So first thing I notice was the top 1/3rd of the page being a blank space.
Then I remembered I had an adblocker.
That said, I rarely ever visit the website, but it looks like every generic blog/news theme format I’ve seen in the past 10 years or so lol. Never change a winning team, but it’s nothing to write home about to be honest.
What?! They have very unique squiggles and bright colors! No one else is doing that.
I really don’t get the logic of redesigns like this or The Verge. Was the design team just told, “traffic is down make it look new so we can post a blog about it”?
You’re thinking of the 5200, which had the keypad and analog sticks that didn’t auto-center.
The 7800 controllers were roughly the same form factor, but were digital and only had two buttons, but given the weird history and struggling Atari, many games didn’t even use the second. I think the last models shipped in Europe may have even had a gamepad like the one this new thing comes with.
EDIT: Here it is. I guess the d-Pads were standard in Europe.
I’ll always have a soft spot for Atari, despite all of the turmoil over the years regarding the brand.
The 7800 would have been a welcome redemption following the lackluster 5200; however, the crash of 1983 and internal company struggles made them decide to shelve the 1984 release of the 7800.
By the time they chose to jump back into the market by pulling these out of the warehouses and getting them on the shelves in 1986, the stigma of the brand was still somewhat fresh, the hardware was out-of-date, and Nintendo was well on their way to devouring the majority of the US market with the NES.
Didn’t help that the games weren’t there for it either. But the vicious cycle of “console needs games to sell units -> devs won’t make games for consoles that don’t sell” was in full effect for the 7800, and really any Atari console after the 2600, except maybe their Lynx handheld (which still lived in the Game Boy monolith’s shadow just like every other competing handheld).
The crash was such a huge loss. This thing in 1984 was an evolutionary but very nice update to the 5200. Seriously, look at Asteroids on the 5200 (prototype, but very similar to the 400/800) and 7800, which looked low-key gorgeous on a CRT.
By 1986, Nintendo was the bold savior of the console market, and even then there’s an alternate universe where Atari completely abandons the 7800 and XEGS to re-brand the NES or, later, the Sega MD/Genesis.
Sort of tells you everything you need to know about the target market that all the images on the game listings are box art and the physical carts (unless you scroll way down). Anybody who cares more about gameplay will just emulate the things with some sort of nice controller or handheld. This is for collectors (god bless 'em).
Sucks and I definitely remember (15-ish years ago?) thinking that was such a perfect fit for one of my all time favorite vibes games (with okay-good gameplay). But I also trust Remedy to have replaced it with a solid song.
Which is the best case scenario when it isn’t a music group that genuinely loves games (shout out to Poets of the Fall/Old Gods of Asgard). As opposed to whatever nonsense happens with tv shows like Scrubs.
But I also trust Remedy to have replaced it with a solid song.
I wonder if they'll replace it with an original song, like the music they did for Alan Wake 2. Either way, if playing Remedy games over the years has taught me anything, it's that Sam Lake (or his team, at least), has an excellent taste in music.
Yet another reason that copyright really needs to be revamped hardcore. You should not be able to retroactively revoke a license in that way and the entire idea of yeah I license you to be able to use this for x amount of years is ridiculous to me either you can use the Media or you can’t.
polygon.com
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