Atari 2600
1982
Real Sports: Baseball is not a satisfying re-creation of the sport that it seeks to simulate.
Y’know, at this point, I feel I should point out that I’ve never actually gone out and purchased an Atari game. I was an infant during the Industry Crash of 1983, so all my Atari gaming has been secondhand. Each of the six Ataris that I have owned have been inherited and each came with a box fulla cartridges. I’ve never had to go out shopping for Atari games.
But all of the games in those boxes were, long ago, purchased individually. Somebody, at some point, consciously chose to exchange cash money for each and every one of these games. I get that novelty was a big factor, but I can’t quite grasp why every collection of Atari games consist of such a random grab bag of crap.
Is there a rule written somewhere that dictates that every collection of Atari games must include Pac-Man, at least one unplayable sports game, at least one game you can’t figure out how to play, and two games you can’t figure out why you’d want to play? Was there a time when baseball fans would happily play Real Sports: Baseball because it was the closest simulation of the sport that they could get? And what about me? Why haven’t I thrown away any of these awful games? Furthermore, while I'm asking questions, why did Barnstorming get made?
So many questions, so few answers.
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