Atari 5200 SuperSystem
The controllers, as most vintage game enthusiasts can tell you, were a trainwreck of a creation. Worse, they broke easily. Many folks eventually became used to their quirky, non-centering design and still managed to have fun with the system. Well, for while it lasted, which wasn't long. Some blame the controllers, some blame 1983, and some blame Atari's poor marketing. Let's look at this from a parent's point of view. If you took your kid to the store, and saw the pack-in game for the 5200 was none other than Super Breakout, that'd be Strike One - mainly because the 2600 and 5200 versions don't look any different at all. Also, your kid is probably bored to death with his 2600 copy, considering it's really just a Pong variant. What's so super about a "SuperSystem" that comes with a tired old pong variant? Try to imagine if the pack-in game for the Super Nintendo was the original Super Mario Brothers, with no real improvements.
I just covered the majority of the mainstream library for the 5200 in that last paragraph. Mario Brothers was an outstanding port for its time, even having graphics that the NES port left out. Pac-Man and Zaxxon, of course, couldn't help but be improved after the disasterous, near-unrecognizable 2600 ports. But other than these three games, all the aforementioned titles received competent and fun ports on the 2600. Strike Two. Did I mention that it wasn't designed as backwards-compatible with the 2600? You had to buy an add-on device that wasn't much cheaper than the actual 2600 by itself. Strike Three. Near the end of its life, it received several fun, original, and amazing games. Montezuma's Revenge and Bounty Hunter Bob heralded the dawn of next-gen console platforming games. Rescue on Fractalus and Ballblazer were ahead of their time, and both dabbled in the realm of psuedo-3D. Unlike Activision, the darling of the 2600's early years, Parker Brothers pushed the system with their games, leaving us with a memorable version of Frogger and an incredible version of Star Wars - The Arcade Game. By the time game producers started tapping the system's real horsepower, it was too late. A disasterous 1983 became ominous 1984, and the 5200 was abruptly and unceremoniously put out to pasture. The 5200 SuperSystem promised the next generation of home video gaming, and while it was capable, it simply didn't deliver. Atari, as we knew it, never fully recovered - and never learned its lesson. It would take three more failed home video game consoles to finally finish them off. All images taken from AtariAge, hopefully they won't mind. It's an awesome site you need to visit, anyway. |
The Atari 5200 was released on November 1982, just in time for what was to be the last big Christmas that Atari would ever see. The system designers opted to use the Atari 400/800 home computer hardware layout, with a few modifications as a foundation for the system. As a gaming system, it could now support much more detailed backgrounds, and the sprite/missile system had its power doubled. The joystick inputs were also doubled from two to four. The console - which had its quirks but a solid hardware design for the time - by itself was such a size that it makes the X-Box look tiny in comparison.
Most of the games at the launch of the system were hits on its predecessor, and most of these ports were a joke in the fact that they were almost visually identical to the 2600 versions. These include Asteroids (pictured, 5200 version on top, 2600 below), Berzerk, Gorf, Kaboom!, Keystone Kapers, Megamania, Missile Command, Pitfall, Pole Position, The Realsports Series, and Space Invaders (why??) Some games that were marginally-to-greatly improved were Pac-Man, Defender, Frogger, Congo Bongo, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Mario Brothers, Centipede, Millipede, Q-bert, and Zaxxon.