Post by starbuck66 on Oct 24, 2016 10:14:48 GMT -5
My daughter and I did some Halloween gaming on my 7800 last night. The first title we played was Ghostbusters! I know this game (and most of the Activision versions of this game, NES, SMS, etc) gets a bit of a bad wrap for being repetitive, boring, etc, and to some degree that's justified. However, my daughter and I absolutely love hearing the Ghostbusters theme slightly off tune, and graphically speaking this game looks amazing on the 2600. We got a bit further than we normally do last night; reading the manual helped. I never realized you have to flip the right difficulty switch to bait the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, and that you have to flip the switch BEFORE he appears on the screen. That's a tough task on the 7800 as well with the way the switches are positioned, but I did manage to do it on time once. We still ended up losing on the first round, and ended up quitting after we both gave it a couple of tries, but it was fun and we enjoyed it overall. Playing that game is definitely a Halloween tradition for us!
Next up was Ghost Manor. I had written in about this one to the podcast, and at that point I wasn't able to ever make it past the axe wielding skeleton at the gate. Last night though I finally beat the game with both difficulty switches on B. My daughter was cheering me on and was quite excited when the girl rescued the boy! Side note: with no color/bw switch on the 7800, it looks like this game defaults to the girl character, with no way to select the boy character.
After that we played some Haunted House. We had the living room kind of dark and the sound up a bit, and my daughter jumped a few times as we played the game when the various creatures surprised her :-) A week or so ago I had her play the first difficult level on the Flashback, and she was able to beat it. This time, we went to difficulty two. She lost most of her lives, but she was able to beat it on her first try, which really surprised me! It never ceases to amaze me how much fun and suspense Haunted House still has when played today.
Demons to Diamonds was next. We played a couple rounds and my daughter had fun, but ultimately wanted to play something else. It reminded me how frustrating this game can be sometimes, especially when an opposite color demon spawns right in front of you when you're taking a shot at a diamond or a demon of your own color.
The last Halloween themed game we played was Ms Pac Man (7800 version because it's nearly arcade perfect). My daughter was super proud of herself when she got to the third level! Her Pac Man skills have definitely improved, and I find the key is to give hints here or there, but to let her try strategies out on her own to see what works. I got to the fifth level and died like I do 90% of the time on the 7800 version; it just gets too fast for me at that point I guess. I think I've gotten to level six or seven a couple of times, but it's rare.
We finished out the evening with some Kool Aid Man and Tron Deadly Discs. Not Halloween themed, but still fun games. All in all it was an enjoyable Sunday night of Atari fun!
What are some of your Halloween favorites on Atari consoles? Would love to hear about them :-)
Next up was Ghost Manor. I had written in about this one to the podcast, and at that point I wasn't able to ever make it past the axe wielding skeleton at the gate. Last night though I finally beat the game with both difficulty switches on B. My daughter was cheering me on and was quite excited when the girl rescued the boy! Side note: with no color/bw switch on the 7800, it looks like this game defaults to the girl character, with no way to select the boy character.
After that we played some Haunted House. We had the living room kind of dark and the sound up a bit, and my daughter jumped a few times as we played the game when the various creatures surprised her :-) A week or so ago I had her play the first difficult level on the Flashback, and she was able to beat it. This time, we went to difficulty two. She lost most of her lives, but she was able to beat it on her first try, which really surprised me! It never ceases to amaze me how much fun and suspense Haunted House still has when played today.
Demons to Diamonds was next. We played a couple rounds and my daughter had fun, but ultimately wanted to play something else. It reminded me how frustrating this game can be sometimes, especially when an opposite color demon spawns right in front of you when you're taking a shot at a diamond or a demon of your own color.
The last Halloween themed game we played was Ms Pac Man (7800 version because it's nearly arcade perfect). My daughter was super proud of herself when she got to the third level! Her Pac Man skills have definitely improved, and I find the key is to give hints here or there, but to let her try strategies out on her own to see what works. I got to the fifth level and died like I do 90% of the time on the 7800 version; it just gets too fast for me at that point I guess. I think I've gotten to level six or seven a couple of times, but it's rare.
We finished out the evening with some Kool Aid Man and Tron Deadly Discs. Not Halloween themed, but still fun games. All in all it was an enjoyable Sunday night of Atari fun!
What are some of your Halloween favorites on Atari consoles? Would love to hear about them :-)
