How do I get into this console? Is there anything worth playing?

>>11798558 (OP)
first of all you need a couch and then a bro to sit on the couch with you and then to play games with your bro while sitting on the couch because the atari 2600 was not meant to be played alone in a dark room like modern video games

The hardware is too dated to have good versions of any of the classic arcade games which is the best stuff from that period.
Activision had good games but that's about it and there are plenty of other ways to play those games.

>>11798558 (OP)
I liked it a lot as a kid but it's the one big platform I never go back to. Adventure and Pitfall are awesome but I already had my fill of them as a kid. The many arcade ports are sometimes bad and sometimes good but... even when they're good it's hard to justify playing them instead of turning to MAME. To get into it yourself, maybe try really hard to care about the history that it represents? I mean it's certainly got fun games. Look up a list of recommended ones and just play some, maybe that'll work.

>most of the carts are dirt cheap, hardware isn't too expensive either
>carts can still be found nib cheap too
>s-video mod is simple enough
>you could make a perfect arcade joystick with little more than arcade parts, a db9 connector and a resistor
for full comparability, you want the og wood grain or darth vader system. for near perfect compatibility, a 2600 jr or cartridge slot modded flashback 2 will work.

>>11798571
Will the bro jack me off while I play?

>>11798558 (OP)
retrocheevos make it way more enjoyable unironically, the no fun schizos on here hate that trvke though

>>11798558 (OP)
>How do I get into this
you dont. its for wide eyed kids in 1977 who'd never seen anything like this in their homes ever before.
it would be like having a holodeck in your home in 2025.
the game suck ass, but thats not the point. they were YOURS

>>11798558 (OP)
The emulators run like lightning because it's so simple, but it has a bunch of buttons and switches on the console and it's pretty weird for a beginner to get into, so I recommend something that lets you see and access the switches easily such as the Greatest Hits DS collection or another emulator that shows the switch positions like Javatari.
Original 2600s let you use a Sega Genesis controller so it's not really cheating to play with a modern dpad instead of an original joystick.
>>11798765
>retrocheevos make it way more enjoyable unironically
This is actually true, you'll only get the most out of these games if you are trying to achieve something, most of them don't try to hook you or guide you like newer games. Activision games (which are some of the best the 2600 has to offer) usually have scores like pic related in the manuals (which you should read) that originally were minimum scores to mail in so they would send you a badge, but they're basically challenges that will test your skill and knowledge of the game and could be considered the equivalent of beating the game.
>>11798571
>2600 was not meant to be played alone in a dark room like modern video games
Yes it is, but instead of using shitty isolating gaming headphones that block out noise, you turn on a music stream or a comedy audio or something, or even just open your window for some crickets or rain, and get comfy.

>>11798862
>yeah 50 years ago it would be the equivalent of the coolest fucking thing you could ever do alone, but now we no longer have a need for such things because we have...
romulan detected

>>11798558 (OP)
Pick most games, they can be pretty good. They are what they are; if you want something better buy a Coleco and an Atari adapter for it.

A lot can be just the same. Maze game, shoot em ups, some platformers. The Indiana Jones game requires you to have 2 controllers. ET is actually fun if you've actually RTFM. Pac Man is God awful.

Once you get into 1982 a lot of the same games are on Coleco or INTV, and they're a lot better on those platforms too. There's some games that were released in the late 80s that were also on the NES, and I would recommend Ikari Warriors on 2600 over NES. Same with Xenophobe.

There's also the incredible homebrew scene but for those games you gotta pay. (Or buy a flashcart)

>>11798558 (OP)
I'm very passionate about the 2600... Perhaps too passionate, especially for a zoomer (no I don't want to fuck one). Anyways let me answer your questions as someone who owns like 80 carts:

>How do I get into this console?
When it comes to playing the system, it's one of the few systems that I think has perfect emulation. I'd try it out on Stella before you make a commitment in buying one (though it should be noted paddle games are hard to emulate accurately due to controls). If you do enjoy the system, like other Anons said it's still dirt cheap (If you're patient you can get a console + accessories + 5-10+ game lot for like $75) so it's not like you're spending a crazy amount on something you might not fully enjoy. As for getting into the games themselves, don't play the games without the intent of getting a high score, that's how it gets addictive. At first you think you can get a high score pretty easily, but then roadblocks happen and before you know it, you've sunk like an hour (which for arcade games like what's on the system is pretty long) into a game you thought you were gonna play for 10 minutes.

>Is there anything worth playing?
Absolutely, some ports (on their own) are incredibly fun and if you stick to Atari and some of the big third party devs (Activision, Imagic, Coleco) you'll have tons of fun. Here's my list of games I'd recommend for first timers:
>Space Invaders
>Video Olympics (pong)
>Ms. Pac-Man (infinitely better than the original on the system)
>Video Pinball
>Mario Bros (gets fuck you hard after stage 9)
>Battlezone
>Robot Tank
>River Raid
>(Super) Breakout
>Kaboom
>Circus Atari
>Berzerk
>Return of the Jedi: Death Star Battle (uncommon, but not expensive)

Sorry for the huge post, but it's rare to see someone on /vr/ that seems genuinely interested in the system so I wanna be as comprehensive as possible.

>>11798932
Video Pinball is a horrible game, I want to hear why you picked it
Yars' Revenge is one of the best exclusives on the system and a fairly common cart, I'd put it on the top of any list unless they had literally never played a game where you shoot things before, in which case it can go after Space Invaders

>Video Pinball is a horrible game, I want to hear why you picked it
Video Pinball sucks until you realize you can tilt the ball, then it actually has strategy. Instead of just hoping for the best you actually have some control over where the ball goes. As a pinball sim I agree it's awful, but as an arcade game it's great and it's so common you'll get it without even knowing it, but I don't think it's worth ignoring desu. You're right to call out the lack of Yar's Revenge though. It's not my personal favorite, but it's definitely a great game and I should've added it. One more thing I should've mentioned to OP is READ THE GAME MANUALS. They're super easy to find online and they can make a perceived bad game fun in a heartbeat.

>>11798869
>or even just open your window for some crickets
Made me think of this:
https://files.catbox.moe/85jlh0.mp4

>>11798558 (OP)
>How do I get into this console?
First you buy or find an old console television. Then you find a working Atari 2600. Preferably one with six switches but it doesn't really matter.
After that you buy an RCA to F Connector adapter. Don't use the little metal box for the RF.
Get working controllers. Two joysticks. One racing paddle. One joint paddle / paddle controller.
Find a nice good quality shoebox. That's where you want the games to live.
Start finding games. Look for activision titles. Then mattel's M games.
To fully understand Atari you'll need a friend to play with and compete against.

>>11798576
https://youtu.be/JA3mIWzwrZk
https://youtu.be/_Y6vhLDN3dI
https://youtu.be/bDuXERdj83c?t=60
https://youtu.be/dYw47wffgw8?t=70
https://youtu.be/O9hqGLokLNA?t=90

>>11798558 (OP)
My personal favorite is Adventure, but I'm biased. Mountain King is also pretty good, as is Missile Command. The Star Wars games are a little hit-or-miss in my opinion, but The Empire Strikes Back is one of the better games on the system.

The thing you need to understand about the Atari 2600 is that it came out during an era when video games were largely thought of as an arcade thing. Most games that were made for home systems were arcade-style, because they didn't really know how else to make video games. There were very few adventure games and most of them were experimental. You shouldn't go into the Atari expecting the kind of action-adventure fare that even the Game Boy was capable of.

>>11798970
I admit I never thought of it that way

>>11799032
>Preferably one with six switches but it doesn't really matter.
Point of information for people who never gave a shit about the 2600 before:
The ones that have six switches are the original revision(s) and besides being a little more valuable, it's obviously easiest to hit switches when they're right there in front of you. You do need all six switches eventually if you play enough games. However, on the 2600s that look like they only have four switches, they actually just moved the two difficulty switches to the other side of the console next to where you plug in the controllers, in addition to making them smaller and a bit shittier. That's why it doesn't really matter which one you get, you'll still have all the controls to play the more complex games.
My pro tip if you have a 4 switch is to just turn the whole console around. That way you can plug the controllers in to the front, easily hit the difficulty switches, and just memorize the layout of the four more robust switches on the other side. Plus you get to look at the cart art.

>>11799032
>an old console television
BTW this is what I meant incase you didn't realize that console is a type of CRT television. Ignore the lack of color. That's clearly a color set that's receiving a B&W signal.

>>11798932
>gets fuck you hard
Also kaboom is an amazing game if you want one to trance out to with twitch reflexes.

>>11798571
>2600 was not meant to be played alone in a dark room
Yet somehow I reckon it was just as common then as it is now

>>11799228
To expand on the specific revisions of six switch systems; there's the Heavy Sixer and Light Sixer. Heavy Sixers are the first 2600s released in 1977, the cases are thicker, most are US made (some late ones were made in Taiwan iirc), and it is believed to have a clearer picture (personally I don't think so, and I own one). The light sixers are closer to the four switch in design, they were made until 1980 (or 1981?) so they're way more common, and in my opinion they're the best variation in terms of both functionality and price (light sixers are $40-$60 on a good day, heavy sixers usually start around double that but usually go even higher). Though like the Anon I'm replying to said, all systems have the extra two switches, they're just in the back.

>>11798571
>atari 2600 was not meant to be played alone in a dark room

no.

>>11799032
>Start finding games. Look for activision titles. Then mattel's M games.
Mostly Activision & Imagic. Also Parker Bros, Coleco, CBS. Things kind of mostly go downhill outside of those publishers.

>>11798970
>Yar's Revenge
Please respect the other yars when positioning your apostrophe. Thank you.

>>11800013
>Yárs Revenge

Get one of these bad boys
also there's a lot of great homebrews. I should know, I wrote one

>>11800013
You're right my bad. Glory to the Yars, death to the Qotile!

>>11798558 (OP)
OP, IGNORE ALL OTHER POSTS IN THE THREAD. HERE IS A CHART OF DECENT TO GOOD GAMES ON THE CONSOLE.

>>11800167
Here's a version that narrows it down to a top 100.

>>11798869
>Original 2600s let you use a Sega Genesis controller so it's not really cheating to play with a modern dpad instead of an original joystick.
actually you need to rewire it or you'll fry it. same connector, different ground wire pin layout.

>>11798558 (OP)
Just get the core on retroarch and some game. (the whole romset is like 4MB on disk). Set up a good CRT filter that looks smooth like TVs mostly were with less shadowmask... then go to town. Albeit paddle games with be utter dogshit without a paddle.It won't be the same as an OG stick and button joystick either - but that's fine. You're not replicating the experience, which you largely can't in that as some have noted but in a dickish and dumb way - it was a different efa, you're just playing the games. It will never be the same vibe. Just have your own vibe and enjoy some simpler arcade style games.
You'll also want to read manuals especially for complex shit.
That'll get you "into" the console.

>>11799032
>>11799247
Also don't follow this guys advice.

You don't need a console TV and the console TVs are a pain in the fucking ass to move around.... if want an old CRT, just get a normal box one. Even more newer ones will work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfkDq6gkTmQ
Some are smaller furniture ones with a table legs built in, that's fine too... try to find one with speaker out if you need "better" sound that you can put through a stereo setup or router into a mono-stereo upscaler for headphones.

>>11800247
Will you fry it? I wasn't sure if that was a huge problem with Atari like it is with Commodore.

>>11800380
>pain in the fucking ass
Maybe your ass wouldn't hurt so much if you didn't insist on being the bottom every time.

>>11800167
It's mind-boggling that there are people who are so interested in this platform they'll recommend every competently executed variant of Defender or Space Invaders and two different versions of Frogger, but who still won't deviate from the anti-E.T. orthodoxy lest some player out there be drawn into sin.

>>11800665
>lest some player out there be drawn into a pit.

>>11800665
E.T. isn't unplayable and is definitely not the worst game ever (not even the worst on the system), but it's still frustrating and not in a good way. You can tell it was a rushed job that needed more time in the oven. It's another one of those games that you'll eventually end up playing or owning by mistake, but you'll most likely play it once. More power to you if you enjoy it though, I feel a similar way about Pac-Man 2600 (no it's not a great port of Pac-Man, but it's also not unplayable like most people say).

>>11800665
It's just simply not worth playing unless you want to experience what a bad game is.
What are your thoughts on the GameBoyColor E.T. game?

>>11798558 (OP)
it's fun. lots of trash too, like any console. give the games some time, play with a friend, play alone, play some 80s music and have fun.

>>11799009
lol I thought of this too.

>>11798558 (OP)
You need an old TV, ataribox and newer shit just isn't going to cut, you all need all the peripherals like the paddle controller, emulation doesn't capture that type of controls

What do I need to connect an Atari 2600 to an HDTV? My family found the old one while cleaning out my grandparents' house, and we want to play it.

>>11801278
RF jack, or AV mod it and connect it to the composite input

>>11800368
>Read the manual
For the love of god, this. The amount of plays I've seen on YouTube where they don't even get the basics down because of this is astounding. Some are unplayable without reading the manual, but a lot more just become mediocre if you don't grasp some finer points or the difficulty levels.

>>11798932
>Berzerk
Based

>>11800247
I've done it personally for a long time now and haven't fried anything yet. You might be thinking of a different pairing, a lot of controllers have that 9 pin connector. Genesis controllers have the same ground pin as 2600, it's the 5v that's different. The 5v being fed into the wrong thing apparently doesn't seem to matter.
From a post on https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=98403
>An Atari console puts +5V on pin 7. The Sega Master System either didn't use this pin or used it for the light gun (depending which source I believe). SMS controllers don't care about +5V on this pin.
>The Sega Genesis/MD controller uses pin 7 as the "Select" pin. This allowed Sega to add 2 more buttons. If that pin is high (5V) then the controller will return the states of buttons B and C. If that pin is low then it returns the states of buttons A and Start.
>Since an Atari will always hold that pin high (5V), this simply means that the controller will be stuck only returning the state of B and C, along with the directionals. This is harmless.
>B is the only action button that an Atari 2600 will be able to read. C is wired to pin 9, which I think is not connected to anything on a 2600, or at least not in a way that Atari games will see it.
As an added anecdote, my Harmony flashcart sometimes has an issue with Genesis controllers where you can't move on the menu unless you hold B as you turn it on. This issue actually got fixed when I bought an Edladdin 7800 Genesis controller adapter (so it would work with 2-button 7800 games) and started using it on the 2600.
I'd be careful about fucking around with other consoles with that connector before looking it up first though.

>>11801278
Luck mode: get a coax F connector adapter which are cheap and useful anyway, connect it to the antenna input which most TVs still have, and hope your TV can read analog signals instead of retardedly assuming it's a modern digital signal and converting it into garbage and not recognizing the signal.
Richfag mode: Open Source Scan Converter with Legacy AV Adapter special ordered/modded with the RF port planned for the next production series (or just wait for said next series)
Normal mode: Get a DVD player that will take coax inputs (see luck mode) and will output something your TV has an input for. Some players will even output HDMI from an analog coax input. The downside is there may be more latency, but that's also a downside for modern TVs anyway.

>>11798558 (OP)
Just make sure to read the game manuals because there's no built-in lore or tutorials like modern games.

I like the Atari and I liked Saturday Supercade cartoons about Atari games.

>>11801278
>What do I need to connect an Atari 2600 to an HDTV?
The answer no is what you need. Just don't.

>>11798558 (OP)
Pitfall is good but IMO Pitfall 2 is GOATed. That may as well be a third generation game, very ahead of it's time.

>>11801908
Crane-senpai's DPC chip made it possible

>>11800665
E.T. is trash and most of the games on that chart are at least alright.

>>11798558 (OP)
Play Yars' Revenge, River Raid, Knight Driver, Pifall, Berserk, Adventure, Moon Patrol, Combat, Joust, Pole Position, Defender