Jakks Pacific TV Games: Atari
by Polly





Nostalgia is funny...

Scratch that. Nostalga is RETARDED! What else could explain my purchase of this horrid and down-right hurtful little device made of plastic and rubber? I mean, I knew the Namco TV Games deal was pretty good. DIG-DUG MOTHERFUCKER! But when purchasing this I also knew that the Atari 2600 was pretty fucking bad. Don't you even dare give me that rose-tinted glasses "No Polly, you're a [REDACTED], it was awesome" bullshit. Growing up, I actually owned one and had a sizeable collection of games for it thanks to some friends of the family just giving it to me. Even then, I knew it was shit. The only enjoyment I ever got out of it was watching my dad almost top 1,000,000 points in Ms. Pac-Man on the Christmas Eve before I got my NES. I can't think of a single game I enjoyed on that damn system. In fact, if you can believe it, I actually preferred going outside as opposed to being told I could stay inside and play the damn thing.

GOD, WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF? WHY DO I KEEP BUYING THINGS I KNOW I HATE? I really should drag all my shit out sometime and list all the stupid things I've bought knowing full-well I'd hate. Then add up all receipts and find out, in dollars, just how much of a fucking [REDACTED] I really am.

Putting my mental challenges aside from the moment, let's have a look at this thing...

The first big problem is that this damn thing is a fairly true reproduction of the Atari 2600 joystick. God those things fucking sucked, but Jakks decided to go ahead and copy the damn molasses sticks piece-by-piece anyway. Anybody that knows anything about the 2600 knows that the paddle was better. Not only in terms of a better sense of control, but it's fucking called a PADDLE! About the only good thing about the Atari 2600 is that it had a gamepad that was called a paddle. In fact, from now on, I'm referring to gamepads as paddles because I just like the word paddle.

Paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle I'm not stopping until this becomes a paragraph paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle.

If you've ever used a 2600 joystick, you know that trying to do anything with the damn thing is akin to pulling teeth. You'd actually have an easier time pulling teeth from your own skull with just your bare hands. The joystick portion is so damn tight it's hard to get whatever you may be controlling on screen to move and even the fire button has an odd bit of resistance that can slow down firing or whatever the hell the button's used for in a game. Let's just think of that as part of the challenge. The game's fighting me so hard that moving my shit on screen and trying to fire actually takes effort. HAHAHA POINTS FOR JAKKS AND ATARI! YOU GO, GIRL! It really should go without saying you won't wanna be holding onto this thing for any extended period of time, and the game selection is most likely to aid you there.

The Atari TV Games collection contains ten "classic" Atari 2600 games for you to pick up and play for about 2 minutes each before hitting the reset button, moving onto the next until you've finished the list, then putting the batteries back in your vibrator egg or water-proof massage glove.

The games included in this unit are:

Adventure
Centipede
Asteroids
Missile Command
Circus Atari
Yar's Revenge
Breakout
Gravitar
Realsports Volleyball
Pong


And guess what! The reproduction of these games is actually quite good! They look and sound just like their 2600 counterparts with just a few exceptions. I guess the only real problem here is that they're accurate representations Atari 2600 games! Haha, god, this thing sucks so fucking hard my neighbors can feel it!

Adventure will always be a classic, regardless of its simplicity and sometimes completely fucked method of distributing items in the world in mode 3. I guess I can be a little honest here and say there's some kinda weird fun to have here if you don't mind feeling lost most of the time.

Both Missile Command and Breakout can be great time-wasters too. They're the easiest games to pick up and play on this collection and have been the basis for many a budding Flash game creators for YEEEAAARS. It's not likely you'll wanna spend much time playing them here though, because of the fucking awful-ass controls.

Honestly, I could give a fuck less about the rest of the garbage on here. It's all better off forgotten and left behind, just like it was in the early 80's. It's not only the controls that make these games so bad, it's their oftentimes abstruse and innane objectives and the fact that the games never change that make them so incredibly boring and not worth your time.

I understand that these games were pretty much cutting-edge shit at the time they were originally released, but some shit simply doesn't age well with time. There are times when you have to be honest with yourself and just say, "yeah, that wasn't all that fantastic," and move on with things. In summation: I fucking hate the Atari 2600 and myself for even buying this. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I EVEN THINKING? REALLY! SOMEBODY FUCKING TELL ME! $25 WHEN I KNEW I HATED THE 2600?

GOD DAMN COCKS!

Paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle paddle.






SMPS Discord | Twitter | Submissions and Contact | GB | Store | i | cmps | v3
Contributor Central
© 2005-2023 smps/*-|):D