Arcade Games!! And 2600-backward compatible!
Written: Sep 24 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Arcarde Classics, Backward Compatibility
Cons: Released to late.
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| flindingo's Full Review: Atari 7800 |
Oh the 7800... What memories it brings back to my youth of plugging it in and playing Food-Fight, Ms. Pac Man, Dig Dug, and Donkey Kong... Oh I remember the days, oh wait! That was yesterday!
It's not a matter of nostalgia or remembrance for the great 7800, it's the fact that it never really left me! I was without one for several years, and had been hunting it down ferociously to get a hold of Food-Fight my all time favorite Console game. Then came E-Bay, and well the rest is history.
The Atari 7800 was everything and more, it was the ultimate home gaming/arcade system. It had everything I could have wanted in a system, except it didn't last long... Unfortunately the 7800 came out a little bit after Nintendo's NES, which dominated the market almost instantly. The NES system was driven at keeping kids at home playing games they couldn't get anywhere else. Whereas the 7800 was meant to bring great arcade games into your house.
The 7800 was an all-in-one arcade machine, it included better joysticks than the original 2600, (and the ill-fated 5200). Great sound, better graphics, and awesome titles at release. It also fixed all the problems the 5200 had. The 7800 is the actual logical next step from the 2600, the 5200 seemed to be a step away from it's predecessor. The Atari audience had a ton of 2600 games that they wanted to keep on playing, but the 5200 was bulky and didn't take the old control pads. Playing 2600 games on the 5200 was a very difficult and straining task, which led to it's quick death.
The 7800 on the other hand was completely compatible, it played all (but 2-3) 2600 titles, which were the same size as the new 7800 titles so a bulky adapter was not needed. The old controllers plugged in easily to the system, and even the new controllers were much like the original so it was easy to switch to the new system. The biggest bonus was the games, the 7800 had arcade-perfect translations of it's arcade classics. Ms. Pac Man, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Food Fight, to name a few. There were more, about 65 more. Unfortunately very few saw the shelves.
Nintendo dominated and crushed all opponents. Atari was the first to go, then Sega's Master System. It was a brutal battle, (much like Sony's PSX). When all the dust cleared in my basement all that was left was a NES system and 10 games, and a Atari 7800 with a library consisting of 2600 & 7800 games totaling 223. My all time favorite games are seated next to my 7800. A great system, but bad timing...
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
flindingo
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Location: Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 120
Trusted by: 35 members
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