Second Generation Appreciation Thread

[CRTGAMER]

been messing with some emulators lately out of boredom and..

OMG the vectrex is so awesome! only very recently have i tried it. and seeing it for the first time, even without nostalgic factor, WOW! the graphics are so unique, and the games are still fun!!! i am honestly wishing they would release something like a flashback series for this!

anyone who lived through the second gen era owning this? how was it like back then?

Agree a great machine, I have three and almost all the original carts. Most games are Space themed, great stuff!

For a neat discovery, check out Vector Arcade games thru Mame, be sure to set the resolution high as possible to get a close approximation of a vector screen monitor. There are some in color that are very unique, love Black Widow!

[Gunstar Green]

I never owned or heard of the Vectrex growing up but I did love vector arcade games.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I have a Vectrex. Not a huge variety of games - mostly arcade ports of "space" titles - but a neat system nonetheless.

I have finally managed to obtain functioning controllers (joysticks, really) for all my old systems. Got sick of dealing with faulty/barely-functional TI-99/4A sticks so I sucked it up and bought a sealed box of 'em from an eBay seller for $30. I also managed to finally track down a Commodore 16 joystick. These are obnoxiously hard to find, and this is the one Commodore system that didn't use the standard nine-pin port.

[CRTGAMER]

I have a Vectrex. Not a huge variety of games - mostly arcade ports of "space" titles - but a neat system nonetheless.

I have finally managed to obtain functioning controllers (joysticks, really) for all my old systems. Got sick of dealing with faulty/barely-functional TI-99/4A sticks so I sucked it up and bought a sealed box of 'em from an eBay seller for $30. I also managed to finally track down a Commodore 16 joystick. These are obnoxiously hard to find, and this is the one Commodore system that didn't use the standard nine-pin port.

I remember the C16 and Plus 4 Commodores did not sell in huge numbers, either a rare computer to find! That C16 joystick must have been very pricey. I imagine you could make a 2600 standard 9 pin joyport adapter to use 2600 sticks. Got curious and Googled the game list, hey the Jack Tramiel game is there!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_16

Not too many games exclusive from the C64 version. The Diamond Mine series would be the ones to get, looks to play similar to the Anteater game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Commodore_16_and_Plus/4_games

[BoneSnapDeez]

I got a 1341 stick for the C16. As I understand there were C64-compatible ones made too. I paid $29 or so for a really nice boxed one; looks barely used. More than I'd like to play for any controller but what can ya do?

And yes, there's an eBay seller who sells adapters that will allow you to use a nine-pin joystick on the C16. They ship from the UK though, so shipping would have been $10 or so plus the $15 for the adapter itself.

And I do indeed have a Jack Attack cartridge. Fun game!

[marlowe221]

I am a 2nd Generation fan, although I am a little young for one. I was born in 1982 and am currently 33 years old.

I got an Atari 2600 in all-black along with 25 games for my birthday in 1988 or 1989. Most kids I knew then were getting an NES or already had one but we were not terribly well off and I don't think my parents could afford an NES.

Regardless, I loved my Atari and still do. I have gathered a few more games for it over the years and probably have around 40 unique games at this point and plan to acquire more. I actually own more games for the VCS than any other system. I do need a new set of paddle controllers though.

Another note: The first video game that I can remember seeing or playing was Astrosmash for the Intellivision sometime in the mid-1980s at my uncle's house.

Great thread, and glad to see so many other fans of 2nd Generation gaming!

[o.pwuaioc]

The 7800 is a weird one. It was released to compete with the NES making it third generation but it was designed earlier and shelved largely because of Atari's crash.

It actually was released before the NES was released nationally. Strong 2600 sales are the real reason.

To my knowledge, no game on the 7800 has a save feature, and I very much consider it the last - and best - second generation console. Accordingly, I think it would be great to discuss it in this thread.

I love this thread for what it's doing for pre-crash games, but I've still be bothered (albeit very minimally) that the 2600 is lumped together with the 7800. They're not really in the same generation, neither by release date nor by . The 2600 was released in 1977 and competed—initially—against the RCA Studio II, Bally Astrocade, and Odyssey². The Intellivision, ColecoVision, and even NES were released three (INTV), four (CV), and five years (NES) after the 2600. The 7800 was actually released after the Famicom was.

If we were to divide this up into waves, 2600 is gen 2, 5200 is gen 2.5 along with INTV and CV, and NES/7800 is gen 3, but it makes better sense to make the Famicom and 7800 gen 4. We're a whole gen off because people forgot anything existed before the NES except the 2600. (Granted, the 2600 was the biggest console before it, and dwarfed everything that came after it until the NES except for the computers, chiefly the Commodore 64.)

Also, I'm a little disappointed that the amazing world of homebrew has not been discussed in any detail! The 2600, ColecoVision, and 7800 all have some amazing ports out for it, including the definitive versions of Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man [both courtesy of the Pac-Man Collection], and Donkey Kong. Astro Blaster and Scramble home ports? Yes, please!

Don't like older arcade games? Want that new NES action instead? Bob Decrescendo shows what can be accomplished by the homebrew scene with Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest, and Sirius and Plutos (2 player verti shooter) show what the 7800 could have been had Atari poured more money into it. They're the only two proto repros I own, and they're pretty awesome.

Another Atari-problem was that the 7800 did not ship with the POKEY sound chip (samples here and here). They had hoped that developers would have put the chip inside the cart (like some late NES and SNES games did). Solid development and a POKEY chip would have made the 7800 an easy competitor to the NES. It's too easy to write it off, and while I have 7x more NES games than the 7800, between the 7800 library (especially Centipede) and the 2600 library, it gets just about as much play from me as the NES does, which is more than the Master System even.

I remember before I bought my 7800, I was debating between it and the ColecoVision. I now have both and a PC Engine. There's so much goodness in these old systems, I sold off all my post-PSP games with the sole exception of the Wii. Who needs them? These asteroids are not going to blast themselves!

[Gamerforlife]

Although the NES is what got me into gaming, I did have an Atari 2600 that I used to play a few games on. I loved Popeye, and I remember playing Q Bert and Space Invaders. My uncle used to play some stuff with me, odd given that he would later view video games as being stupid.

Even after I got an NES and got hooked on its games, a friend and neighbor had a Colecovision and when I wasn't forcing him to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game on my NES, I'd be at his place playing games on his Colecovision.

I feel like I came in at the tail end of the Second Generation, so I don't have that much experience with it beyond just a handful of Atari 2600 and Colecovision games.

[marlowe221]

So.... I want an Intellivision.

Which model do I want?

[Gunstar Green]

So.... I want an Intellivision.

Which model do I want?

Any one that works.

The original is definitely the classiest.