HEAVEN & HELL
When thinking about this month’s article, I realised that we have not given much attention to Atari, so let’s put that right. The Atari 2600 (or VCS, depending on your age) was released on September 11th, 1977 and rapidly became one of the most popular games consoles of the generation. Whilst it was not the first system to feature interchangeable games cartridges, that honour falls to the Fairchild Channel F, it was one of the first consoles that had properly licenced game titles that were (almost) just like the version that could be found in the arcade. As we all now know, games sell systems — Atari sold a lot of 2600s, around 30 million systems between 1977 and 1992. Atari provided some of the most successful games for the 2600; the release of ‘Space Invaders’ in 1980 became a huge success, with many consumers buying the system just to pay that game.
With the creation of third party companies, Atari 2600 owners were treated to classic games such as Activision’s ‘Pitfall’, Parker Bros ‘Empire Strikes Back’ and even a small game called ‘Mario Bros’ — I wonder whatever happened to that franchise?
The console itself could rightly claim to be a design classic, from the very 70s’ wood grain, black plastic and orange highlights to the later all-black version (called the ‘Vader’ 2600 by some) to the Sears version, called the ‘Video Arcade’ which included fake walnut burl wood grain — any of them
look fantastic sitting amongst your retro collection.
I’m sure most of us will agree the 2600 looked amazing, though the later redesign that used the Atari 7800 aesthetic was bloody terrible. What most of us remember (or discover) about the 2600 can be put into two categories — the awful joysticks, and the woeful games. The joysticks are very iconic; instantly recognisable but incredibly impracticle to use. A square base meant that holding the joystick in your hand soon became very uncomfortable, play long enough and cramp was highly likely to develop. The shaft of the joystick was equally a challenge, mainly due to someones bright idea to make it hexagonal.
Mind you, as rubbish as the joystick was they were not bad enough to help cause the first videogame crash — sadly, the games released were. Everyone ‘knows’ that ET is the worst game ever made; It isn’t, not by a long way. Pac Man for the 2600 is far worse: glitchy, slow and graphically poor but even that is not scraping the barrel. Every company seemed to be releasing games on the 2600 and with no quality control and it did not take long for the consumers to turn their back on all video games. Go and look at the infamous ‘Custer’s Revenge’ to see what I mean.