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AtariBrian

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AtariBrian is the real deal!!! good stuff!!!

 

Within 2 days of owning pac man 2600 I had figured out a pattern and could play forever. Way worse than E.T..

 

I will say, I was 12 when it came out and it was pretty cool to play Pac man at home, but it is just bad.

 "Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime."

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ET certainly did contribute to the Crash, but so did many others. I believe the whole SwordQuest thing had a large part as well, possibly larger than ET.

 

ET isn't bad, it just wasn't the game consumers were expecting in 1983 with the name ET on it. Had it been anything else, I think it could have skated by without much notice... But something as big as ET? Yeah, no. Folks were expecting an action packed adventure game, with thrills and suspense. What they got instead were pits... Lots, and lots, of pits. I can fully understand the disillusionment.

"I'd buy that for a dollar!" -Smash T.V.

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The "crash" as it were was felt mostly in the U.S. and as mentioned was much less about E.T. (really just the tip of the iceberg in the grand scheme of things) then it was about the arrival of powerful home computer options (do your accounting AND play the classics with upgraded graphics) as well as bad quality control letting everyone and their grandmother publish titles causing a flood of mediocre to down right horrible titles. 

I am Rob aka MaximumRD aka OldSchoolRetroGamer and THIS is my world http://about.me/maximumrd

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."

 - M. Bison

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In a sense E.T. was a big success. It was the number #5 best selling game on the system of all time. It sold more copies than Space Invaders!  However, Atari overproduced E.T.  They sold 1.5 million copies, but made about 4-5 million copies so they had a lot of unsold inventory. 

 

Pac-Man was a bigger success. It was the best selling game of all time on the system. It sold 7 million copies!!!! But again, Atari made 12 million total (more copies than they had systems), so more unsold inventory.

 

E.T. the game had little to no part in the crash. How Atari handle production of E.T. did as well as other games did.

 

What caused the crash? Here are just a few of the pieces imho

1) Atari's mismanagement in general (They went from the fastest growing company in history to losing a half a billion dollars in a single year. That's 1980's dollars)

2) Tons of poor quality shovel wear (This is why Nintendo was so strict with their 3rd party games being limited when the NES came out. They were trying to avoid Atari's mistake)

3) A flooded market (Too many games, meant fewer games made any profit, which meant a lot of game makers go out of business fast)

4) The fall of Atari (When the big dog falls it tend to take smaller dogs with it)

The No Swear Gamer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChtJuo040EOCTVziObIgVcg

Host of The Atari 7800 Game by Game Podcast on iTunes, Stitcher and YouTube

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I hate the 2600 version of Pac-Man.

Download this version and play it on your Stella or Harmony cart............. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/229152-new-pacman-for-atari-2600/

 

This is the almost perfect Pac-Man version for the Atari VCS/2600!!!

Brian Matherne - owner/curator of "The MOST comprehensive list of Atari VCS/2600 homebrews ever compiled." http://tiny.cc/Atari2600Homebrew

author of "The Atari 2600 Homebrew Companion" book series available on Amazon! www.amazon.com/author/brianmatherne

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I have no Stella

download it here.........

 

http://stella.sourceforge.net/

Brian Matherne - owner/curator of "The MOST comprehensive list of Atari VCS/2600 homebrews ever compiled." http://tiny.cc/Atari2600Homebrew

author of "The Atari 2600 Homebrew Companion" book series available on Amazon! www.amazon.com/author/brianmatherne

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How can anyone say E.T. is a bad game, sure as a kid I put it in (on the hardest difficulty) didn't read how to play and got stuck in wells.  But with the tips on http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-et-tips.html and reading the manual I just sent et home.  This game is awesome.  Soo many actually bad games, fire fly, bugs, dragster just off the top of my head.

I liked ET because it was a quest game similar to Raiders (for obvious reasons).  I loved games with a quest and an ending!

"For you - Rowsdower from the 70 - have been appointed Omnivisioner of the Game Grid."  ~ Atari Adventure Square

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There were very few console games with a proper ending.

They were so satisfying.

The high score principal ruled the norm, as it was carried over from the arcades.

 

It's also why my favorite cabinet experience was Cliff Hanger, a laserdisc title based on scenes from two Lupin the Third movies.

Reaching the end of that was the best day of my arcade gamer life.

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I'd like to think that this very popular game helped usher in the era of games with proper endings. Might just be wishful thinking though.

Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted.

 

Franz Kafka

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