Atari 7800
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- For emulators, see Atari 7800 emulators, and for system information, see Atari 7800.
After it became clear the 5200 was a failure, Atari quickly prepared its successor, but the Crash of '83 put a halt to their plans. As the damage seemed irreversible, the company was sold to a new owner, and moved to the home computer market. However, once the NES breathed new life into the console industry, someone at Atari recalled that they still had tons of this thing still sitting in warehouses. So they decided to launch it as the low-cost system of the new generation.
Even though it was somewhat aged by that point, its graphics were great for the time it was designed, so it still stood pretty well against the NES' finest. Also, it was fully backwards-compatible with 2600 games. However, its audio capabilities were dismal: rather than introduce a better sound chip, or even reuse the 5200's POKEY, it relied on the 2600's long obsolete TIA. Games could have a POKEY built in the cartridge for better sound, but only Ballblazer and Commando did.
The 7800 was not a commercial success (although it was quite profitable for Atari, since it was cheap to produce), and had little support, as Nintendo quickly dominated the market and demanded exclusivity from third-parties. Even so, it had some pretty nice games that are worth checking out.
The list
[edit | edit source]| Cover | Title | Genre | Description | Screenshot |
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Asteroids | Shoot 'em Up | The 7800 version of Asteroids ditches the iconic vectors for chunky looking sprites but is otherwise a solid conversion. Also includes 2-player simultaneous team and versus modes. | 
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Ballblazer | Futuristic Soccer | Arguably the best version of Ballblazer on any system, including the Famicom/NES. Control a futuristic "rotofoil" hovercraft and play futuristic soccer by shooting the ball into your moving goal while the opponent tries to do the same. Has great smooth scrolling and some of the best music on the system due to being one-of-two games to include a POKEY chip on the cartridge. | 
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Centipede | Shoot 'em Up | A very faithful and fun conversion of the arcade classic only let down by no native trackball support. Shoot the moving centipedes as they come down the screen, but try to shoot the head as hitting the middle causes the centipede to split. Also has the same 2-player team and versus modes as Asteroids. | 
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Dark Chambers | Action/Adventure | A Gauntlet-style overhead exploration game (and actually a port of Dandy for Atari's 8-bit computer line, which Gauntlet's creator cites as a major inspiration). You traverse the labyrinth levels while collecting items and fighting the hordes of enemies. | 
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Desert Falcon | Shoot 'em Up | Isometric styled shmup in the vein of Zaxxon where you control a falcon. Unique in that you can control your flight speed by holding up or down. | 
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Dig Dug | Maze | Port of the arcade classic, looks worse than the NES version but otherwise plays just as well. Dig through the dirt and pop the monsters using your inflation pump, but be careful as the monsters can faze through the dirt to get you. Starts you with 5 lives but gets rapidly more difficult. A great port all round. | 
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Donkey Kong | Platformer | A port of the 1981 classic Nintendo arcade. Is missing the "pie factory" level, but is otherwise a good version and is comparable to the version on the NES. | 
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Food Fight | Shooter | One of the few exclusives for the 7800 that's worth playing. Throw the food at the chefs while you try to eat the melting ice-cream in order to progress to the next level. Almost plays like a slower paced, more cerebral Robotron 2084 where you can only shoot in your facing direction. | 
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Galaga | Vertical Shooter | A classic shmup from Namco that's the sequel to Galaxian. Be sure to start on the Expert setting though as the default Beginner mode is very easy. | 
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Joust | Action | Williams' 1982 classic Joust appears on the 7800 in fine form with an excellent port. Control a flying ostrich and joust/collide with the other riders, with the rider with the highest lance being the winner. Complete wave after wave to survive as long as possible. Has the same 2-player simultaneous mode available as the arcade. | 
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Klax | Puzzle | Although never receiving a released 7800 port at the time, a 99% complete prototype of Klax has been discovered and leaked online. Other than the sound effects and certain block colors looking too similar, it's a pretty good port and probably the best Tetris-styled puzzle game for the 7800 by default. Create horizonal, vertical or diagonal lines of tiles to clear them from the pit, but make sure you don't make it overflow or allow tiles to fall off the conveyor belt. | 
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Mario Bros. | Platformer | A great port of the 1983 arcade game. Also contains the simultaneous two player mode from the arcade version. | 
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Midnight Mutants | Adventure | Excellent adventure game where you must send a witch back to her grave and save |
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Ms. Pac-Man | Maze | The beloved arcade classic gets a great port on the 7800 that is debatably better then either the Tengen NES port with its scrolling screen, or Namco's NES port with its slow pace and awful sound-effects. However, this game is now essentially obsolete with the release of Bob DeCrescenzo's homebrew Pac-Man Collection! for the 7800 which includes the same Ms. Pac-Man port with minor improvements. | 
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Ninja Golf | Beat 'em Up | It has ninjas, so of course this is the best 7800 game! | 
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Pole Position II | Racing/Driving | The pack-in launch game for the 7800 makes for a decent showpiece of the system's hardware compared to the 2600 and 5200 versions. Race on 4 different tracks, including the classic Fuji raceway from the original game, for as long as possible to get the highest score. | 
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Robotron: 2084 | Shooter | A good port of the arcade. You can use two controllers for the proper dual-stick control scheme. | 
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Videos
[edit | edit source]| Third Generation | ||
| Consoles | Action Max - Atari 7800 - Amstrad GX4000 - RDI Halcyon - View-Master Interactive Vision - Sega Master System - Nintendo Entertainment System - Casio PV-1000 - VTech Socrates - Epoch Super Cassette Vision | |
| Computers | Mattel Aquarius - Acorn Archimedes - Commodore 64 - Amstrad CPC - Fujitsu FM-7 - Apple Lisa - Apple Macintosh - Microsoft MS-DOS - ASCII MSX - ASCII MSX2 - IBM OS-2 - NEC PC-88 - NEC PC-98 - Amstrad PCW - Sinclair QL - Commodore VIC-20 - Sharp X1 - Sinclair ZX Spectrum | |