When the Atari 2600 was the hottest gift of the Christmas season in 1977, I begged my parents for one. I may have made the statement, "I don't want anything else, just that." Cue the music, "What Kind of Fool am I?" My parents took me seriously. Leading up to Christmas, I was notorious for checking and rechecking the "haul." I will even admit here that I might have unwrapped a gift or two to see what was coming my way. Is it any wonder why my mother "punished" me with socks and underwear each year? So this particular Christmas, I was satisfied with the pile of presents with my name on it.
Come Christmas morning, I began to attack the pile with a great fervor. First gift, a stack of old magazines. Second gift, the socks and underwear. Third gift, an actual brick. I begin to become a little unglued as my family laughed at me. As I make my way through a pile of gag gifts, one of my siblings finally took pity on me and told me to go look on a chair in the dining room. I leap up and run to the dining room, pull out a chair and scream, "There's nothing here!" I am then told to look on the other chair. And there, on the chair, is the dream gift, the Atari 2600. I learn later that my father had bought one of the last ones (it being the Wii of its day) around. My family then produced a few games and Christmas was saved for everyone.
I played that game every day for years. I had all the great games, Missile Command, Pitfall, Pac-Man, Asteroids. The game got retired as I got into high school and put away. When I went off to college, I was having a conversation with my suite mates one evening and it was determined that I should bring it back to school after winter break. In fact, my roommate called me at home at like 2:00 in the morning (drunk) to remind me not to forget it. I have this vision of me sitting on the floor in my parents room, who have come to get me, thinking it was some emergency, but no, just Joe (drunk) reminding me to bring the game. So I did.
One game that I don't recall if I had was the subject of a nugget in the Southwest Airlines magazine that I was reading on my recent trip to Buffalo. E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial game involved bicycle riding and getting E.T. out of jams and onto a spacecraft home. However, Atari fans did not respond. In the fall of 1983, Atari buried 14 truckloads of E.T. game cartridges in an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill. The company was facing slowing sales and $300 million in losses and pulled an alleged "millions" of games from the shelves and literally, buried them.
This all reminds me of my years as a video game geek. There were countless hours spent in game rooms around Long Island (including the great Nathan's game room and the one in Bayville). This may indeed turn out to be a seminal post as there are lots of ideas that could be expanded to give you, my faithful readers, more glimpses into my "storied" past.
5 comments:
I notice Asteroids is on Facebook.
Was the Atari really around in '77? I thought it was later, but I should probably trust the memory of an archivist :)
And I just noticed your reader descriptions - thank you :)
I remember getting really good at the actual, arcade version of "Pole Position" & just yesterday a friend & I were talking about Q-bert. I was also a fan of Galaga & Star Castle. Somehow I still kick @$$ at driving games but yet, I'm really all about pinball. I think "old school" is just how I roll. *L*
Sorry I've been AWOL, but I'm playing tour guide to a Canadian friend right now. Things should be back to normal soon.
My friend Jeff brought his Atari to college with him. I think they had tournaments in his dorm.
I remember my mom's friend's kids had it back in the day, and I was insanely jealous of them. (My mom thought then -- and still thinks now -- that all computer games (and most television shows) are stupid wastes of time. "Read a book or go outside already!" is her motto.) So, I have no old school video game memories to share. Sigh.
I was among the last of my friends to get the 2600, and we never had a lot of games because of the cost. (My father would often swap games with buddies at work for a few weeks at a time, though, so that was good for variety.)
I specifically remember my parents having fun playing PacMan - the game that came bundled with the 2600 in later years, when we finally acquired it. After dinner, while my brother, sister, and I were doing dishes, my parents would go watch the weather forecast, and then fire up the 2600 to play some PacMan. They were very bad at it, and would just laugh it up as they got killed over and over and over again. I guess that game just brought out the kid in each of them.
Kim - You're welcome. And as to the date of the Atari, would Wikipedia lie?
Lana - pinball is a lot of fun too. I have a wife who has a skee ball problem, I need to keep her away from ocean boardwalks.
Amy - Well, let's remember you are younger than us, so we'll let you slide for now.
J - God, there was a whole "black market" of trading games. And then there was the "rich kid" who had the Intellivision. I hated him, but I never turned down an opportunity to play it.
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