AtariAge Forums: AtariAge Forums -> Ransom's Random Posts

From time to time I like to step back and take a look at how my collection is shaping up. It may be that I find holes in my collection where I need to spend more time finding one or more great games for a system. Or it may be that, like earlier this year, I find that there are several games that I just do not play, and I sell those games off.

At any rate, here's the number of CIB games I have for each of the systems for which I collect:

Atari 2600: 87
Atari 5200: 39
Atari 7800: 7
Atari 8-Bit Computer: 124
Atari Jaguar: 11
Atari Lynx: 24
Colecovision: 20
Intellivision: 63
Turbografx-16: 13
NES: 11
SNES: 8
Genesis: 18
PS: 3
PS2: 16

Obviously my A8 games collection is still the largest portion of my overall collection. That's because I've been collecting those the longest. I have previously collected and sold off most of the other systems in the 90s. But not the A8. That software has been with me a long time.

I also have a lot of 2600 carts, but that's probably...

Atari 2600
Boxing
Kaboom!
Keystone Kapers
Seaquest
Adventure
Basketball
Bowling
Dodge 'Em
Maze Craze
Space Invaders
Video Pinball
Yars' Revenge
Demon Attack
Dragonfire
No Escape

Atari 5200
Berzerk
Centipede
Defender
Galaxian
Missile Command
Pac-Man
Pole Position
Qix
Robotron: 2084
Space Dungeon
Star Raiders
Vanguard

Colecovision
Carnival
Frenzy
Lady Bug
Looping
Omega Race
Pepper II
Slither
Turbo
Up 'N' Down
Venture
Zaxxon

Intellivision
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
Bump 'N' Jump
Burgertime
Lock 'N' Chase
Shark! Shark!
Star Strike
Tron Deadly Discs
Utopia

Games you should have somewhere in your collection
Beamrider
Choplifter!
Gorf
H.E.R.O.
Montezuma's Revenge
Spy Hunter
Tapper

Theme park season is over, so it's time to get back to playing video games. I'm looking forward to getting back in touch with everyone here!

The One True Game: The best Rosetta Stone game anyone's come up with is Frogger. So I won't bother with getting Donkey Kong or any of the others for every system. I'll keep an eye out for Frogger, though. I think I'll just need it for Intellivision, Colecovision (if and when), and 5200.

Randomness: I'm looking through my list of 450 or so games, and finding very few games that use randomization of enemies, treasures, powerups, etc. That's so strange.
But of course many of my favorites do use it: Adventure, Star Raiders, AD&D . . .

One of these days I'll put together a list of all my randomizing games.

It's sometimes very costly to recover from mistakes of the past.

Back when I was trying to keep the number of consoles to a bare minimum, I bought some games for some systems that I never should have. For example, Pitfall for the Intellivision. The game was designed for and works best on the 2600. I should never have wasted the money on the Intellivision version. Same goes for Coleco brand titles for the Intellivison and other systems -- they all look and work best on the Colecovision (which I plan to buy next year). The same can be said of the M network games that are just ports of Intellivison games to the 2600.

So within the next year, I'll be cleaning up my collection by purchasing the original versions of some games like Pitfall, and getting rid of the ones I have for other systems.

One exception I'm considering is to have a copy of Donkey Kong for every system for which it was produced. The only classic (pre-16-bit) system it never appeared on was the 5200. ...

There are so many bad ports of games out there.

Take Donkey Kong, Jr. on the A8. It's a pile of poop! The feel is wrong, the colors are wrong, things are squished up too much, and it's incredibly easy to accidentally walk off the side of a platform. It's virtually unplayable, and it's the reason I never liked the game all these years.

Or take the same game on the CV. Again, the colors are wrong. And the sizes of objects is wrong. And the behavior of the beasties is wrong. But at least you don't fall from platforms quite so easily! It's playable, but not really worth the cost (dollars and storage space).

The only good home implementations of this of which I'm aware are on the 7800 and NES. The 7800's has crummy sound, of course, but at least it looks and plays reasonably well. And my recent acquisition of the 7800 version gave me a chance to learn that I'd been wrong about this game all these years. It's actually quite...

I brought out the Lynx last night and played some games.

I still enjoy the games I always have, but that's a small minority of the games I own for it. Most of them are not to my taste. I do like Battlewheels, S.T.U.N. Runner, and the classics (Robotron, Asteroids/Missile Command, etc.).

So I'm still undecided as to what to do with this system. Maybe I'll unload a bunch of the games at some point.

The more I think about it, the more appealing it sounds to clear out the games I dislike from all the various systems, but keep all the systems.

But what to do with the games? I hate selling things online, because I have no time to make trips to the post office. And packaging is going to cost me an arm and a leg.

We'll see...

Next year, I plan to buy a Colecovision and perhaps a dozen or so games. There are also a couple of dozen games I'd like to buy for the rest of my consoles next year.

But my game closet is nearly out of room. Yes, the game closet I just reorganized this year, adding 16' of new shelving to it!

The easy thing to do would be to get rid of the Lynx and games. I find it uncomfortable to play. And I have all the boxes, so I could just store it all in the basement for some other time. But it feels wrong to store away an entire system and all its games. If I'm going to do that, then should I even bother keeping it?

Another option would be to go through my entire game collection for all systems and pull out the ones that just don't belong. I did that with a few earlier this year, getting rid of titles like Video Checkers and Video Chess. I'm never going to play those games.

There are quite a few other games that I have no real use for. Star Raiders for the...

I remember liking the Atari 5200 just fine the first time around (1982), but this time, I've really been enjoying each and every game I bought for it.

Of course, it was expensive to get the Best Electronics Gold controllers, the trak-ball, and the testing equipment to make sure everything was as good as it could be.

It was also a help that I made sure to buy games that benefited from the controllers. (Plus a few that were never released for the Atari 8-bit computer.)

For example, playing Pole Position on the 5200 is a much better experience than doing so on any other Atari platform. The control is much finer, and having two buttons available is nice.

And playing Missile Command and Centipede with a real trak-ball is just fantastic. A totally different experience!

As I've mentioned before, Star Raiders is also extra nice on the 5200 (and not just because of the minor bug-fixes).

I'm as happy with the 5200 as I've ever been with a classic console. And that...

This winter, I picked up a Genesis, an Atari 5200, and an Atari 7800. Here's what I learned:

Sega Genesis: Genesis is a very nice game system, even better than I remembered from '89. The arcade style controllers rock, and there are a lot of really good games for it. Oh, and right now, they're all pretty inexpensive -- and it's not hard to find them CIB. Since the boxes are hard plastic, most of the time they're in good shape. And no console modding is needed - all versions do composite out with just the addition of the proper (proprietary) video cable. So, overall, this is a great system at a great price.

Atari 5200: This system is also very nice, just as I remembered from 1982. With Best Electronics' Gold controllers and a trak-ball, plus a well-chosen selection of games, the console really shines. I stuck to games that either benefit from the analog sticks, work well with the trak-ball, or require two or more buttons. All of them work just great. I...