I most fun gift that was unwrapped on Christmas was the Atari Paddle Controller Set. I'm sure you've seen these joysticks that you can just plug into the TV and they have all the games loaded on them, like Ms Pac-man. They're made by Jakks Pacific.
The unit we were playing with had two paddles like the ones on the old Atari 2600 systems. (There is a one-paddle version out there as well.) First of all, playing a game by doing nothing more than turning a knob is rather fun. More devices should use this type of input. I'm almost thinking about getting the Griffin Powermate for my Mac because these things are so much fun.
Anyway, i used to play a lot of Super Breakout and Circus Atari back in the day. I remember my mother being very good at the latter as well. In addition to many of the games i remembered, there were also some loaded on the unit i hadn't played before. One was an arcade version of Warlords. This game was great fun with two players.
The device was simple to use for the most part. It did have an awkward interface to set up the different game modes which was originally accomplished by simply flipping a lever. For simple one-player modes for all the games, i don't think my mother will have a problem figuring out how to work it.
Oh, yeah, that's the problem. I got one for my sister and my sister got one for my mom. I didn't get one of my own. I guess i'll have to borrow it from my parents from time to time.
Posted by Matthew at December 26, 2004 11:50 PM