I’m also old. I grew up with an Atari 2600 and then an NES, plus an Apple II at my parents’ house and a C-64 at my grandparents’ house. When I want to play a game for comforting fun, those are the games I most often turn to because they take me back to a simpler time in my life while being generally simpler themselves. And sure, there were some games for those systems that were complex and dark, like some Infocom games and Wasteland, which I thoroughly enjoyed and even enjoyed the modern sequels to… but honestly, I’d rather play Snake Byte on an Apple II emulator most of the time.
Unless you want a phone game, there are so few games out there now that you can just pick up and play for five minutes and then do something else. Most of them are indie edge cases (which admittedly can be good games sometimes) or quickly made web games that pretty much suck. Everything has a complex storyline. They’re not games to me as much as interactive movies sometimes. And that’s fine when I have a couple of hours to devote my time to it, but not all that fine when I want a slight distraction while watching a YouTube video on the other monitor.
I swear, they’d give Tetris cut scenes if it existed today.
I also really liked some game (whose name I can’t remember) where you’re both cowboys and trying to shoot each other through a moving barrier in the middle.
I’m also old. I grew up with an Atari 2600 and then an NES, plus an Apple II at my parents’ house and a C-64 at my grandparents’ house. When I want to play a game for comforting fun, those are the games I most often turn to because they take me back to a simpler time in my life while being generally simpler themselves. And sure, there were some games for those systems that were complex and dark, like some Infocom games and Wasteland, which I thoroughly enjoyed and even enjoyed the modern sequels to… but honestly, I’d rather play Snake Byte on an Apple II emulator most of the time.
Unless you want a phone game, there are so few games out there now that you can just pick up and play for five minutes and then do something else. Most of them are indie edge cases (which admittedly can be good games sometimes) or quickly made web games that pretty much suck. Everything has a complex storyline. They’re not games to me as much as interactive movies sometimes. And that’s fine when I have a couple of hours to devote my time to it, but not all that fine when I want a slight distraction while watching a YouTube video on the other monitor.
I swear, they’d give Tetris cut scenes if it existed today.
Out of curiosity, what’s you’re favorite Atari 2600 game?
I have the console in my retro collection, but I haven’t hooked it up in ages.
Ooh. That is a really good question.
I’m going to give a weird answer. Boxing. I’m not even a fan of real boxing. Something about it just tickles me.
I loved that one as a kid!
I also really liked some game (whose name I can’t remember) where you’re both cowboys and trying to shoot each other through a moving barrier in the middle.
Oh man, I know the game you’re talking about, but I just can’t think of it.