this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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So, real talk? Most 2600 games are rough, and barring personal nostalgia, there's little reason to play most of them in the age of emulation, especially arcade conversions, which sometimes nail the gameplay (but often don't), and generally have to perform acts of violence on the visuals to make them work with the system and the business realities around their development (i.e. staffing, timeline, budget for ROM chips, etc.).
Some worthwhile ones that come to mind:
It's not that so many more weren't fun, or even still aren't in isolation, but it's like we're all the rich fat kid from Pee-Wee's big adventure and have access to every single game on every single system, at least up until the end of the 90s. There's no reason to play the nice port of Berzerk that looks like it does, or play the flickery Pac-Man mess, or even (I'll say it) fight with the groundbreaking but still primitive and abstracted gameplay of Adventure.
"somebody get this freaking duck away from me"
Spy vs spy was excellent!
Burn the heretic !
You’ve listed the most basic games when there were many 3rd titles from Parker Bros , Spectra Video, Imagic etc.
I liked Gorf, Starwars , Atlantis … there were loads more
I wouldn't presume to have even 20% of the 2600 games that bring something different and good to the table, it's just (to misquote Samuel Johnson), for so many of them the good parts are not different and the different parts are not good.
And again, that's completely apart from a personal nostalgia (god knows I indulge in that) or to propose that they're simply not fun in a binary sense. If I'm 12 and I get 2600 Venture I enjoy the hell out of it, but if I'm a middle aged man in 2024, at the bare minimum I'm going for this.
Combat and Gorf are amazing. I may feel that way about Combat because it was the first one I remember playing. However, Gorf is like three games in one so you got a lot of bang for your buck in playtime.
I think OP just want to show the console, not if the game library hold ups
Fair, and maybe I'm stepping in it a bit, but thought a post about a 4-switch Vader 2600 might attract a lively crowd.
Most of the emulators get the sounds wrong. I still have my original 2600 and a TV to run it on. Someday it'll make it back out of storage.
The Degenatron gaming system plays three exciting games, including Defender of the Faith, where you save the green dots with your fantastic flying red square.