Games Bought Thread 3

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, it is too bad that there's no 5200 module or something for the 7800. Apparently one was in Atari's long list of cancelled hardware, so they were thinking about it, but it didn't happen. Too bad, I'd probably want one now. Ah well.

I was reading some forums where younger gamers thought the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" was idiotic, that "anyone with a printer can circumvent that copyright protection". They didn't get that the "seal of quality" had nothing at all to do with copyright protection and everything to do with keeping NOA in control of what games got released on the NES. Sure, anyone could "print" the seal and sell a bootlegged cart, no problem. However, a major publisher couldn't legally get away with sticking that seal on a major release without Nintendo shutting them down, and THAT was the point.

The seal of quality mostly just meant that games wouldn't be buggy and would actually work, not that they had any actual quality standards... but I'm sure you know that. It certainly was a very good marketing thing, though, pushing the "seal of quality". And I will admit, making it so that games actually work and don't fail and stuff is worthwhile, Atari games certainly didn't always do that, third party stuff particularly.

And yeah, Nintendo's use of the licensing model really was one of the key things behind the NES/Famicom's success, I agree.

The 2600 itself? You're talking about the source of the "game crash" and the first true home console, that is, in the sense of a home system that can play multiple unique games. Before that, the best one could hope for was systems that still had set rules, but certain "game chips" could slightly alter those rules to create different games (but couldn't code anything truly unique). It has some games that can kill hours and hours of time among friends to this day. Heck, Outlaw alone is crazy fun, and that's just two stick figures shooting at each other on a single screen. Then you have games like Raiders of the Lost Ark, and other terrible trash.

That's true, but while it is true that the 2600 was key to the crash, it had a full generation's life before that happened... I mean, the 2600 released in 1976, and the crash was 1983. It wasn't until into the next generation that the crash happened, in part because of the giant glut of bad games for all of the systems that caused customers to just give up, part because nobody had a licensing system like Nintendo later would so first parties didn't make any money off of third party games for their platform (hurts profits quite a bit!), and partially because companies like Warner, who owned Atari in the early '80s, completely messed up the generation transition by trying to keep the 2600 going for longer than it should have been.

I mean, look at the 5200's library... it's mostly 2600 ports. The games that actually showed what that system could do were few and far between. Why buy a system which mostly just has better looking versions of the (literally) same games? Or, why buy any consoles at all... yeah, I think that had Warner and other first parties managed the generation transition better, the crash might not have been as bad. And I know, the industry was young, so that Warner didn't understand why people wanted a new system only 5 years after they got their last one was understandable, so maybe the crash was partially unavoidable... but that lesson had to be learned.

And yeah, there are many people who say that one problem with the current generation was that it went on too long...

(Oh, and yes, I know that major sites like Gamefaqs and Wikipedia, for some insane reason, put the 5200 and Colecovision in the same generation as the 2600. That is wrong and ridiculous. The systems of 1982 were new systems starting a new, third generation of consoles. Just because they all failed and died within a few years doesn't mean that they should be retroactively tossed back a generation! I'd put them in the same generation as the NES and the other 3rd-gen systems like the 7800 and Master System, myself. And yes, that means that I'd say that Sega and Atari both had two 3rd gen consoles. Maybe "early 3rd" versus "late 3rd", or something, to separate the two batches... but they aren't different generations. I mean, the Famicom released in 1983 in Japan, the Colecovision and 5200 1982 in the US. One year is not enough for a generational leap. I think it's particularly absurd that the Sega SG-1000 is listed as "second gen", when it actually released the SAME DAY that the Famicom did in Japan... so, on the same exact day, one 2nd gen console and one 3rd gen console both released? THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS! )

... Anyway though. So, I went to another store that has some 2600 games, and got some stuff. They had a few 7800 games mixed in, so I got a few of those too. Games are cart only.

7800
--
Centipede - $5 - Graphics are better than the 2600 version, but gameplay is similar. It's too bad that Atari brought Centipede to the 7800, but not Millipede like the NES had... though at least this is full screen, unlike that game (NES Millipede).
Galaga - $5 - Solid port of this good shmup. It's got three difficulty levels, each faster than the last...
Choplifter - $3 - It's the Apple II game, so it only has one level and is like 6 minutes long, but it's fun enough that I ended up getting it anyway.

2600 - All games were $1 each.
--
Demon Attack - Simple Space Invaders knockoff. Good but simple.
Atlantis - Fun game. Use three turrets to shoot the attacking ships.
Berzerk - This game is okay, but I like the games it inspired better than the original...
Night Driver - paddle game - Early racing game. Could be better, controls take getting used to.
Demons to Diamonds - paddle game - Okay, simple shooting game. Nothing amazing,
Warlords - paddle game. A classic! And yes, it's great, and has a 1 player mode.
Enduro - Fun little racing game with a straight track where you dodge cars (into-the-screen racing)
River Raid - Simple shooter. Popular classic, and it is some fun, but it's not the best.
Kangaroo - single-screen platformer. Pretty good! I like this game.
Air Raiders - flight combat game.
Yar's Revenge - popular shooting game. I can see why people liked it.

On that note, I tested the pair of paddles I had that had come with that broken 2600 system and games lot. Fortunately, they work fine, which is great... the paddle controller is pretty awesome. I like it a lot!

Otherwise, all of the games work, except for Robot Tank, which has issues... the picture skips upwards. No vertical hold. Bah. Is it a 7800 issue? I don't know. Otherwise, though, everything works. Not bad, given their age.