Racket's Atari 2600 Journal

[noiseredux]

What was that Joystick injury term used? There was Carpal tunnel syndrome, for the mouse users and Tennis Elbow for sports injuries.

you mean Atari Thumb?

[Gao]

Ok -- so another quick update.

Jumped into Space Invaders again and getting pretty good, but it seems like when it's game over, it freezes up or whatever -- sometimes it inverts colors on the screen or something, but I have to reset the game to play again. Is that normal?

We also played some Donkey Kong. It's actually not too bad, but you really have to work on hitting up well to climb those ladders. I also can't stop smiling when I see Jumpman/Mario do his jump. It just looks so funny (in a good way). That one seems to need a reset too when the game is over.

Good stuff and looking forward to playing more!

Yeah, the reset button in the 2600 is really more like "start" than "reset." Just about every game uses it like the two above, and it's completely intentional.

[Hobie-wan]

Ok -- so another quick update.

Jumped into Space Invaders again and getting pretty good, but it seems like when it's game over, it freezes up or whatever -- sometimes it inverts colors on the screen or something, but I have to reset the game to play again. Is that normal?

Yes. Many 2600 games do this.

It is sort of a screen protection attract mode to prevent burn in. Think of 2600 store demo units sitting all day like arcade machines. If you wait the colors will shift again.

[flojocabron]

Ok -- so another quick update.

Jumped into Space Invaders again and getting pretty good, but it seems like when it's game over, it freezes up or whatever -- sometimes it inverts colors on the screen or something, but I have to reset the game to play again. Is that normal?

Yes. Many 2600 games do this.

I remember as a kid I would go to the bathroom, or do other things, just to let the screen randomly go into colors when I came back.

Some other things I did, was to jiggle and force the reset toggle untill a game did some strange things. I wouldn't dare do this now tho! I dont know if this would damage the game or the console. Have other people done this?

Oh and Racketboy just for fun, try some of your games in black and white. In my opinion some games look better that way. For Some games its even required to play it in black and white. One game that comes to mind is Mousetrap. I think they messed up when the game was made. You can only play it when the toggle is on B&W. You cant switch to color either. cause the game will go dark and you cant go back.

One game that I could never figure out as a kid was Raiders of the lost ark, I did not know back then that it needed two contorllers to play it! I thought the game was broken! I learned about this some years ago, when Looking thru the internet.

there are also more strange quirks and programming tricks for this system as well.

[cityside75]

Hold down reset while you turn on the game...you'll get the ability to have two bullets at a time instead of the single bullet you are normally limited to. I can remember that everyone knew that little easter egg back in the day.

[CRTGAMER]

Hold down reset while you turn on the game...you'll get the ability to have two bullets at a time instead of the single bullet you are normally limited to. I can remember that everyone knew that little easter egg back in the day.

Now this is the way to crash the party and joining! Welcome!

[cityside75]

Hold down reset while you turn on the game...you'll get the ability to have two bullets at a time instead of the single bullet you are normally limited to. I can remember that everyone knew that little easter egg back in the day.

Now this is the way to crash the party and joining! Welcome!

Thanks! I've lurked here for so long that I don't feel that new, but I appreciate the welcome.

[donssword]

Some of the Space Flight simulators use the various switches for specific game functions. As a previous poster mentioned, Indiana Jones is unplayable without the 2nd stick. Some games, like Frog n' Flies, don't default to the proper gameplay mode without throwing the Difficulty switch, and sometimes the first game available with the Selection switch is not the optimal one.

If the controls seem broken, your best bet is to cruise over the http://www.atariage.com and peruse the instructions--some of them make funny reads, as some have complex back stories that are conveyed in the gameplay. Add to this, they often explain funny things like "press the joystick to move up," which makes for some entertaining reading as they attempt to explain how a video game works to someone who has never played a game before.

Oh, and for the love of god, don't spend more than an hour playing ET--its practically a torture device.

[racketboy]

I'm back for more


Sarah and I fired up Pac-Man finally. My first impressions were that while it was ugly, the controls were solid (although I found that one of my joysticks doesn't go "down" very well) and it was actually pretty fun. I remember thinking "huh... I don't know why everyone was talking this thing down". But once we got past the first level, we realized the next level wasn't that much different. Kinda took the fun out of it, I guess. Is that the main downfall of this port (other than the cosmetic stuff)? Is there actually more variety than appears at first?


So, after Pac-Man I decided to tackle one of the 2600's other infamous carts. Actually, I let Sarah take on E.T. I REALLY wish I had a video camera set up for this session. I did give her a heads-up that it was bad. I actually have never played it before -- only seen some images and video clips and heard the legend around it. Anyway, we fire it up and I watch Sarah try to figure the thing out. Of course, very quickly she falls in a pit. It took her a bit by surprise and then I watched her try to figure out how to get out. (We didn’t have a manual, instructions, or anything)

It didn’t take her too long too figure how to levitate out, but then she kept falling immediately back in. The look on her face was priceless and I couldn’t stop laughing. Even through her frustration and my laughter, she remained diligent. She finally figured out how to avoid falling back in and managed to explore a few more screens. We saw the random human figures that were roaming the screens. We identified one that looked like Eliot and other that looked like the FBI agents. Sarah would navigate between the screens, but they seemed to change back and forth randomly at times even though she wasn’t at the border of the screen.

We were both very confused and weren’t sure what the point was. It wasn’t until later than I decided to look the game up on Wikipedia to get an idea of what you were supposed to do. I initially thought it would be fun to try the game out without having any information to go on. I suppose it was fun, but I think we might have to give it a try again later now that I know what objects you need to collect.

The final game of the day was Pole Position. I wasn’t expecting great things, but I wanted to try it for a little while as I remember it from my childhood. Perhaps my memories were too clouded by the arcade version, but I was rather disappointed. It wasn’t horrible and I can see it held up ok considering the technical limitations, but I don’t think I’ll be plugging that one into the 2600 too often.


So this day’s Atari adventures weren’t the greatest and I may have to pull out some good games to keep Sarah’s interest in the 2600. On the bright side, when I was at work, she pulled out Donkey Kong again and gave it a few more tries – she’s still having trouble getting past the second level (she just got past that one on the arcade version).

[Erik_Twice]

" I remember thinking "huh... I don't know why everyone was talking this thing down".

Don't the ghosts flicker all the time making impossible to know where they are and giving you headaches?

Is that the main downfall of this port (other than the cosmetic stuff)? Is there actually more variety than appears at first?

Pac-Man only had one maze design in the original.