

[Dicer]

Love the 2600 I still rock a few games to this day.

Keystone Kapers
Lazer Blast
Bezerk
Cosmic Ark (f*cking LOVE Cosmic Ark)
Asteroids
Warlords (this is a blast 4 player)
Yars Revenge
Moon Patrol, and the list goes on....

Easy to pick up and play games, not a time sink and you get a burst o' fun and move on with life.

[TR0N]

Very first console i ever had as a kid.I can't say i have much nostalgia for it now but when i think of the console it's these games.So have you played you're atari today ?

Enduro
Pitfall
River Raid
Keystone Capers
Missile Command
Berzerk
Ms.Pacman
Kaboom
Frogs and Flys

[wildfruit]

I'm too young for Atari. Though I remember one of my friends had a 2600jnr. Then I saw nes compared to that. No contest.

[Jinxed]

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

Same here, not a huge fan but there is a few games i like. my fav for the 2600 is gravitar, such a great game. I can waste hours playing it.

[gheebee]

I didn't have a NES either, but I had a couple of buddies who did so I could go over and play theirs.  My best friend got pretty much everything that came out so I didn't miss out on much.  In retrospect, I think I preferred it that way (I did eventually pick up my own NES well into adulthood).

I was actually a lot happier to have the 2600 once I managed to win my NES. People used to complain about the Atari when they were over and I didn't like coming home from playing NES at their houses and only having the Atari but once I had both it was nice to have what they all had and something older that they didn't have. I was kind of like you shortly after in the 16-bit era though, my friend had all the systems and we had a blast playing them, but I never really felt the need to go out and buy most of them.

[esteban]

I sold my NES and all my games to fund TG-16.

I was so happy my friends still had NES because, otherwise, I would have missed out on tons of fantastic NES games.

I wish I had my 2600 and my NES during 16-bit generation...it would have been nice to keep playing the older games at home.

My friend actually got Double Dragon 2600 new because his parents were convinced he didn't need NES.

[EvilEvoIX]

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.

Same here, although I was too young to really understand it.  It had Smurf and Lady Bug and Donkey Kong.  I was like 2 when I tried it and couldn't really get any where with it.

[SuperGrafx]

I have such fond memories of the 2600.
As much as I grew up playing the NES, I'll always be loyal to Atari since that was my first ever gaming console.

[Necromancer]

I had a lot of fun on the 2600 growing up.  So many entertaining games, like Towering Inferno, Wizard of Wor, MASH (ferret face!), River Raid, Stampede, Pac-Man, and even ET was okay once I figured out what the point was.