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Also had an intellivision.

Best game, by far, Truckin.
http://www.atariguide.com/41/4132.php

Kaboom is the name of one of the best videogames ever made!

http://www.atariguide.com/0/026.htm

Battlezone on the lowly 1 megahertz Atari VCS (1977) - I like the cool effects when the tank blows up. It's also very colorful for an ancient 70s game (128 colors)

http://www.atariguide.com//ss/batlzone.gif

a Q-Bert ripoff with ice cubes

Frostbite?

Personally, I'm really impressed they're still cranking out new content for an Atari 2600 game.

starmaster?

http://www.atariguide.com/0/047.htm

star raiders?

http://www.atariguide.com/1/173.htm

starmaster?

http://www.atariguide.com/0/047.htm

star raiders?

http://www.atariguide.com/1/173.htm

http://www.atariguide.com/

I have no problems playing Vanguard on my Atari 2600.

When my original Atari sticks broke, I replaced them with the Pointmaster sticks from Discwasher:
http://www.atariguide.com//30/3090b.htm

My Atari 2600 is still hooked up to the TV, and I still use those sticks.

I think you mean Freeway - 60 seconds per player, no matter how good you are?

http://www.atariguide.com/3/320.htm

Ugh. I'll go one better: Bring back leaf springs.

No article on console controllers is (in my very biased opinion!) complete without mention of the almighty Wico Command Control, the Cadillac of joysticks.

They don't make 'em like that any more :(

(I have no affiliation with the site I linked to; they're just the first google result with a decent picture)

Dinosaurs didn't have steamrollers.

The real question is, how did they learn to build freeways.

That's probably what they had at the arcade when I was a kid, then. It was basically 2-player Asteroids minus the asteroids, plus the option of having a variable-strength gravity well in the middle of the screen either with or without an accompanying planet that would destroy you on contact. The controls were all buttons -- rotation, thrust, firing, and I think a shield.

That sounds like the arcade version of Space War that got released early on in the original arcade boom. BTW, there is an Atari 2600 port with many options intact: http://www.atariguide.com/1/171.htm

The idea of using a heart icon for health restoration in a realistic-toned game like Splinter Cell. I felt that was basically impossible without ruining the tone of the game, and you disagreed, but hadn't really explained how it could be pulled off inoffensively.

I guess I disagree because I don't consider its use to be offensive. I don't think you've proven your point there sufficently.

I mean, if the game had frilly lace everywhere, and cupids shooting arrows, and shepherds shyly catching glances of dancing nymphs wandering around grassy hillsides, and young centaurs playing tag throughout the halls of the terrorist base, then I'd say you'd have a point. (Not that there's anything wrong with that imagery overall, in a Romanticist kind of way -- but there aren't an awful lot of Romanticist video games these days.) These days, hearts have been denuded of much of their Valentinesque import in the realm of video games.

I mean, it's not even as if they are an important part of a game's imagery. If it is, as in the aforementioned Kingdom Hearts, it invariably comes across as trite and forced, true. But beyond the eternal hunt for Pieces of Heart in Zelda games, I have a hard time naming another game in which they matter all that much that isn't pink, frilly, and have the words "Disney," "Barbie," or "Mary Kate & Ashley" somewhere on the cover.

And that's basically spot-on, though the linear paths are all seamlessly connected in a non-linear way, so you can backtrack or take shortcuts at will. The thing about God Of War, both in terms of gameplay and of story, is that it's not even remotely innovative -- it's just incredibly well-executed.

Yeah, that's what I mean -- if a game is obviously innovative, you can kind of feel it from a description of it. If it's just an extraordinarily well-developed example of the breed, however, it's difficult to get that through to someone who's never seen it. And what I hear of the story turns me off, just another random badass sent off against a procession of harder and harder bosses until he faces the Big Baddie at the end.

If he *wasn't* a random badass then maybe it'd be easier to get with. I mean, take a look at Link. He doesn't have much of a personality. There's not much to distinguish the character except a sword, elf ears, and a Peter Pan outfit. And yet since the NES days he's been one of the most popular characters in gaming, perhaps because of an understated acknowledgement that he's not Dirk Squarejaw, that he actually does look vulnerable when compared to one of those gigantic bosses, and so it feels a lot better when he takes one down without uttering so much as a catchphrase or even a condescending gesture to the defeated foe.

It's a pretty short game, actually. Probably 8-12 hours the first time through, though it can be completed in as little as 2.5 hours if you know exactly what you're doing. It's a very satisfying story with a great ending, and the game looks and plays like a dream. Well worth the investment.

I'll consider it. Odd that the *lack* of length in a game, for once, is a deciding factor in playing it....

I'm a part of a class action lawsuit against the original NES and the game Track and Field.
I still have flashbacks of the 200meter hurdles.

I am, however, a big NBA fan, and couldn't see myself buying a game that didn't have the actual NBA teams and rosters, unless I knew in advance there was an easy way to download NBA rosters with players who looked like themselves and had similar physical and player stats. I'm not a big fan of EA games for sports, the last two basketball games I bought were Sega's (NBA 2k3 and ESPN NBA 2k5 (for $20 less than EA's NBA Live 2005!)), but when I'm ready for the next basketball game (2007, I'd guesstimate), if EA was the only game with NBA rosters, I'd buy that, even if it was $20 more than Sega's version.

Of all the console-based football games or basketball games I've ever played in my life, the only ones that didn't have actual league rosters were Double Dribble and 10 Yard Fight. About the only sport where I could really give a flying f*ck about whether or not they had league rosters would be baseball, as I really lothe baseball. Despite my feelings for the sport, there have been some fun baseball games, such as Baseball Stars 2 (an awesome game), Nintendo's original Baseball (seemed fun enough for an 8 year old), and RBI Baseball (although that may have had actual team names, I can't recall off the top of my head).

I am, however, a big NBA fan, and couldn't see myself buying a game that didn't have the actual NBA teams and rosters, unless I knew in advance there was an easy way to download NBA rosters with players who looked like themselves and had similar physical and player stats. I'm not a big fan of EA games for sports, the last two basketball games I bought were Sega's (NBA 2k3 and ESPN NBA 2k5 (for $20 less than EA's NBA Live 2005!)), but when I'm ready for the next basketball game (2007, I'd guesstimate), if EA was the only game with NBA rosters, I'd buy that, even if it was $20 more than Sega's version.

Of all the console-based football games or basketball games I've ever played in my life, the only ones that didn't have actual league rosters were Double Dribble and 10 Yard Fight. About the only sport where I could really give a flying f*ck about whether or not they had league rosters would be baseball, as I really lothe baseball. Despite my feelings for the sport, there have been some fun baseball games, such as Baseball Stars 2 (an awesome game), Nintendo's original Baseball (seemed fun enough for an 8 year old), and RBI Baseball (although that may have had actual team names, I can't recall off the top of my head).

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Click here for a view of a classic videogame of interest to Pete Rose.

dont ask me why i know this but that little pixelized naked woman they have pictured on that atari 2600 DNF link you posted is from a game called Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em. i hope this means the design team is putting in similar fantastic gameplay ideas into DNF.

That entry for "Gunfight" is a right-out ripoff of the old Atari game "Gunslinger". What kind of original idea is that?

Of course, I think Atari figured the VCS for a lifetime of maybe two years and ten games. Had that been the case, maybe their approach would have kept the market exclusive to them. On the other hand, they sold a hell of a lot more consoles and carts the way it went down, even with the eventual glut (to which I contributed my little bit)

Try this here site here

>Now if only they will release that game!

Too late!

Download and 'enjoy'. :)