First-person shooters? Real-time strategy? Rendered 3-D graphics? Give me a break.
My sister collects Atari 2600 cartridges. Her alphabetized collection is the stuff of legend. While hanging at her pad the other day I pulled a handful of cartridges that can only be characterized as outrageous. Truly, truly, truly outrageous.
5. Name This Game and Win $10,000
Working in the game industry I have sat in on more than a few sessions of "what the hell do we name our product?" Kudos to these guys for booting the whole question to a bunch of disinterested grade-school-age consumers.
4. Fun With Numbers
I can say from experience that this gem topped my "please don't buy this for my Christmas present" list in the Eighties. Though "random problems" does sort of describe the arc of my post-2600 years pretty well.
3. Lost Luggage
I'd have picked this as the worst concept and title for a video game ever if it weren't for...
2. Tax Avoiders
Game -- or LIFESTYLE? You make the call. I suspect the vast majority of Atari 2600 players barely knew what taxes even were, let alone felt terror at the sight of a 1040 form. (No worries, though. The game itself is a stick figure sprinting between giant dollar signs, just like filing taxes in real life.)
1. Bachelor Party / Gigolo
"The world of adult video games is a most exciting concept," opines the manual for this legendary double-feature. Ostensibly a pornographic game, in actual execution the graphics and gameplay are so rough that one could give it to a room full of kindergardeners without fear of polluting young minds. Fortunately, the instruction manual gives a detailed play-by-play: "when the bachelor flies toward the women, his private parts (P.P.) are in an erect state." And who ISN'T down with P.P.?
Awesome... makes me nostalgic. I still miss the driving game and utopia for intellivision.
Posted by: Benjamin Martin | May 09, 2012 at 11:11 PM
Holy Moses! I had no idea they even made that many games.
I tried to play a load of 2600 games ported to the Android OS, and they were just as unplayable as I remembered them to be.
Posted by: Scott Calibraxis | May 10, 2012 at 04:21 AM
Yeah, the vast majority of 2600 titles absolutely un-ironically and totally sucked.
Posted by: MattAlt | May 10, 2012 at 10:14 AM
My first trance state was achieved playing Kaboom! Note, I'm not stating that emphatically, that's just the name of the game.
Posted by: William White | May 10, 2012 at 10:50 AM