RetroGaming

So, real talk? Most 2600 games are rough, and barring personal nostalgia, there's little reason to play most of them in the age of emulation, especially arcade conversions, which sometimes nail the gameplay (but often don't), and generally have to perform acts of violence on the visuals to make them work with the system and the business realities around their development (i.e. staffing, timeline, budget for ROM chips, etc.).

Some worthwhile ones that come to mind:

• Combat (multiplayer only)
• Warlords (multiplayer only)
• Pitfall
• River Raid
• Pitfall II
• Space Invaders
• The Empire Strikes Back

It's not that so many more weren't fun, or even still aren't in isolation, but it's like we're all the rich fat kid from Pee-Wee's big adventure and have access to every single game on every single system, at least up until the end of the 90s. There's no reason to play the nice port of Berzerk that looks like it does, or play the flickery Pac-Man mess, or even (I'll say it) fight with the groundbreaking but still primitive and abstracted gameplay of Adventure.

My parents went down the home computer route, and I ended up with an 800 XE.

It was beautiful. The detachable keyboard, the IBM-grey sleek housing, the pastel console buttons, and satisfying "chi-chuunnnggg" of the spring loaded power button.

I felt like I had the future under the palms of my hand.

Anyone for a quick game of ET?!

One of the most iconic and best-looking games consoles of all time.

Huh, I thought this form factor only came in faux wood grain.

I spent so much time with this thing. Moon Patrol was my jam.

I've always considered the six switch variant more iconic, but my six switch one is also the one I've got that doesn't work. So there's that.

Mmmm. I'm not sure why, but this pic unlocked memories of me chewing on my Atari controller growing up. I can still taste the plastic.

We had the Sears version. Just not as cool

Dragster shone in '83 as an example of gameplay-over-graphics. Just outstanding.

I don't have a 2600 today, but I do have a solitary cart of Dragster. Be ready.

Me and my brother got one of these as a joint Xmas present, it came with a free game- Combat!

I loved playing Space Invaders, Frogger, Empire Strikes Back, there was also a space game where you had to input coordinates into a gadget to then hyperspace jump and fight other space ships, can't remember what it was called but it was great!

It's still at my parents house in the original box...

First console—or anything—that I played a video game on. I remember out of the games we had, my favorite was Joust (I was a little kid). Later, we got E.T., and that became my least favorite game.

Something I haven't touched since grade school

Got one in the loft. Sometimes I look at my sons PS5 and cry quietly for what could have been