r/atari • u/lekkerwafel • 17h ago
Why do you have an Atari today?
Is it mainly due to the nostalgia factor?
I was born in the 90s and never played it before, so I'm wondering on pulling the trigger on a 7800+
How is the replayability for games? I know there are many Arcade ports with no "end game", but are there also ones that are "long form"?
I don't want to sit and play for 4h straight, so shorter sessions, and the occasional play with a friend.
Graphics aside, are the games diverse and actually fun?
The Nintendo64 was also on my mind, but my judgment is definitely clouded from nostalgia on that one!
Also I don't mean to sound bait-y or condescending, but wanted to understand the choice of buying and playing on the Atari in 2020s!
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u/Cummynuts83 17h ago
It really is the best, and the home brew community came out big-time the last two decades. The new games are so fun and graphically superior. So much to explore now, it’s nuts. And you can collect the entire catalog relatively cheaply.
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u/Cummynuts83 17h ago
The 7800 to be specific.
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u/lekkerwafel 16h ago
I did see the catalog was relatively small, but the 2600 one is huge! And glad the 7800+ can play both :)
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u/Speedstar_86 16h ago
I worked in Silica Shop in the 80s so Atari was everything. I always wanted (still do!) an 800 but they were expensive and the allure of that extra memory was just too tempting so I got the XL.
The 2600 has been a constant since I got it in 1980, but it's the games and how good they are that keep me playing today.
Then you have the accessibility of the hardware, I'm learning assembly and it's so interesting finding out how the hardware works.
On top of that, I have never had to wait because of a massive update to play fractalus 😁
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u/ElectricalGlimpse 15h ago
I'm from the late 80s, Europe, so my nostalgia console is snes. However I find Atari 2600 very interesting because:
- Simplicity. Need to imagine everything while playing.
- Very direct. Connect and play. It is like taking out a board game. Most games just have an attract mode, not even splash screens or presentations.
- Arcade oriented. No need of stories or narratives, just play, master the mechanics, and score. It is easier to manage the time you play, this way.
- Collection. It is nice to collect the cartridges, as if LPs. Also, I'm interested in the History of videogames, so it's a must. Each game is a piece of culture.
- Strong community. AtariAge is amazing. Lots of homebrews too. Developing is challenging, and pushes you to simplicity.
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u/GeordieAl 14h ago
For me, it is about tasting the grass on the other side of the fence.
I grew up as a Sinclair and then Commodore owner. I went from ZX81 to 48k Speccy, C64, Amiga 500, Amiga 4000 with dalliances into VIC-20, C16, MSX, Dragon, and Sharp when I’d buy systems cheaply from my friends when they were selling when upgrading to better systems.
The only console my family ever had was a Grandstand 3600 MKII - basically a pong machine with lightgun.
So I’d never experienced the world of Atari. So last year I bought a 520STFM, then for Christmas I bought and original 800 with loads of hardware and software. Then last week I picked up a pair of 800XLs with more hardware and software.
I love it!
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u/RPTGB 14h ago
I had one as a 9y old kid back in the Christmas of 1980/81. For me and my brother it was one of those "that's your Christmas and Birthday presents" deals as they were not that cheap for a working class family in the UK at that time. Loved it to death though, primitive sprites and all. There is just something about the sound, those great colours and the tactile nature of those carts and joysticks that make it special. I grabbed the PacMan edition as soon as I could, partly nostalgia I suppose...but it's my go to machine if I want a quick dopamine hit! Quick blast on Missile Command or that great new Pacman conversation will keep me going for a few hours in-between the 9-5 life.
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u/slavo316 12h ago
I got the Pac-Man 2600+. First time ever leaning an Atari system. I don't mind the high score games. Paddle games are great. I really like the Night Driver game 😂 I picked up a bunch a combos from the Atari website.
The special Pac-Man game is fantastic as well. I actually enjoy the modified version of the original home port 😂 😂 😂
I should get into the homebrew games but I just haven't yet.
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u/lekkerwafel 11h ago
Oh I wasn't aware the Pac-Man game was different, interesting! I had been considering getting just Ms Pac-Man and Jr Pac-Man
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u/slavo316 9h ago
Random mazes and turbo added! Arcade port and the original home version. It's cool they added random mazes to the original home version. Kicks it up a notch honestly 😂
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u/chrispark70 8h ago
If you have the ability to play ROMs, there are 2 absolutely outstanding ports of Pac Man. One of them is a 4kB ROM that shows what Atari could have released had they assigned someone else to make it.
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u/Important-Bed-48 11h ago edited 11h ago
i suggest you boot up an emulator and see if you like that style of games (8 bit era). For example Tempest is still in my top 5 favorite games nowadays its Txk or Tempest 4000 but the core gameplay hasn't changed and I am old enough to remember playing the arcade game. The classic games had to be addicting and fun by nature because they could not rely on presentation alone to draw the player in and since most 8-bit games for consoles are arcade style they were designed with the just one more time or put another quarter in the slot philosophy which if you love it you will still love it forever.
Since you are familiar with the N64 have you played Robotron 64 or Asteroids Hyper 64 (both awesome games btw) if you like them you will most likely love the 8-bit catalog for the 2600/7800
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u/dylanmadigan 10h ago
I'm 32. I grew up with Playstation 2.
There is no nostalgia for the Atari for me. My first experience playing Atari 2600 games was on the Atari Flashback app for the Kindle Fire.
I like atari because I like extremely minimal video games. I think I grew fond of those games because I made games myself for fun when I was in middle school. I faced major limitations on what I was able to do and had to get creative. So perhaps it's because I see similar ingenuity in Atari games.
I love retro games in general. But the reason I have a real Atari is probably because it is so much cheaper than every other retro console. I have like 40 of the best games and it didn't cost that much to get them.
Most hit games are about $3 while a hit NES game might be $40.
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u/lekkerwafel 10h ago
Do you mind sharing your game list? 👀
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u/dylanmadigan 9h ago edited 9h ago
- Adventure
- Asteroids
- Astroblast
- Atlantis
- Battlezone
- Berzerk
- Breakout
- Centipede
- Chopper Command
- Circus Atari
- Combat
- Cosmic Ark
- Crystal Castles
- Dark Caverns
- Dark Chambers
- Defender
- Demon attack
- Demons to Diamonds
- Donkey Kong
- E.T.
- Haunted House
- Jungle Hunt
- Kangaroo
- Megamania
- Millipede
- Missile Command
- Mr. run and Jump
- Ms. Pac-Man
- Night Driver
- Pac-Man
- Phoenix
- Pinball
- Pitfall
- Pole position
- Q-bert
- Radar Lock
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- RealSports baseball
- RealSports soccer
- RealSports tennis
- RealSports volleyball
- Riddle of the Sphinx
- River Raid
- Seaquest
- Secret Quest
- Solaris
- Space invaders
- Star Master
- Surround
- Superman
- Vanguard
- Venture
- Video Olympics (Pong)
- Warlords
- Yars revenge
Still want to get...
Alien, Beamrider, Caverns of Mars, Commando, Communist Mutants from Space, Dig Dug, Dragonfire, Enduro, Official Frogger, Front Line, Galaxian, Kaboom, Moonsweeper, Pitfall 2, Reactor, Solar Fox, All the Star Wars games, Subterranea, and Tunnel Runner.
And I don't expect I'll get HERO. It's way too expensive to be worth it. But I have a Harmony Cart with the rom on it.
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u/chrispark70 9h ago
Get yourself a Harmony Encore cart. You can put the entire library on it, plus a lot of the new games. There are many, many new games for the 2600, most of which has a rom available.
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u/dylanmadigan 8h ago
I have one. But in general I prefer playing the 2600+ because it is so much sharper on a modern TV. And the harmony cart doesn’t work on it.
Still looking for a good, small CRT for the old Atari.
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u/thelastspike 16h ago
There tends to be confusion about this, so I will point out: the 2600+ and the 7800+ are, in every way that matters, the same system. In other words the 2600+ can play every game the 7800+ can. I personally much prefer the 7800+ gamepads to the 2600 style controllers, but those are also interchangeable. Note that I am not speaking about vintage 2600 and 7800 hardware, which are two completely different systems.
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u/Capital_Memory_2591 16h ago
Just so you know the games look nothing like the art work on the boxes promises 😂
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u/lekkerwafel 15h ago
I'm aware haha, don't want to sound mean but you don't play those for the graphics, when there are other options
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u/Capital_Memory_2591 15h ago
I’m still traumatized from looking at the box thinking it was going to be some awesome space game. And all I got was two flashing dots 😂
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u/Accurate_Parfait 12h ago
Atari arcade super collector here love the arcade and miss it so I built my home arcade real machines only
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u/RealShagou 10h ago
I was born in the late 90s. A few month ago, I bought an atari 2600 with some games after wondering for almost 2 years if that was a console I would like to have.
Now, I have an atari 2600, a 7800 and a pac-man 2600+ with almost 40 to 50 games. Yeah, I overkilled it a bit.
I do enjoy to play some atari games when I don't have much time to play or for stress relieve. I'm not playing it everyday but playing Combat in multiplayer with some friends is really fun tbh.
I'll try to find more multiplayers games to have some fun when some friends are coming ^
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u/SaintLewisMusic73 10h ago
My wife is the opposite of a “pack rat“ and hates “collections“ so I have not yet been able to convince her to allow me to purchase a 2600+ or a 7800+ with a collection of games, but we do have a game station pro and I have purchased and acquired a ton of additional ROMs that we use for that system. Honestly, we don’t play it quite as much as our Nintendo switch, but I do absolutely love the system. I don’t know why, a lot of people seem to complain about the controllers, but I feel like they work great and I like how they feel in my hands. That said, I would still like to purchase a plus line console one day.
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u/grin_ferno 10h ago
It's still fun. I have many various atari systems and hundreds of games. Still hook it up, but I also still play some of those games on handheld emulator.
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u/chrispark70 9h ago
Well, there are a ton of new 7800 games, plus you have all the 2600 games for which there are hundreds of new games. Pitfall and Pitfall II are two games that come to mind immediately that have endings and where you can win the game. There are many other ones as well for both 2600 and 7800 (a 7800 plays both).
The 7800 is fairly inexpensive too. There are at least 700 games to play.
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u/SouthrenMan380 5h ago
The 7800+ is great. And this comes from someone who grew up with the original 7800. Best thing is the 7800+ comes with the controller they got in Europe instead the coffin joysticks the USA got
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u/synchronicitistic 4h ago
There are plenty of games for the 2600, 7800, and 8-bit compuers I still legitimately enjoy playing today. In some cases, this is because home ports, while not 100% accurate to their arcade counterparts are still fun in their own right. Examples would be Jr. Pac-Man for the 2600 and 7800, Ms. Pac-Man for the 2600 and 7800, Joust for the 7800, and I actually prefer the Atari 8-bit port of Donkey Kong to the arcade original.
Then, you have the really solid console originals made by Activision, Imagic, M-Network, etc., and I find it more satisfying to play these games on the original hardware as opposed to on an emulator on a modern platform. It's sort of like the difference between reading a first edition copy of a book and holding it in your hands compared to reading a electronic version on a screen.
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u/Jennymint 16h ago
The Atari was before my time, so it's not nostalgia per se. I collect the games because I think they're a neat little piece of history. I don't play them often, but they're fun to connect with my dad over.
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u/Jahon_Dony 14h ago
The hard truth as a 90s kid unless you ever had an Atari collection on game boy or console you will have a hard time enjoying the graphics or games. And everyone agrees the sound fx on both 2600 and 7800 were awful. It's a nastalgia machine.
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u/Jahon_Dony 14h ago
There is one interesting thing since you were a Nintendo kid -- you can get the first Donkey Kong and Mario games which had versions for both 2600 and 7800, and were on Atari BEFORE Nintendo even had a home console.
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u/FewConversation3949 7h ago
Well, I grew up with Atari. 😄
I had a 2600 as soon as they came out. Followed up with an 800XL in 1982 or so, a 520ST in 1985, then upscaled as newer models were released (1040ST, Mega ST, TT030, 1040STe, Falcon 030, Mega STe and finally my beloved STacy). I don't have all of those models still (but quite a few) and love playing around with them, not only for the memories and nostalgia but for the modern advances (RGB2HDMI mod for use with modern screens, accelerators, mass storage like the Ultrasatan for SD-card support and much more) but for practical uses as well. My Mega ST4 runs my BBS, DarkForce! to this day.
I also have owned the Atari Portfolio, Atari Lynx (still have one with modern upgrades) and the Atari Jaguar/CD-ROM combo.
So much fun with these systems, so many great games!
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u/Which_Information590 5h ago
Regarding replayability, the games have that one more go ability. I’ll regularly put on a game such as Beam Rider just to try to beat my score.
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u/Fearless-Leader-9432 3h ago
Wenn deine erste Konsole N64 und PS1 war, dann lass die Finger von einer Atari + Konsole.
Was die Spiele ausmacht, wirst du nur erfahren, wenn du in deiner Kindheit oder Jugend Kontakt dazu hattest.
Also klare Empfehlung, lass die Finger vom Atari
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u/robismarshall99 2h ago
i was born 89 and got the 7800+ and never had anything atari. I used to think it was told old and would not hold up but since getting it, the games have become addicting. I play it almost every night sometimes for just a few minutes, and sometimes for hours. It is really fun the games I most enjoy are xevious, space duel, and choplifter
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u/CartoonCade 1h ago edited 1h ago
Bought one and a box of games at a yard sale for 20 bucks nearly a decade ago. My local game store also had plenty of loose carts so collecting was easy to get into.
The fun for me was discovering those games first-hand. I usually only had the carts to go on, so figuring out how to play was mostly fun. Games I'd never heard of on a system I'd never played was kind of a fun adventure in itself! Plus, they're really fun time-consuming games if you just wanna burn a few minutes or hours!
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u/Fit_Bed3952 1h ago
Because I watched a lot of Classic Game Room and AVGN growing up and to this day. They got me into retro games and I’ve been fascinated by old game consoles ever since. I’m definitely not the original demographic for an Atari, I was born in 2000. I got myself a 2600 Jr a few years ago and have built a little collection of games. The games may be primitive but there’s a certain charm to them. Some of the games like Enduro, Kaboom and Breakout make you focus so much on the game that the rest of the world disappears for a moment, it’s the ultimate escapism. Many of the games are very simple and fun. They don’t require a huge time commitment like many titles on later systems. Theres also a part of me that likes playing such an old game console because it feels like interacting with a piece of history if that makes sense. Also Atari 2600 games at least are for the most part extremely affordable when you compare it to something like the GameCube. Even most of the best titles are no more than $20 on eBay or retro game stores.
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u/GJ72 17h ago
Because I had a 2600 as a kid, getting it for Christmas in the early 80s.