Wednesday, February 19, 2014

X-Rated Atari 2600 games

It's hard to believe, but I do have a memory of X-rated games made for the Atari 2600. What? X-rated games for that 2600 system, with such blocky graphics, how could you even tell that it's x-rated? Well I first heard of it, as someone in my family that I was visiting told me that some friends of his were coming over with a new Atari 2600 game to show him. As excited as I was about playing the game, I was told that I was too young to play this game. I didn't understand what he meant, as I've played Atari 2600 games, how can I  be too young for this game? I was also told that the game will be played late at night, while you're asleep, and was told not to come out and watch. With the game on my mind all that day, I wondered what kind of game it would be. Late that night, I woke up as I had to go to the bathroom. The room was dark, and after I finished going to the bathroom, I heard some women laughing and  being excited as she  told the other woman next to her to stay away and  that it's hers.  My curiosity got the best of me, so I just stood at a distance in the dark hallway and observed the game without anyone seeing I was there . All I saw was something  that looked like Activision's game Kaboom, as 3 blocky things moved back and forth on the  bottom of the screen, while some thing was moving back and forth on top of the screen dropping something. I had no idea what was going on, and soon went back to bed.
               I remember once seeing a news report on those X-rated games for the 2600, and a lot of women had felt offended and protested against the game. The game shown on the news was Custer's Last stand, as if he successfully makes it safely to a Native American princess on the other side of the screen, he gets to have sex with her. I began to somewhat understand, but was still curious. In my adult years, I found info on those games that I was too young to play as a kid. That  game I first saw was Beat em' and Eat em. And with the description of the game, it was perfectly clear on why it for adults. I also found out of other x-rated games made for the 2600, and after looking at the sample screen shot of the game, it was very hard to  tell what was going on with the blocky graphics. Go figure, but it was a major breakthrough and a desperate attempt to come up with a new game to continue the sales of the 2600 as it was close to the video game crash. I've heard that within one of the games, the designer was drunk when he came up with the concept.

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