I’m old school. You should know that upfront. This leads me to introduce my favorite game console of all time. Of course it’s the Atari (which means to hit the target)…as if there could be any other. The Atari 2600 is one of the originals and still better than the rest of these new gaming systems to this day. The games are classic, the controllers are classic and there is a reason the games are still played to this day.
I remember first getting Atari back in the mid/late 70’s when there was only one TV per household. My cousins, sister, and even aunts and uncles would gather ’round and take turns playing Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Frogger, Centipede or Donkey Kong for hours. It was the first of its kind and was played by everyone in the family, not just teenagers in their room alone. I was a family affair bringing everyone together instead of the systems now that drive a wedge between household members.
Sure, the times have changed the quality so much for the better, but that doesn’t make the gaming systems better. Maybe I’m being a little nostalgic, but I believe it to be true…Atari provided the types of games that everyone wanted to play and the simplicity that allowed everyone to play. Today I couldn’t figure out how to play my 20 year olds PS3 games if I wanted to, and I don’t want to. This speaks volumes towards my point. BUT, I could break out an Atari 2600 and play Pong with no problem. We’d have fun doing it too!