why atari 365

How I Rate, or really, Don't Rate

About my ratings: I don't rate. I recommend. Sure, I love ratings, such as "I give Ms. Pac-Man 4.5 Power Pills" or "Q-Bert earned a loud '@!#?@!' yelled out the window until my throat went too hoarse to yell anymore." That sort of thing is great, and already everywhere. Instead, I recommend games to the following:

Everyone - everyone

Atari Newcomers - Those who are new to the 2600 and need a course in fun, defining titles

Atari Curious - Those who have had some experience with the Atari 2600, perhaps in their youth, and are looking to see what else this console has to offer

Atari Nerds - Those who already know a lot of titles and enjoy games others may not, if only for variety and history

Collectors - collectors

​

In this regard, I may recommend Journey Escape to the Atari Curious, Atari Nerds, and collectors. This is not because Journey Escape is a good game. It's not, not really. But the game deserves a look because of its novelty and history and almost-on-key beeps of Don't Stop Believin'. That's just amazing. And we're all here to be amazed, right?

​

So why an Atari blog, anyway?

Welcome to Atari 365, where I play and comment on 365 different games for the Atari 2600. But why? 

Seriously? It’s serious. And fun at the same time. 

​

​I'll keep this brief as an E.T. pitfall. I began collecting retro games as a kid in the late eighties. A kid who didn't yet own an NES, and so pulled his family's dusty Atari 2600 out of the closet and discovered a world of blocks, bleeps, and joy. 

​

From then on, I would collect games for older consoles. No one called them "retro games" before the turn of the millenium; they were just old games that no one wanted anymore. For example, while people were playing the original Playstation, I was grabbing up quality NES titles for mere dollars at yard sales. It was cheap. It was fun. I was a retro gamer because I knew there were lots of great titles I hadn't played yet, and even better, games I had yet to discover. And more often than not, I couldn't afford the new stuff. 

​

While I enjoy collecting for other consoles–I really got into Genesis for a while–I always return to Atari as my console of choice. This is strange if I consider that the standard arcade-style Atari game is not my favorite genre.

But Atari is magic. Each time I push in a cartridge I’ve never played, I get a sense of wonder and excitement when I flick it on and see colorful pixels I've never seen before. It’s the same wonder I got as a young kid, trying out California Games and Adventure and loving it, even if an old Atari wasn’t a new Nintendo. The same wonder, again, when I was 10 and my buddy and I played Basketball and Dark Chambers, and I realized how fun it was to play Atari with a friend. And when I was 12, I picked up both Enduro and Night Driver at a yard sale, and realized I liked racing games. Atari ones, anyway.

​

So now I own more Atari 2600 games than articles of clothing. I haven’t played a lot of them. Life gets in the way, or rather, life is the way. Work, college, marriage, children, divorce, more college, and so on–at the end of the day, I’m too exhausted to care enough to clean a cart and pop it in, and so I save the games for a special occasion.

​

The occasion is here. Ironically, it’s life. During the last year of my marriage, I was in a very low spot in life and in my head. That, and I’m bipolar–or maybe borderline–or maybe both, it depends which doctor you ask. My point is that I was terribly depressed. I was in a scalding hot bath. I was trying to cry but I couldn’t because there weren’t any tears left. I didn’t want to be alive. I just needed some reason to stay alive. Anything. 

​

And that pile of games, always in the back of my mind, now had a chance to jump into view. Here was a reason to live. Yes. With a hot washcloth over my face, I saw a vision: I can play and review all my games; I can play and review 365 games, one for each day of the year, though I won’t be doing it daily. This project will keep me alive for another couple years. And I finally have an excuse to clean those carts.

So hey, let’s play.