I hate the 2600 (aka: Grandma's menstrual belt). Even in the late 70s when it was the only thing going I hated it. Combat and Warlords are f*cking awesome, and I love love LOVE the box art for those early Atari games, but the bulk of the system's library is just unplayable horrible shit. How many massively un-fun bastardizations of arcade arcade games does a system need? Evidently a lot since they were pooping out horrible ports of Rampage and Double Dragon into the late 80s.
I thought Defender was OK, even though its radically different than the arcade. Berzerk was good too. Others, like Gorf, were a f*cking disaster.
In the 80s I was mainly an arcade kid. After playing a shitload of Donkey Kong or Pac Man for real, seeing the 2600 version...bletch...I'd rather just have the lunch pail or the digital watch because the 2600 ports are just as cynically motivated marketing shit as those things.
In the 80s, I was swimming around in my dads sack, unfortunately. :-/. Every time I see the arcade scene in Tron, I start crying.
Intelevision: Nice try, but not really very fun. Sort of like a C64 with much shitier games and no keyboard.
I am starting to feel the same way about this system after finally picking one up and giving it a serious go. Aside from Tron: Deadly Discs, Astrosmash, and Demon Attack, I'm kind of just popping this shit in and going "f*ck, this is gay". I guess maybe over the years I should have played more games in the emulator than Tron, Astrosmash, and Demon Attack.... since thats all I'm enjoying on the real deal, I could've saved the money, lol.
The star raiders clone, Space Spartans, is OK, if you like that kind of game. It talks, so its neat. But still... 1 good Tron game (the other 2 are f*cking stupid), an OK space invaders clone, and a star raiders knockoff don't really work for me. Theres too many sports titles, and the library of games is small as it is. They're 2 player games too. Can't even AI the games.
Now the Colecovision...I liked that one. I had a big collection as a kid and also the 2600 adaptor so I could play Combat. I never actually had Warlords (or paddles, for that matter). Not only did the Coleco have much better arcade ports, it also had cool original titles. I played a lot of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Ladybug, Pepper II, Looping, Carnival, and Pit Stop. That was a good machine.
Gateway to Apshai on the Colecovision pummels the Commodore 64 one, as I have finally decided after side by side comparisons of the two games.
Venture is alot better here than Atari also (even though the Atari ones pretty OK).
My big disappointment for the Coleco is that there is a severe lack of blow-stuff-up games.
Or so I thought.
I just gave another dig through all the games and poked around... and while the 2600 has more options...... the Coleco has more quality.
Space Fury, Cosmic Avenger, a good Defender clone, Beamrider....Frenzy, a non shitty port of Gorf..... Jungle Hunt... QBert SMURFS.
yeah, lets go with the Coleco. f*ck the 2600 *kicks the woodgrained bastard*
Whats neat about the Coleco is can emulate most of the library on the MSX since the hardware is so similar.
