Hacker News Reader

Comment by avidphantasm | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I was too young to "get" Atari games, which I played on a hand-me-down Colecovision with the 2600 emulator/adapter ca. 1986, but I always thought Atari games were kinda lousy. The system was just too primitive (compared to Colecovision let alone C64 and NES) to enable good enough graphics and sound to set my imagination free and really make me want to play the games again and again. To this day, I have the most desire to play SNES and some NES games, but feel no desire to revisit Atari games. This isn't to knock those that do, I just feel like NES and especially SNES and Genesis games really hit a sweet spot in terms of interesting enough graphics and sound without being burdened by 3D or photorealism (which I generally don't want in games, not that I'm much of a gamer). Atari's graphics and sound were just too abstract.

View on HN

You might have felt differently if you hadn't started out with a Colecovision, the games for which were miles ahead of the VCS. When the 2600 was about the only thing going, people didn't have much to compare against until the Intellivision came along. We just had Atari and we liked it.

Just listening to the sounds from this Myst remake brought back some core memories of playing our neighbor's state of the art Atari 2600, and it was a fun way to spend a cold winter afternoon. I can definitely believe that those that didn't grow up with it would find the graphics (and sound) lacking, but if it was your first home video game console, it was amazing.

The 2600 was also my first game console. I played it a lot, even after the Spectrum 128K arrived home. But, as much fun as I had with it, I have a similar issue with it now: I would happily play a SNES game now, but I have zero interest in playing an Atari 2600 game. I mean, I would play Qbert, but the graphics/sound would put me off enough to try the Commodore 64 version instead, and I have never touched a C64.

In fact, I have the same problem with the NES. For me the SNES is exactly the sweet spot.

This is a fair point and probably a big reason for how I feel. Another factor may be that I never played Atari games socially; I didn’t really have play dates at that age (~7-8), or if I did we pretty much strictly played outside. Also, I was an only child. I did however play NES and then SNES with cousins and school friends.

I feel about the same. I grew up with a 2600, and liked the games when I was 4-7. In more recent times, while I’ve gone through periods where I replayed C64, Sega Master System, Genesis and Amiga games, nothing for the 2600 held my interest for long. It’s simply too primitive.

I agree with you, with one small difference.

First a bit of backstory.

I've got a 7year old, she loves playing games, no matter the game she will give it a go. She wants to play games marketed for kids, but nothing sticks for too long, because usually they are way too complicated for a 7year old who can't read/comprehend that much English (it's a second language).

So those older games... The ones that we grew up on, that were simple because of hardware limitations... Are kind of perfect.

You could say that our generation grew up in a kind of perfect window for games, they got more complex as we got older, not just because we got older, but also because hardware allowed for more complex games/stories to be made.

My daughter really really wants to play the new Zelda, but I refuse to buy it as we have breath of the wild. She knows if she finishes BOTW, she can have the new game... She played maybe 2 hours tops before tapping out and playing some kind of shovelware sandbox game on Xbox Gamepass. Which allows her to play however she wants, with no complex systems.. just simple gameplay and no timelimits.

Gamepass is awesome if you've got kids!

I agree; that's insightful. There are many 8 and 16 bit inspired games for modern platforms but they are just not the same.

Emulation is also awesome if you have kids. I don't know anything about modern consoles, but several years back I had a roommate with a 7-8 year old son who was just amazed at my ability to conjure hundreds of video games from their laptop. Sadly he'd go to school and try to talk to other kids about Alex Kidd in Miracle World and they had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

To your last point about kids at school not knowing retro games.. this isn't about you, but about a kind of parent I've seen time and time again.

They are kids, and whilst it's awesome that they want to play the games we loved, at some stage every parent hopefully realises that the most important thing is that they have something to talk to other kids about.

Most parents want the best for their kids, and sometimes that means letting them find things they like themselves. We can for sure point to stuff and say "I loved this when I was your age", but if they don't love it.. it's tough, but it's the best for them.

> You could say that our generation grew up in a kind of perfect window for games, they got more complex as we got older, not just because we got older, but also because hardware allowed for more complex games/stories to be made.

This is very insightful. It makes me think I should maybe start by introducing my kiddo to 2600 games when they are old enough. Thanks!

GenX really did get to see it all. My first game was Pong. Specifically Colecovision Telstar Marksman.

My through time didn’t include 2600 though but it did include Intellivision. Which sprites and will resolution more then a single line.

I thought Beamrider, Jungle Hunt or H.E.R.O were pretty nice to play again. But there's not that much I would revisit otherwise. Funny enough Colecovision barely seemed better than Atari to me back in the days, but I started out with a Commodore 64 before a neighbor kid got that one. I was playing Commando and International Karate by that time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com