Memory lane never looked so good at Atari!

Do you remember when you were a kid what game system you had?  There weren’t many options that dominated the marketplace like today so I will remind you.  It was probably an Atari 2600!  Those memories are as crystal clear for me.  I was the kid who carried a small to medium sized puke green suitcase covered with the coolest stickers of the era!  (The 80’s were awesome!)  Entertainment central had 2 stressed metal clasps, one on each side,  which I depended on to keep my Atari 2600 and 54 cassette disc’s safe from predators!  Namely skaters, jocks, BMX’ers, surfers (Yeah, I grew up 30miles from the Atlantic ocean) wasteoids, & tweakers.  The neighborhood was rough, much like many a dungeon crawl, I had my secret passages ways that I used to safely traverse to my friends house where we tweaked out all day to a tune of our own .  A tune that consisted mainly of bleeps, blaps, tings, chue chues and the occasional, “I got you bitch!”  Those were the days, and I honestly can’t remember what happened to my massive collection of Atari games.

Well those days are back again because Atari.com has launched an arcade of old school delight!  No quarters needed in this arcade.  No need to sign up, submit any personal data, and definitely no need to give anyone your credit card information.  It’s free to play, and play I am!  I was good for 129th place in Crystal Castles in my first attempt in over 20 years.  I took 529th place in Asteroids as I was reacquainted with how difficult those blasted tiny spaceships use to be!  Plus, the ever intensifying “Jaws” like audio in the background adds the perfect blend of nerve-racking to the experience.  You just knew they were gonna get you.  What a great game for its time!   I couldn’t even break the top 1000 in Battlezone. The old tank game that was designed with a periscope looking area for targeting in the arcade.  I was never any good at that one anyways!  Yar’s Revenge, I was good for 123rd place and I actually thought I was on fire having killed Yar 6 times in my first attempt in decades.  Lunar Lander is an exercise in precision and frustration.  I could never land the spaceship without blowing it up, and it seems some things never change.  They designed it way to fragile for my taste.  Even if you were a child of this era you probably don’t remember some of these game titles, but the second you hit start it will all come back to you.

The only downside to this great discovery is there is only 6 games available to play at this time.  I had 54 Atari cassette disc’s and I use to horde them like gold bars.  The worst game I can remember was ET.  The movie that never came out on VHS for years and years.  Well, compared to today’s movies, it stank, but for it’s time we were all in awe.  More to the point, they made a game about it and it is #1 in my list of worst Atari games ever made.  Back then, I couldn’t give that game away! Fortunately, this game isn’t available in the arcade. In retrospect, a lot of these games were so simple so extremely linear against today’s games. Playing through a few games of Asteroids has renewed respect for the arcade classic and hall of fame game! Hopefully,  Atari will release more games to the arcade, but please don’t release any of the Mr. Do’s series because I will never get anything done then! Suddenly I am craving a root-beer float from Frisch’s Big Boy!

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