/vr/ - Retro Games

>>8905963
Show some respect. The 2600, janky as it is now, was the first widely adopted console and ushered in the era of home gaming. Before that there was literally nothing and compared to nothing it was really something.

Also the 2600 Pac-Man port was widely derided at the time of release, Atari was in its "we can ship anything and plebs will buy it" phase that ultimately undermined the company but in the beginning they were breaking new ground and it was all a big deal

>shitty pacman port gets all sorts of shit
>the pretty good ms. pacman port and excellent jr. pacman port that came later get ignored
VCS gets no respect. Yes, "VCS", not the shitty rename when Atari started calling later systems random numbers for some fucking idiotic reason.

>>8905963
I wasn't alive during Atari era but from what I see it was like NES of its time, there simply wasn't anything like that.
I'm playing Pitfall rn and it's actually pretty fun game, even if a bit janky by modern standards. Any other 2600 games similar to it? Except Pitfall 2.

>>8906074
Kangaroo, Pitfall and centipede were my jams back in the day.

americans never claimed the atari was good, yet eurofags worship the spectrum to this day

>>8906230
Bullshit, it was an amazing bit of hardware in '77. It just should have had a successor console by '82 or so, like Nolan Bushnell wanted.

>>8905963
The Speccy was Britain's Atari 800.
Except not as good...

>>8906240

>>8906230
In 1977 it was pretty decent hardware for the price point.. but by the market crash? There were a dozen competitors with better hardware and cheaper games.

The hardware wasn't impressive, but the programmers? They were brilliant.

>>8906230
It is good you zoomer.

kaboom rules

>>8906263
>but the programmers? They were brilliant.
One of the compounding reasons Atari fucked itself: Not letting their brilliant programmers take credit for their work.

>>8905963
I hate the 2600 version of pac-man, because I don't relate the character to his iconic "wakka-wakka-wakka" sound, but the "KLANG-KLANG-KLANG" they replaced it with.

>>8906298
Really? Who gives a fuck about programmers. As a kid I sure didn't.

>>8906331
Prospective employers.
Imagine bringing your portfolio to an interview, but not being able to prove you made anything in it.
It's the main reason Activision was founded.

>>8906072
2600 > VCS

>>8906268
No it's not.
t. 2600 owner

>>8905963
>Is the Atari 2600 the American's Speccy?
The 2600 is more of a console, Atari had proper computers

>>8906035
That's a resounding yes then.

>>8905963
ehh sorta but it's different
atari is still well known and generally liked despite their fuckups, so they can cash in on nostalgia
whereas the zed ecks is not quite as well known, but those who do know it are more fanatical about it, and thereby, act like fags on the internet
so yes, we can still talk shit about it, but i wish people would stop buying from atari they're a shit company

>>8905963
>Is the Atari 2600 the American's Speccy? Can anyone from a country where this was popular really talk shit about the Speccy?

The machine came out in 1977, and the original plan was to release 12 games total, and move on to the next system. But there was demand for more games, so Atari kept making new ones. evnetually some programmer jumped ship and founded Activision. Activision made games that were 'compatible' with the 2600, and they were unlicensed. This caused other companies to make compatible games for the system as well. Atari tried to stop third parties in courts, but they always ruled against Atari. When I was a little kid, my paremts had a 2600 JR, while all my friends has NES's. This was quite a few years after the release of the NES. They had stacks of 2600 games for it. One was Pac-Man 2600. As bad as the game is in retrospect. i liked it as a kid. But seeing Super Mario Bros. 2 in comparison, it really was really shitty.

>>8906298
>>8906331
That was all Ray Kassar and the dumbass suits at Warner. Activision happened because four guys figured out that they were responsible for $60 million dollars worth of Atari's $100 million dollar revenue, and when they wen to Ray to ask about bonuses or percentages and so forth that were talked about under Nolan Bushnell, Kassar basically told them to kick rocks because he could hire a dozen guys off the street to replace them.
So they quit and formed Activison.

Ray also singlehandedly created Colecovision -- Nolan knew the 2600 was getting long in the tooth and Atari had not developed a successor yet (the suits at Warner thought they could sell 2600 carts forever, like they were .45 rpm records) so in a cunning and somewhat underhanded move started about a dozen "research" projects at Atari to tie up the six factories on earth that could make the chips you needed for consoles, as a stalling tactic.
Kassar just shrugged, said "dumb engineer shit, wasting money" and shut those down, and suddenly competitors appeared! Real smart guy, that one. If only Nolan hadn't taken Warners' money. All he needed was an ad man, but he got so many strings attached, they kicked him out of his own company.

If you wanted a console, the Atari was the best you were getting in era. If you wanted a PC, the Spectrum was literally the worst possible choice you could make in era.

>>8906230
Wasn't even alive in the '80s, and I find several of its games pure kino. Same situation with speccy: limitations often breed good gameplay and aesthetics.

>>8906651
Spectrum games were just as bad as they looked. Whenever someone is like "oi m8 check out me favorite speccy game" you know you're about to see some undiluted eurojank.

>>8905963
atari had playable fast-action games like defender and centipede

the speccy had,.... whatever the speccy is supposed to be

>>8906240
>atari 400

fixed that for you

>the Atari One

>Brits get into computers
>Americans dont, consoles only
its an IQ thing

>>8906998
>meanwhile in reality
>Americans only interested in good computers like the C64, not 3rd world children's toys like the speccy

>>8906270
At this point that game just reminds me of... I've been here for too long

>>8906569
based

>>8907154
>Most C64 software made in Europe
Really makes you think

>>8905963
Zoomzoom detected.

>>8907798
Europeans may got the quantity, but Americans got the quality (since they have disks and all that). Granted, the Americans already have IBM PC for gaming by that point.

>>8905963
>Is the Atari 2600 the American's Speccy?
no
>>8906035
FPBP

>>8908258
Don't forget the Apple ][ line and VIC-20.

>>8908258
i was using apple iie but i may be a greenscreen using dinosaur here

>>8908258
>IBM PC
>gaming
>in the 80s
Man, it sucked ass until '88 or so.

>>8905963
>Is the Atari 2600 the American's Speccy?
No. It was a console. America's "Speccy" was the C64, the superior computer system and also best selling computer system of all time.

>>8906035
>Compares the 2600 to the Speccy
>"Show some respect."
Maybe it is you who ought to show some respect to the Speccy. Pic related is considered a "top game" for the 2600, yet it would be considered laughable on the Speccy.

>>8911123
Which speccy model was from 1977 again?

>>8905963
>Is the Atari 2600 the American's Speccy?
Affordable jank machine that's a piece of shit compared to real computers? Yep, it's a Speccy.

>>8911213
Spider Fighter came out in 1982. Pic related is another "top game" that came out in 1982 for the American's Speccy.

>>8908258
>IBM PC
Man I sure love CGA barf. At least the speccy has a rainbow.

>>8911213
the ZX81. with is massive 1k of memory it was more a calculator

>>8911304
Fuck yeah, River Raid is great.

>>8911123
>>8911304
What is your point here? Both games are fine. I don't know how they'd be """laughable""" on the speccy, they are both good fun.

Both consoles are good
People had a lot of fun back then with them, so there's nothing preventing you from having fun too today if you get invested. You just don't want to, and that's ok, there are so many games around for free these days.
t. NES kid

>>8906270
>>8906074
It’s so weird that Activision and Parker Bros. Made better looking and more fun games for the 2600 than Atari themselves.

>>8912210
Activision's founders were the best game designers at Atari, who left because the company no longer valued engineers after Bushnell got pushed out: >>8906569
Atari under Warner Bros control basically drove out everyone who knew what they were doing, which is how we got Pac-Man and E.T.

>>8912341
It takes a lot of skill to be able to program atari 2600 but when David Crane and Gary Kitchen tried to make 16 bit games they were absolutely awful, just way below par. They made the Toys game, a tank game and David Cranes amazing tennis. I think being good at the 2600 doesn't translate well to newer systems so most of them didn't make games after the 2600. A big part of programming the 2600 is just getting an image on screen.

>>8912552
>I think being good at the 2600 doesn't translate well to newer systems
Well yeah, it's different hardware and all the tricks you know from before don't work. 16-bit era moved away from assembly into higher level languages, too, which is a very different headspace to work in. Also they were getting older in the 16-bit era, you start to get inflexible and it's harder to learn new things, so it's easier to fall behind.

>>8905963
The 2600 was in Europe too, dumbass.

>>8912552
Amazing Tennis is not a good tennis game because of the gameplay and the camera but clearly there's a boatload of potential and a touch of genius in the way it's presented, it's just too ambitious. But imagine if he suceeded, if he solved the issues in time, it would've been the definitive non polygonal tennis game.

>>8911304
River Raid alone bodies the entire speccy library

>>8907798
Nobody cares how many times europoors write hello world.

>>8913170
The delusion and desperation Americans have in defending their Speccy is astonishing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWBQusR3pIg

>>8915097
It's apples and oranges, OP, stop sucking so many dicks and self-bumping your shit thread