8th May 2013, 7:55 PM
Atari 2600 - $3 each. Cart only.
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Megamania - I've played this one in emulation before. Good game! I played the 5200 version more, in emulation, and it's better (you can actually tell what the objects you're shooting are, for instance...), but still, I like this game, as I was expecting. I'm happy to find it soon after getting the system. As for the game, it's a shooter, just with weird objects to shoot at. Also you have a timer for each stage, and your point bonus depends on how long you take. And the ... things ... you're shooting move around on and off the screen, so it's not just "they move back and forth or dive at you". And the stuff is strange, too. The story is that it's a dream or something...
Dragonfire - Game from Imagic. It's a two-screen game, where first you go across a screen, sidescroller-style, dodging fireballs, and then run around a topdown area collecting all the items, while dodging the dragon shooting fireballs at you. Yeah, you can't fight back, and you can't win either of course; you just play unitl you lose. The game's really simplistic, but the platformer screen actually can be tough sometimes (when a slow lower fireball comes first, then a fast upper one second), and the waves of fireballs on the second screen take concentration to dodge, for sure. I wasn't expecting much, but I guess I can see why 2600 fans like this one... though I'd rather see something with an ending and stuff. Ah well, 2nd gen games were often like this.
Crystal Castles - This one's a Pac-Man style game, but isometric. In the arcades apparently it had much better graphics and trackball control, but on 2600... yeah, it's limited. The graphics are awful, and actually getting the pickups is kind of tricky -- it's easy to walk past them. This is a game which didn't quite work on 2600. It's still okay, but really, this needs a system with better graphics and a trackball. On that note, it's too bad that they didn't make a 5200 version of this... apparently there is a homebrew version (Atari 8-bit conversion), which looks probably better than this one. Interesting effort here though.
--
Megamania - I've played this one in emulation before. Good game! I played the 5200 version more, in emulation, and it's better (you can actually tell what the objects you're shooting are, for instance...), but still, I like this game, as I was expecting. I'm happy to find it soon after getting the system. As for the game, it's a shooter, just with weird objects to shoot at. Also you have a timer for each stage, and your point bonus depends on how long you take. And the ... things ... you're shooting move around on and off the screen, so it's not just "they move back and forth or dive at you". And the stuff is strange, too. The story is that it's a dream or something...
Dragonfire - Game from Imagic. It's a two-screen game, where first you go across a screen, sidescroller-style, dodging fireballs, and then run around a topdown area collecting all the items, while dodging the dragon shooting fireballs at you. Yeah, you can't fight back, and you can't win either of course; you just play unitl you lose. The game's really simplistic, but the platformer screen actually can be tough sometimes (when a slow lower fireball comes first, then a fast upper one second), and the waves of fireballs on the second screen take concentration to dodge, for sure. I wasn't expecting much, but I guess I can see why 2600 fans like this one... though I'd rather see something with an ending and stuff. Ah well, 2nd gen games were often like this.
Crystal Castles - This one's a Pac-Man style game, but isometric. In the arcades apparently it had much better graphics and trackball control, but on 2600... yeah, it's limited. The graphics are awful, and actually getting the pickups is kind of tricky -- it's easy to walk past them. This is a game which didn't quite work on 2600. It's still okay, but really, this needs a system with better graphics and a trackball. On that note, it's too bad that they didn't make a 5200 version of this... apparently there is a homebrew version (Atari 8-bit conversion), which looks probably better than this one. Interesting effort here though.