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Post by Ex on Jan 5, 2023 11:15:57 GMT -5
I'm quickly realizing this. I'm also quickly realizing there are some surprisingly complex games on the Atari 2600. Far more complex than I'd have thought the console could handle. I'll talk about some of those in time to come. But last night I played two very well known 2600 games: The original Pitfall! (1982) needs no introduction, well not to older gamers at least. Pitfall! was to the Atari 2600 as Super Mario Bros. is to the NES. Yes it was that popular and ubiquitous on 2600, offering very advanced platforming at the time. As a result Pitfall! was extremely popular and sold millions of cartridges. As a matter of fact, it was via playing Pitfall! at a neighborhood friend's house which convinced five year old me (circa 1984) that I really wanted an Atari 2600. I finally got my own 2600 for my 8th birthday in 1987, but never did have my own copy of Pitfall! sadly. The original Pitfall! really is genius for its era. For its platform and time, this game had amazing graphics, innovative game design, and a real sense of adventure. Basically you're a dude running/jumping/swinging through the jungle, trying to collect as much treasure as possible before the 20 minute timer runs out. You only have 3 lives in doing so. As a kid it blew my mind that I could jump off an alligator's head and swing on a vine across the screen. Or that I could climb a ladder into a tunnel system to avoid top screen hazards. That said, Pitfall! tends to get boring because, despite having 255 screens, you always start with the same screen sequence. So in order to see new screens you have to survive far into the timer. I think Pitfall! would have been better if at the beginning of every new game, the stage layout was randomized. Meaning those 255 screens were randomly assigned in a new sequence for every game. That would have really made Pitfall! more re-playable. Regardless, Pitfall! is a true classic. It helped move the platforming genre out of the single screen arcade concept, into a linear series-of-screens adventure as we know it today. Pitfall II: Lost Caverns (1983) is a game I have no nostalgia for. I never played it as a kid, and I didn't know anyone IRL who owned this sequel. I literally played it for the first time last night via emulation. Pitfall II ups the tech with even more impressive programming/graphics for the 2600. And this time Pitfall Harry can swim! But I quickly grew tired of this game and here's why. Every new stage area starts with a red cross on the ground, that's your starting point. Every time you die (you still have three lives), you are literally dragged back to that red cross to start all over again. This is completely different than Pitfall!, because in the original game if you died, you would start right back at the same screen you died on, not losing progress. But in Pitfall II when you die, you not only lose a life, you also lose whatever progress you made into the current level. It just comes across as overly punitive, combined with flying enemies that are very difficult to dodge. From what I gleaned last night, Pitfall II doubled down on technical prowess and tripled down on difficulty. Unfortunately, these increased factors did not compound to make a funner sequel. No thanks.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Jan 5, 2023 11:55:03 GMT -5
Yeah I largely agree. Pitfall is the all-time classic; the sequel is ambitious but worse.
Apparently the arcade/SG-1000 Pitfall II is heavily reworked, to the point where most database sites consider it its own entry. I've never played it though.
(One fun thing someone could do for Club Retro this year is pick a series and continue to play through it gen by gen. For instance, in the third gen there was Super Pitfall plus Atlantis no Nazo, a Japanese game that was slated to be localized as a "Pitfall" release. For now ignore the fact that both of those are awful).
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Post by Sarge on Jan 5, 2023 13:19:13 GMT -5
I like Pitfall II a ton. While Pitfall is fun, I appreciated the expansiveness of the sequel. It's also only punitive in score - unlimited lives, so you could continually explore and eventually reach the end with persistence. At that point, it would be all about finding as much treasure as possible and optimizing your run.
Anyway, I played a ton of random arcade games on the Analogue Pocket from the era.
- Congo Bongo is one I want to revisit again. I only got to the second level, but I was impressed by how Sega tried to expand on what Nintendo did with Donkey Kong. - Galaga easily outclasses Galaxian and is a very solid take on the "invaders"-style game. I had a really nice run going on this one, too, and that was without getting my ship captured! - Dig Dug is also quite fun, but boy does the difficulty ramp up quickly! The game lets you continually credit-feed, although it's still a challenge getting all the enemies taken out. I set the high score, and kept playing until I got past level 10 or 11. - Konami had a Table Tennis game that I struggled to figure out the controls. Might revisit eventually, might not. - We take the original Donkey Kong for granted, but at the time, it was quite refreshing to have a game that didn't revolve around shooting stuff, much as Pac-Man did the same. - Atari's Space Race appears pretty crusty, and for good reason - it's a 1973 arcade game that followed after Pong. It was probably very impressive at the time, though. - I didn't stick with Xevious very long. I've played it quite a few times, and while I appreciate its importance, I never have loved it.
Not sure which of these I'd consider beaten, but I thought both my Galaga and Dig Dug runs were really solid.
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Post by Ex on Jan 5, 2023 13:35:30 GMT -5
Dig Dug was my first "favorite game" until I got a Master System and Phantasy Star. I played Dig Dug a helluva lot as a kid in the mid '80s. I beat Xevous on NES when I was 11. It's not amazing but the precision bombing aspect kept me interested.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Jan 5, 2023 13:42:47 GMT -5
Speaking of "Kongs" there was actually a licensed King Kong game on the Atari 2600, which amusingly tried to rip off Donkey Kong. It isn't that good.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 5, 2023 22:41:14 GMT -5
I liked Pitfall a lot back in the day, think I had some Win95 DOS version or something. Just played a bit more tonight. I agree it might have been even cooler if the stages were in a randomized order.
Never knew about anything Pitfall II related until now. Yeah, the flying enemies and the weird respawn style in this one is kind of annoying. Cool music though.
I also enjoyed Dig Dug. Like Pitfall, I must have played some DOS version or something...
Been getting the itch for Galaga and space shooters myself to try and remember which ones I liked the most. Centipede was cool too.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 6, 2023 0:00:16 GMT -5
Yeah, Pitfall II actually has a special chip that gives it more sound capability. It's pretty slick.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 6, 2023 9:58:51 GMT -5
So were the GameFAQ's top 10's worth going by?
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Post by Ex on Jan 6, 2023 10:14:00 GMT -5
So were the GameFAQ's top 10's worth going by? I put good starter lists in the OP. It pays to do some research yourself and not rely on lists, though. I've found some really interesting 2600 and Intellivision games as a result. I plan to give them all a fair try and maybe even "beat" some of them by February's end. I say "beat" because with 2nd gen games it's not always clear how one "beats" them.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 6, 2023 10:21:15 GMT -5
Ah yeah, thought you listed some stuff somewhere. Research is fun and all. But you're talking to someone that has zero experience with 2nd gen and you listed 31 systems in that first page, lol. Research could take up this entire theme if I spent too much time on that. But yes that's been half the fun so far digging into this alien era to me.
Have my sights just on the 2600, SG-1000, Colecovision, and Intellivision mainly. I'll probably look for some new rom sites for some of these. Glad they should all play nicely with BizHawk.
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