Topic: I actually kind of envy players who missed out on the NES, SNES, N64, and Genesis era

So, uh, setting things straight here: I didn't grow up with the 2600. I was born in '86, and grew up with the NES and the tail end of the 8-bit computer era. There's no nostalgia involved with my enjoyment of any 2600 title - they're all games I've gone back and discovered long after their release. They're just good, entertaining games in their own right, and have tremendous value to all who are capable of enjoying fun games for the fun alone. Complaining that today's kids are shallow because they won't give the games you grew up with a chance, then turning around and writing off all games released before your own generation is pretty hypocritical.

Also, I've never met anyone who's NOT enjoyed Adventure for the 2600. It's that good.

Anyway, I want to know this, Corbie: How much do you think a 2600 game is worth today? Even the BEST game on the system? Personally, from what little I know of the system (and I still doubt this is subject to change given my general gaming tastes), I'd feel ripped off paying more than $1 for one of those things. Heck, even the $1 might be too much!

Standard retail price for stores and private sellers is about 5$ for a loose cart for your average common 2600 game, with prices rising according to rarity. Game quality rarely has an influence on the price.

Actually, I sort of agree with you there. Earthbound looks much nicer than Final Fantasy 7, but saying that Yoshi's Island looks better than Ocarina/Paper Mario is a LIE!

And sorry Bert, I couldn't get megamania working.

dont you mean you feel sorry for them?

No, it's envy because they are experiencing a classic for the first time.

Corbie, did you actually list Pac Man as a good Atari 2600 game???

@Adamant: Okay, I didn't know how old you were. Noted (until I forget, anyway ).

To be fair, the Atari 2600 didn't have very many games of the type I usually like, because my favorite genres hadn't been invented yet for the most part. Too many "play for score" type games, which I'm very rarely a fan of. As I've said before, I wanted to give the system a fair chance, but still haven't had an opportunity to do so.

Y'know what? I get accused of "writing off" things I think I have legitimate reasons to dislike quite a lot lately. And I have a friend who's ridiculously good at convincing me of his point over the course of a two-hour conversation (he did so last night with FFVII, convincing me that the Materia system isn't as bad as I thought it was). So who knows? Maybe the 2600 DOES have some pretty great games on it that even I would enjoy. I just know I haven't enjoyed the ones I've had opportunity to try.

I don't think he meant the 2600 port specifically, since his list has a couple of games that weren't on the 2600 at all, as well as Defender, another great game with a near universally detested 2600 port.

Stuffgamer1: Well, score-based games were the order of the day, which made a lot of sense, really, and I never understood the dislike for them. With quest-based games, you play for one/two hours or so, beat every challenge the game tosses at you, then either pack it down and don't play it again for a while, or play it over, with the game never doing anything new, and the experience being the same. In a score-based game, you'll be able to constantly challenge yourself, see just how far you're able to get before being defeated, being able to compare scores with others... such games are able to offer so much more value for your money. I don't know about you, but I'm much more prone to thinking "Let me see how well I'm able to do at Popeye today" rather than "I feel like playing through Ninja Gaiden once again". No bad words about Ninja Gaiden, it's a great game and all, but once you've beaten it, you're probably not going to play through it again for a couple weeks or so. You've just seen all the game had to offer, the desire to see it once again isn't going to be there for a while. It's just like with movies, no matter how good a movie is, you're probably not going to watch it several times a week.
(and yeah, I've been rambling on about unrelated stuff for a while now )

But yeah, i really think you should give the 2600 a go. It has a lot of very addictive quality games I'm sure you'd enjoy. Who knows, maybe you'll realize just how fun playing for score can be? nd you really need to try Adventure - it's not score-based, it offers a unique challenge every time (as long as you play on the real, randomized difficulty level rather than the two tutorial levels, at least), it's extremely addictive, and as mentioned, I've never met anyone who didn't enjoy it.

It's not all you think.
My 'Cube era friends just can't seem to appreciate anything before the N64, I wonder why?

I can think of few games from newer systems that I enjoy more or find to be of higher all-around quality than older systems. Too much emphasis on graphics today and not content. Games have gotten too easy as well. Don't get me wrong, some of my favorites of all time come from the new era of systems, but when someone asks me what my favorite video games ever are I naturally list several more from retro days. It's not a nostalgia matter with me. I just think a lot of the older games are better, and that a lot of the new ones are rebuilt originals with prettier graphics, easier difficulty, and typically thinner quality content (i'm not talking about volume of content which is huge on many new games, i'm talking the QUALITY of the fundamentals behind the game).

@Don: If I had missed the early days of gaming (more specifically SNES but also others) and had gone back just now through the VC or ordering retro stuff off ebay, I'd probably be in shock. I'd probably ask myself "What the hell happened?" in many cases outside of graphics innovation. I mean it is basically that way now. My ps3 is collecting dust while I plug hours and hours into my SNES and VC because to me it is just that much richer. Funny how things work out sometimes !

I didn't play Ocarina of Time until I got it for Gamecube. I loved it instantly. I only got Super Mario 64 a few years ago. It's awesome. While I did begin in the 8 bit era, I got a Playstation instead of an N64, so I missed out on all its cool games. Playing them for the first time even as a re-release is almost as magical as playing them when new. It's especially magical when you've lived through those eras so you can understand all the inside jokes. For example, I understood the mention of Donkey Kong 64 as "his first 3D adventure" mostly because I remember when 3D (i.e., 64-bit) was a big deal, not just because I've done my video game history. Just the graphics take me back.

If today's kids can't understand the magic of yesterday's games, that's sad. They need to have older relatives introduce the old games to them at a young age. Now, I'm not saying this doesn't affect me. While I do occasionally enjoy the arcade games of the 70s and 80s, many of the early video games just seem pointless to me. Even the popular Asteroids is getting boring.

@Adamant: I do enjoy SOME for-score games, but not very many. Two very nice examples are PiCTOBiTS (that game's just so much FUN!) and Root Beer Tapper (I'm in the top 100 on the Live Arcade Leaderboard!). I usually play enough games that the massive replay value you state for score-based games is irrelevant. I grew up playing RPG's, and that's still one of my favorite genres. Kinda nothing for that on the 2600. I do want to try Adventure, but if we have that game around here, it's hidden somewhere.

54 of my Virtual Console games are titles I never played before they were released, Pulseman will be number 55, I never owned a Genesis, and I couldn't buy my own games back in NES days--and all I can say is that I totally understand the envy. Not that I haven't been intensely impressed with dozens of the games I hadn't played before, most being from TG16, Genesis, and NES (20, 14, and 9 respectively): Gunstar Heroes, the four TG16 Star Soldier games, the Wonder Boy series, Streets of Rage 2, Shining Force and its sequel, Adventures of Lolo and its sequel, both Neutopia games, Landstalker, Sin and Punishment, Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder, DoReMi Fantasy, Ys Book I & II, Mega Man 2 and 3, and M.U.S.H.A.have all blown me away to varying degrees.

Still, if I could experience games like Super Metroid, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Secret of Mana, Donkey Kong Country 2, Majora's Mask, Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 3, or F-Zero X for the first time, and I name these specific games because I consider them to be successes on every front--controls, level design, music, theme, length, replay value, characters--it would be a dream. DoReMi Fantasy was the only one of my 54 to hit that particular echelon (and I actually like it more than LoZ:MM, SMW, or SMB3), though several others were right on the verge and only fell short in one or two areas.

I hope some future VC releases can hit the mark too, whether I know about them right now or not.

Almost all of my VC downloads I'd never played before. I'd played Mario Bros. before, first as a minigame on SMB3 and then the remake on SMA. However, I'd never played the original before. Finally, I'd had Sonic & Sonic Chaos before, but I wanted to tone down my amount of Sonic games. Sonic Chaos, however, was a game I'd played heavily on the Game Gear.

I don't have many VC games I'd never played before, mostly because my brother tried some and got burned on several downloads. There are a few, though, and those are cool to finally get to play.