Remembering the Atari 2600

[joshposh]

When I was about 5 or 6 years old, that's the age when I first laid my hands on a Atari joystick. Playing space invaders was the sh*t back then. From there I moved to Pitfall, Jungle adventure, and other memorable games. But the last Atari game I ever played had to be the most complex game ever made for the Atari 2600. I'm sure it was one of the last games ever made for it. It was California Games. It was never up to par with the NES version, but I have to admit, some of the gameplay was better then decent, but with the lower end graphics.

 

[cyberpinoy]

OMG Pitfall I will never forget that game. I remember the first time I used the Atari Joystick it was like something out of this world HAHA. Like alien technology. How it made the things on the screen move. HAHA Oh my the good ole days.

 

[Zyni]

I was a bit older, but yeah, I loved playing Atari. We had many hours of fun with it, and it was so much better than just sitting around watching TV.

My brother and I used to have contests playing Space Invaders. He liked Missile Command and Asteroids too. I played Centipede also. I vaguely remember some sort of racing game too, but I can't recall the name of that one.

It has been awhile. :smirk:

 

[BrokenDownFlier]

I also got my start playing games on the 2600. My best friend had one and I'd go to his house to play Outlaw, Pong and Circus Atari. Eventually when my parents bought a console for us kids, I'd play River Raid for hours or we'd do Yar's Revenge contests to see who'd get the best scores. My youngest brother played Asteriods for 4 days and somehow managed to convince both parents to leave the old tv the 2600 was connected to on for that time.

Was the racing game you're thinking of called Pole Position? That was a good one and I hated racing or sports games. You went around in circles like a Pac-Man track only with 3 or 4 loops.

 

[WarVet]

I was born was after the Atari era but i remember my mother giving hers to entertain me and my brother. My favorite was River Raid. Loved shooting the fuel stations haha. Pitfall and Missle Command were very cool too. There was a game in which you controlled a submarine and had to fend off sharks. Can anyone remember what was it called?

 

[BrokenDownFlier]

That sounds like Seaquest to me, about the only submarine game I can remember from the 2600 days. I never enjoyed Missile Command that much but Pitfall was great. My dad got bored of doing it going left to right so he used to go backwards. He got pretty decent at making it most of the way through that way but there was one or two spots that were either too difficult to get across or one that was just impossible.

 

[valy]

This may seem like a strange place to start, but for me, the box art of many Atari games is central to my memories of those games. The 2600 wasn't capable of rendering detailed graphics, but that didn't stop the games I played on it from whisking me away to fantasy realms or to the depths of space. It wasn't the chunky visuals of the games themselves that did it, though.

 

[GameCube]

I liked the game Pitfall Harry in the 1980s (my childhood). It was definitely intriguing and time-consuming. In that case, I don't think simple is always bad, or how would have Atari made all that money?

 

[Soulwatcher]

I never had an Atari 2600 but my uncle did and the first game that I ever played on it was frogger and it blew my mind as a kid lol. Pitfall was my second favorite game and I played pitfall and frogger to death every time I went to his house.

P.S. Atari is making another game console but I don't know when it's going to be out. And it's going to be something like a steam box.