Atari 2600 Paddle TV Game Gets It Right?

Thanks to IGN Pocket for its hands-on reviews of the latest JAKKS classic 'TV game' devices, including the Ms.Pacman-starring Namco device and an unlicensed 'Classic Arcade Pinball' game combo, but, more importantly, the previously mentioned, much-awaited Atari Paddle 'TV game' ("...a fantastic follow-up to the company's Atari Joystick plug-and-play controller released two years ago.") There's also a retro expert's review on the Atari Age forums which indicates the Digital Eclipse-developed 2600 conversions are "a 180 degree turn around from the sloppy job of the [original DC Studios-produced joystick], and it's definitely something to put on your want/wish list." Finally, disappointed fans are addressed regarding the lack of Kaboom! on the 11-game compilation, explaining: "If it was an Activision Paddle Games Collection, then Kaboom would be included, but this was Atari owned titles only."

Comments

Re:I wish they would

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok it's not a nes controller, but for handheld 2600 action + nes + snes + sms + gamegear + scumm + doom + real games get a GP32 and a 128MB card.

Ahh, memories of paddle controllers...

[clintp]

In high school, I remember taking a paddle controller apart and mounting a 3' metal rod through it and affixing it to a 5' stand. On the end of the rod was a clamp for changing the amount of weight on it. I made...a pendulum.

After carefully debugging the software and hardware at home, I brought the whole apparatus into school and hooked it up to the school's Atari 400.

On screen, with a couple of keypresses you could get a realtime graph of the pendulum's oscillations against a set of scales (time and distance). Changing the length of the pendulum (with a wing nut), position of the weight, size of the weight, etc.. allowed the other students to really visualize what was going on.

It was still there and working, long after I graduated.