21 Unexpected Games to Love For The Atari VCS

by John Harris

The Atari VCS (also known as the 2600) is a console from a lost era, made to recreate simple ball-and-paddle games , most of the time working in a way greatly different than its designers intended. When it first appeared, its biggest competition was the forgotten Coleco Telstar series; when it stopped production, the SNES was well underway. During the fifteen years of its life it went from simple tank games to simulating expensive framebuffer hardware, presenting a surprisingly full-featured RPG, representing large exploratory environments, and much more. This book is a celebration, of the earliest days of gaming, of the skill of programmers forced to learn on the job, of making due with what you have, and of doing things far, far beyond what's expected of you.

Genres: Video Games, Reference

138 pages, ebook

Published January 1, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John[2 spaces]Harris : Historical Fiction
John[3 spaces]Harris : Non Fiction
John[4 spaces]Harris : Treehouse
John[5 spaces]Harris : Music
John[6 spaces]Harris : Management
John[7 spaces]Harris : Child Psychology
John[8 spaces]Harris : Children's
John[9 spaces]Harris : Drama
John[10 spaces]Harris : John Harris of Bolenowe, poet and preacher
John[11 spaces]Harris : -
John[12 spaces]Harris : History, Architecture
John[13 spaces]Harris : born 1942
John[14 spaces]Harris : Reverend John Harris (1802 - 1856)
John[15 spaces]Harris : -
John[16 spaces]Harris : History
John[17 spaces]Harris : born 1937
John[18 spaces]Harris : -
John[19 spaces]Harris : Backpacker
John[20 spaces]Harris : Erotic, LGBT
John[21 spaces]Harris : born 1667
John[22 spaces]Harris : GR Author
John[25 spaces]Harris : GR Author

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does just what it says on the tin! A good, deep dive on some interesting old games. I’d like to see the author do a more historical dive into the game development of the time. He mentions the Great Games Crash so many times, it’s tantalizing. Would love to hear more about it from the point of view of a fan.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could have been someone's blog, condensed into book form. I learned things, and enjoyed the book, but it's definitely a specialist's read. It would have benefitted from some copy-editing and proofreading as well.