Thread 12006378

I’m interested in learning more about the Atari and where games “came from”. I started with a n64. what games do you think are best? I think it’s interesting learning about where videogames were during my dad’s generation. I know he played games like night driver in the arcade and liked them a lot.


Are the two other Atari consoles the 5000 and the 7000 just basically like the Xbox one and the Xbox one x? Or is it like the Xbox and the Xbox 360?


I remember when my dad bought me a n64 he was playing it a lot the first year or two we had it and it makes a lot more sense when I realize he was playing DOOM on PC and grew up playing Atari stuff or rudimentary arcade games. He was a big breakout fan also.


When I think of the guys making all the great games in the 90s and early 2000s I imagine they were probably just as excited about seeing how far things had progressed and what was possible to create “now”.

>>12006378 (OP)
Activision put out lots of great games I enjoy Kaboom a ton. Haunted House is two games in one dependent on the difficulty setting you use. Begin with A/Novice to understand the game, but the real game is B/Expert difficulty.

You will find lots of games that are on all 3 classic Atari consoles. Don't disregard old versions just because newer ones exist. After all what do you have to lose trying them out? They're like 2KB and take 3 minutes to play. Many 5200 games would be better with self-centering sticks, but versions of games like Berzerk on 5200 are excellent. Robotron 2084 for 5200 also has twin stick mode which is awesome.

>>12006378 (OP)
Demon Attack
Phoenix
Adventure
Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle
Crystal Castles
Jungle Hunt
Star Trek

Those are all good games. Get to playin'.

>>12006393
5200 defender is basically arcade perfect
mountain king is rly good too

>>12006378 (OP)
in no particular order
>river raid
>yars revenge
>berzerk
>breakout
>galaxian
>asteroids
>defender
>warlords
>star raiders
>pitfall
>kaboom
just be aware some of these games breakout, warlords, kaboom etc require a paddle controller

>>12006378 (OP)
>Are the two other Atari consoles the 5000 and the 7000 just basically like the Xbox one and the Xbox one x? Or is it like the Xbox and the Xbox 360?

I need this explained in /vr/ terminology to fully grasp what you’re trying to say, but the 5200 and 7800 don’t play the same games. The two are pretty similar hardware-wise, as they both use the same CPU, but 7800 has better graphics and worse sound capabilities compared to the 5200. Additionally, the 7800 is backwards compatible with 2600 games out of the box, while the 5200 requires an add on.

Joust is a blast as someone who didn't grow up with an Atari 2600 (or any other Atari consoles. Centipede and Millipede are also pretty fun. I haven't really put a ton of time into any other 2600 games.

>>12006378 (OP)
>what games do you think are best?
Tank Pong
Snoopy and the Red Baron
Demon Attack

>>12006378 (OP)
There are no good Atari games, the entire library is barely playable slop that was churned out in a week.

>>12006912
>worst versions of games you can play the real version of anytime now with emulation

>>12007228
>this guy hasnt even swept any moons
fucking moonsweeper bitches
>dodge cosmic rays
>sweep moons
>repeat
atlantis is also awesome. maybe one of the best 2600 games period. laser gates is sick too. then theres robot tank for the gfx whores.
theres a ton of really cool games on 2600. the hardest part is remembering the generic ass names they all have

>>12007236
That's subjective, but OP did specifically ask about the Atari 2600. As an afterthought, why even bring up emulation? I mean, when I see a thumbnail of the Atari 2600 or a Neo Geo, whatever console, I don't assume that they automatically mean the original hardware because it doesn't matter anymore in most cases.

What percentage of Atari 2600 games can be “beat” or finished? Do the vast majority of them just go until you die without any ending?

>>12006912
Smurfs fucking sucks balls.

>>12006378 (OP)
This was the only good atari system. It was just too smart to win.

> ctrl + f
> no "chuck norris superkicks"
Nobodies gonna mention one of the most badass games on the system?

if you're interested in the origins of games you should focus mainly on arcade games

>>12007796
more than youd think, actually
theres a lot of old early adventure games like the swordquest games, adventure, indiana jones, etc
games like pitfall have an actual lvl, and you have to beat it. H.E.R.O. has like a proto-metroid exploration kinda thing going on, i know you can "beat" demon attack it just stops after a whileapparently if you did it while imagic still existed and called them, theyd send you a cool poster
in star raiders you had to defend a whole system. if you killed all the krylon swarms, it would give you a rank based on your performance, energy usage, time
etc

you gotta remember its the late 70s/early 80s for the 2600s heyday, so vidya was very much at the mercy of arcade whims. arcade games were designed to mug you of your lunch money. and ppl had been conditioned to expect such unwinnable scenarios. you dont WIN in missile command, you eventually fuck up and humanity is completely destroyed cue 8-bit wind sfx. ppl WANTED games that had that kind of arcade-y infinite skill-ceiling. the idea of a game that you could just "win", and it was over? probably seemed like getting gypped if you paid full-price for it, considering how small these games are

but even through all that, a surprising amount of early devs were toying around with the idea of "beating the game". they knew that the home console opened a bunch of new doors compared to arcade development. they just didnt know which doors yet. ffs adventure is like 5mins long if you know what to do, but it still blew ppl away because they had just never thought of a vidya being like that.
still, there was no way to save, nor was there even rly enough room to implement a basic password system, so the games you can "beat" are usually pretty short

>>12007980
its simply not true
most of the imagic games are pretty fuckin good and their cover art is always absolute SOVL, and idk if ANY of them have arcade ports.
2600 has some really unique games. and it being a home console is what laid the groundwork for console gaming and arcade gaming eventually going along their separate trajectories

This might sound retarded but is it possible to perfectly or close to perfectly emulate Atari games? I imagine it would be simple but every console has its own weird architecture. Hell we still don’t even have n64 emulation from the sounds of it havent looked at that in a long time.

I know that Atari has released little gadgets like mini desk arcade machines that I assume emulates the games but idk if there is an emulator with 100% support

>>12008009
of course you can emulate it, the 2600 isnt that complicated. its extremely basic.
idk if theres other better emus now, but the one ive used forever is stella. its been around for literally as long as i can remember, and has been updated regularly that whole time.
https://stella-emu.github.io/downloads.html
it has all the stuff youd need to emulate whatever weird controller/peripheral for whatever game youd want
hell, it apparently even can emulate the tape-machine add-on atari had. tho im not sure why anyone would wanna play berenstein bears educational software, outside of the oddity of hearing VAing in an early 80s game

>>12009181
>g

>>12008032
in 2025 are there any sites left to find games? Last time I messed with an emulator was like 2005. is v**’s l*** still around?

>>12006932
Is it me or is Asteroids 7800 way better than 2600? The 2600 version seems very basic with the way the asteroids actually move and is very easy as a result.

>>12009529
>is v**’s l*** still around?
Yes, but a google search would've told you that too..

>>12009529
>Last time I messed with an emulator was like 12 years before I was born

>>12009719
My computer is broken right now just using my phone.

>>12009761
Back around 2004 2005 n64 and GBA emulators were very popular and a bit before that I had used SNES but that was a long time ago and I’m sure most of those sites are gone now. I suppose the very last time I used an emulator was for kingsfield in 2014 or so but that was a one off thing not a regular event. Sorry bro life gets in the way and a decade xan go by without you playing many video games. Only reason I’m even here on /vr/ is I eventually realized anything made after around 2008-2010 or so is dogshit for the most part.

>>12009820
>I never owned a computer just using my mommy's phone
>Only reason I’m even here on /vr/ is she left it unlocked

>>12009715
probably but Asteroids was really outdated when 7800 was out

>>12006378 (OP)
Start with base games like Combat or Air Sea battle, they don't push the system but also aren't a mess trying to do things the system is not good at.

My top games are Cosmic Arc and Pressure Cooker.

5200/400 computer is like taking the Atari 2600 and increasing all attributes but it works in a similar way.

7800 was the same cpu but a video chip that mostly works pretty different. It can be really powerful in pretty specific circumstances.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucrK_pxV8VU

>>12009870
>autism

>>12009881
Asteroids is timeless.

Did anyone here ever have those 2000s plug and play devices where it was a joystick you plugged into the red white yellow port in the tv and it has a bunch of Atari games on it? was that just emulated? Were those the true games or what? I got one or two of this and they were fun

>>12007796
First console RPG, comin' through. Man, I'm still pissed my tweaker uncle stole our Supercharger.

>>12009881
Someone got me this weird mini arcade cabinet that’s supposedly an official Atari product. It has a bunch of 2600 games on it. I notice with sea battle or whatever it’s called, you can press a button and it changes the game, there is like 30 “modes” or “stages” you can pick from this way. Was it like this on the Atari? Did you have to use that weird toggle switch for that?

>>12010457
Air/Sea Battles had a bunch of different game modes selectable by the switches, yeah. I loved that one as a kid, though honestly Combat was better. I think they still hold up in multiplayer.

>>12010481
Just list whatever you think is cool. I’m watching a video of all 511 Atari 2600 games. I’m writing down whatever looks interesting enough to try out. be it for 20 minutes or something I can come back to for much longer.


how did the switch work on the machine? Was there only one or multiple? I’ve never seen an Atari in person.

>>12010487
I wrote down a list of about 150 of the 500 that looked interesting and I’m sure of that there are probably 50 or so that will end up being decent. Idk if you already listed any but I’ll try your guys suggestions first.

too bad this Atari mini console doesnt come with many games but I suppose they don’t have the rights to a lot of them

>>12009308
carol?
no carols like verifiably one of the first if not outright the first girls in vidya development.
and not just some meme-programmer either. she was the first to get that level of smooth vertical scrolling out of the VCS. river raid was absolutely fucking massive when it came out. prior to that ppl thought that kind of scrolling was stuck in arcades only

>>12010487
diff fag
but heres all the shit i have in my rom folder rn
that should get you somewhere
ime its best to start from about ~1980 onward. earlier atari games were obviously quite crude, as they were still trying to figure out how to literally even. theres still some good ones here and there, but imo the system rly only started to take off once there was legit 3rd party competition. namely activision and imagic. both companies put out a ton of cool games on 2600. personally, id start there

also, bear in mind, theres no in-game tutorials not even close to enough room on the rom. if you load up a game, and find that you have absolutely no fucking clue whats happening, check online for a scan of the manual. archive has most of them.
but sometimes games will use multiple controllers, or different types of controllers. sometimes, in the case of say swordquest, theres literally a comicbook thats basically part of the game, and you cant play without it.
itll also tell you what the various switches do. sometimes theyre just used as more buttons, while other times they change the game mode. esp on earlier atari games like asteroids and space invaders, theres dozens of different game modes that you can select from using the switches when you first turn the console on. again, check the manual to see if they explain which is which

>>12010521
also
one more 2600 idiosyncrasy worth pointing out to n00bs:
if you turn on a game and cant seem to get it to actually "start"? press your "reset" button/switch. some games you can just press fire, but others you need to hit reset after youve selected whichever game mode you want.
its early vidya, so there wasnt rly a standardized ANYthing yet. and the "start button" didnt even exist as a concept, nvm on your controller

>>12010521
Op here thanks. the context of this thread is partially also that my dad died a year ago and he bought me a my arcade mini Atari cabinet thing preloaded with like 100 games on it. I’ve been messing with it here and there obviously since it’s one of the last things he got me.


looking at reviews of this device online it isn’t perfect emulation and while it seems like a nice start (has some of the games you listed) it only has about 70 some odd Atari games plus Ike 25 generic things not from any console. but playing it has gotten me curious to learn more about the Atari 2600 from a historical perspective.

I keep getting filtered super hard by adventure. I’ve been trying to make progress without a guide but the bat keeps stealing my weapon.

air sea battle is kino

Aqua venture is fun but challenging


I don’t get gravitar yet at all but it seems cool

Middle command is a lot of fun

I don’t know how to refuel in radar lock but I like the game and it conveys a sense of using a machine gun well for the technology it uses

Starship is fun but I don’t like that it freezes every time you kill something

Yars revenge is a lot of fun and what I made the OP about initially.

does archive have any of the games? I will look at v**’s eventually. to see if they have any. so far Solaris stands out a lot for how much more complex it is than most other games I’ve played so far. my only complaint is too many games seem to rely on rapidly flashing images.

>>12007872
>Rayman
>That rhythm game
Is there anything else on it worth noting?

>>12006393
I just booted up haunted house which was preloaded on this mini Atari cabinet thing. This is kino. It seems like stage 1 has lit rooms and everythinf passed that is all dark? It looks like it has 9 modes according to this. When the screen starts flashing multiple colors does that mean you “won?”

>>12006378 (OP)
Top 100 (in no order)

>>12010632
Expanded version of that.