Here's why I've been working so hard on the Atari Emulators

[wavemotion]

My Atari 2600 and 8-bit collection! My classic Atari collection was about twice this size but I finally sold off a lot of my rare carts that sucked to play... I have a Harmony Cart which lets me run the games on an SD card on my real Atari (2600 shown in bottom of pic... hand-modded by me to include RCA out). My 7800 Pro System is in the basement... running out of room. But now that I can play all the games on my DSi... maybe I won't need to suffer the cold basement anymore

 

[Flame]

really nice collection you got there.

 

[djleviticus]

Very nice, i have about 25 atari 2600 carts, just to sit on the shelf and play them on emulators, thanks for updating the DSi emulators.

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Very nice, i have about 25 atari 2600 carts, just to sit on the shelf and play them on emulators, thanks for updating the DSi emulators.

like the commodore monitor, another of my old favs is the commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum!!!!!

 

[MockyLock]

Nice !
Atari2600 was the first console i had.
Playing Space Invaders and Mario Bros.

I still have many A2600, i modded one with Tim Worthington's RGB board.

 

[MarioKartFan]

Bonus points for Beauty and the Beast. Maybe the greatest Intellivision game of all time.

Any chance you would entertain porting these EMUs to the 3DS to take advantage of the higher res screen? I don’t see any 3DSes on the shelf. They look like DSI + GBAs.

 

[wavemotion]

Bonus points for Beauty and the Beast. Maybe the greatest Intellivision game of all time.

Any chance you would entertain porting these EMUs to the 3DS to take advantage of the higher res screen? I don’t see any 3DSes on the shelf. They look like DSI + GBAs.

I actually have a "well loved" and worn 2DS I got used and cheap just to play Zelda and the Pokemon Games. I assume that's basically the same?! Anyway, I have no idea how to program for the 3DS. I'm using libnds which seems to have support for the DS and DSi and I have no idea beyond that! I'll at least poke around in the Googles to see what's up.

And yeah, Beauty and the Beast is fantastic. But my loves are still the two AD&D games - Cloudy Mountain and Treasure of Tarmin. It's still a plague on this world that the Intellivsion Lives port on the DS screwed up Treasure of Tarmin (aka Minotour) but cutting off the bottom 25 pixel rows and losing inventory and one of your stats. Someday... someday...

 

[CrashMidnick]

Thanks for sharing this nice collection.

I love your Commodore monitor too. Very difficult to find now.

 

[VinsCool]

This gets all of my approval!

This Commodore monitor is really good too!

 

[Deleted member 42501]

@wavemotion do any of the old Atari games actually hold up in terms of playability these days? I know everything isn't cut scenes, CGI and shiny ray traced carpets but man they were primitive back when the tech was too.

Stuff like VVVVVV and the Bit Trip series which takes the old aesthetic and actually includes gameplay is amazing and a heck of a lot of stuff from "Almost a Bit" upto even the 16 Bit era was severely lacking on the gameplay front. The Amiga especially was terrible as a lot of stuff on it was "Ohh shiny" as it had been coded by cracktro makers who knew how to make the machine sing and dance but the underlying mechanics were terrible and not fun at all. Literally a handful of decent games on there which hold up today.

Contrast that to say Super Mario Land 2 on the GB and its not only a technological feat for what they pulled off audio visually with such limitations but the game is fun to play. With emulation I've looked into quite a few of these classic platforms and have to say without the heavy rose tinted veneer of the memories of yesteryear a lot of the games just suck

 

[MarioKartFan]

As with (almost) anything, there are some gems. Nostalgia is a factor, yes. But there are some genuinely good games as well.

 

[wavemotion]

Many of the 8-bit games are among my favorites. I gave up on new consoles some years ago - everything felt CGI-ed to death.

My favorite video game of all time is Kaboom! It remains the most enjoyable game in terms of simplicity and hand-eye-coordination.

And I play Adventure on my 2600 almost every day for the past 40 years.

Homebrews for the Atari 2600 and 7800 are still being produced at an incredible clip over on Atariage with a large support base.

It's more than nostalgia for us classic game enthusiasts. Now many games DO suck... but that's true today as well as in 1980. Back then, it took one programmer (who did gameplay, graphics and sound) about 4 months to produce a game. Today it's 1+ years with a team that would rival a movie-studio. And so today game produces don't take chances... they want another Halo or Fallout and probably won't green-light too much original stuff. Back then everything was original - and some of it was amazing and some of it sucked - but the best stuff remains classically playable today.

 

[Deleted member 42501]

Thats a great insight, thanks. Have you ever played VVVVVV? I think you'd really enjoy it. Will check out the recommendations as well.

I do agree that modern gaming lost its way and pure gameplay took the back seat on the bus long ago in favor of cinematics and various other shiny gimmicks and this is one reason I rarely partake of new stuff myself. Actually agree with a lot of what you said and its one of the reasons the DS was such a breath of fresh air as devs took risks and the novel interaction methods created that same buzz of newness that the days of yore were defined by. There are a lot of very fun titles on there which offer an experience that is sublime - check out Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.

Don't read anything, spoilers abound. Just play it and I'm certain it will create euphoria as it unfolds. Enjoy!

 

[Deleted member 668561]

My Atari 2600 and 8-bit collection! My classic Atari collection was about twice this size but I finally sold off a lot of my rare carts that sucked to play... I have a Harmony Cart which lets me run the games on an SD card on my real Atari (2600 shown in bottom of pic... hand-modded by me to include RCA out). My 7800 Pro System is in the basement... running out of room. But now that I can play all the games on my DSi... maybe I won't need to suffer the cold basement anymore

View attachment 240434

I miss my commodore 2002 monitor...



I recommend using head phones...