My Atari.... R.I.P. Review on The first and the latest

I know I may not be really sticking to the point in this review. The directions are to stick to a product or category, but I guess I will stretch the envelop a bit. My dad bought me my first video game console way back in 1985 or so. (I dont really remember) It was an Atari, and back then it was pretty good, not the best available on the market, but it was a good launchpad into the mad bad world of computer gaming.

I still remember the glimmer in my eye when I opened the package. It had a cartridge packed in with the console which had I guess 28 games or so. I remember thinking 28 games !!! Thats a whole lifetimes worth. If there are people among you who havent used an Atari, and have only read about it, well it was a pretty mediocre (verging on ugly) looking console, which used cartridges. The games were all very very simple, repetitive, and the joysticks had one button. Yes ONE. Which speaks about how difficult these games were to play, or learn. The joysticks were so stiff, I spent many a Monday morning nursing a sore thumb or two. It was the only console I ever saw any family play together on. We had a rad time playing Tennis, and Fishing, and Space Invaders and stuff. Most of these games, you can only find in beatup arcades nowadays, with better, and still ultra lousy graphics. On an Atari you just did the same stuff over and over again, much like what you would do nowadays, but with one-millionth of the commands, and no gore, flesh or house music.

The music was lousy, all it were ten beep noises which were mixed and matched to get some sort of score. I never got new cartridges for that machine, nobody sold them, after all who wants a three-colored bowling simulation, when you can have Super Mario Bros. on the grrrrr... Nintendo.

Over a few years the Atari got stashed away in a cupboard, I grew older, games grew bigger, better and louder. Today I own a Toshiba Satellite 1900-102 Laptop with all the frills, and toppings. I play Virtual Pool, Heretic, BattleZone 2 etc. Honestly you cant compare the Atari to the power machines of today. Now I have to spend a week with a manual to get to know the commands, I save my games like mad, and I have never finished a game without a walkthrough or a cheat sheet. Of course the games are expensive and are mindboggling with their sounds, animation, storylines and pure playability, and the limits get nudged everyday. Games take you weeks to finish, and you have newsgroups, websites, newsletters, the whole caboodle on the internet for games.

When I get nostalgic I go back to my Atari sometimes, when computer games were just that, games, innocent in their premise, yes you had to save the world there too, but then you needed one button, one joystick, and you went up, down, left, right and shot lime green bullets at purple aliens, who looked like Picasso style soap boxes. It was a simple innocent world then.

But thats in the past, let me get back to my Battlezone 2 now, how do I get rid of those aliens marauders now, the pulse cannon or the guided missiles hmmm.........