Atari 5200
- For emulators, see Atari 5200 emulators, and for system information, see Atari 5200.
The Atari 2600 was dominating the video game market during the second generation, but Atari started to feel a real threat to its domination, as its competitors were making more advanced consoles like the ColecoVision and the Intellivision. Of course Atari wouldn't take this shit, so they stepped up the game and created the Atari 5200. It was more or less based on the architecture of the Atari 8-bit computers, and though their games weren't compatible with each other porting them between platforms was very simple.
While the 5200 wasn't a bad console, two major flaws were detrimental to its success. First, most of its titles were the same old games all over again, and second, its controller sucked balls. Not only its buttons were a chore to use but its directional, which could turn full 360 degrees, couldn't self-center, not to mention they were very prone to failure (good luck trying to find one in working condition and which stays like that for any amount of time). Atari promised to fix the damn thing, but then the Great Video Game Crash happened and the rest is history.
The list
[edit | edit source]| Cover | Title | Genre | Description | Screenshot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Ballblazer | Sports | One-on-one vehicular soccer with a first-person view, like Rocket League 30 years before that came out. |  |
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Countermeasure | Top-down Shooter | A unique top-down shooter where your objective is to destroy missile silos taken over by terrorists. One of the few system exclusives and also one of the few titles which actually uses the controller's many buttons for something useful. |  |
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Rescue on Fractalus! | 3D Shooter | Save pilots stranded on a hostile planet. Very impressive pseudo-3D graphics for the time. Modern fan remake here. |
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Xari Arena | Breakout | An interesting twist on the classic Breakout formula, instead of destroying the bricks you have to protect them from enemies, absorbing their fire to destroy them. It was completed but never released or ported to other systems due to the crash of '83, but you can play it in emulated form. |  |
Videos
[edit | edit source]| Second Generation | ||
| Consoles | Emerson Arcadia 2001 - Atari 2600 - Atari 5200 - Epoch Cassette Vision - ColecoVision - Fairchild Channel F - Mattel Intellivision - Magnavox Odyssey² - Bally Professional Arcade - Sega SG-1000 - RCA Studio II - Interton VC 4000 - Milton Bradley Vectrex | |
| Handhelds | Entex Adventure Vision - Nintendo Game & Watch - Milton Bradley Microvision | |
| Computers | Apple I - Apple II - Apple III - Atari 8-bit - Acorn BBC Micro - Commodore PET - Tandy TRS-80 - Tandy TRS-80 CoCo | |