The three games, plus Stella and PCAE as emulators, are online. Cypherswipe, thanks again! fretz, I just put in the same rating for Atlantis as mine on your account (since you've written part of the review, the system demands you give it a rating). In case you want this changed, let me know the number to put in.

Hmm... how to rate these....
If I rated them back in the day, I'd give them both extremely high scores. If i rated them next to current games, I'd have to rank them pretty low. (Although warlords is actually still a fun game, especially if you have more than one human player. A clone of it would make a great addition to one of the mario party games.)

Space cavern I would have gived a 4 or 5 out of 6 to back in the day, but just a 2/6 today. It doesn't have any "flaws" as such, but (as with most 2600 games) it's just too repetitive & unchallenging. You can play it almost indefinitely without getting killed, but you'll probably grow bored in under half an hour.
Since I would have rated it much higher back in the day, I think I'll split the difference and rate it 3/6.

Wardlords was a great deal of fun back in the day, and it's a rare game that actually manages to retain much of it's enjoyability & even a good ammount of challenge, despite it's age. It's particularly good as a "party game", with 3 or 4 human players.
I think I'll give warlords a 5/6. It's a must-have for any 2600 fan, and everyone else should give it a try.


btw Atariage.com has roms, manuals, emulators, and info on pretty much all 2600 games. I also have all(?) the roms of the official games.
My fav 2600 emulator is pcaewin, it's easy to use & works very well.

Alright, if you now give each game a rating, we're set! Since fretz has gone missing again, I'll try to come up with an introductory text tomorrow and add the games then.

Here are some screenshots:
SPACE CAVERN







WARLORDS

Reviews:
========
Space Cavern
--------------

Space Cavern is the most complex atari 2600 game I've ever seen, with a manual three times as thick as any other atari 2600 game. There are countless different difficulty levels you can choose from when starting a game, selecting from options such as whether to have two or four enemies above you, whether or not to have any enemies from the sides, whether the enemies above were large (easy targets) or small, and whether the enemies above shot straight or diagonally. All of these options are independant of one another, so you can mix and match. In all of the variations, you stand on the ground and shoot up at the enemies above you, while trying to avoid their falling bullets. If you chose to have the side enemies as well, then you will also have to watch out for creatures coming out of the caverns to either side of you (which is where the game got it's name). Fortunately the cave monsters don't shoot at you, they kill you by making contact. Strangely, in order to shoot right or left, you have to move the joystick up or down. Up fires to the right while down fires to the left. The fire button fires upwards.
You start out with four men, and get a free life at every 20,000 points. However, you can only have a maximum of four lives at any one point in time. In a tow player game, the players alternate. Large electrosaurus (the flying enemies) are worth 115 points each, small ones are worth 165 points each, shaggy marsupods (the cave creatures) are worth 200 points each.
If you choose to play without the cave creatures, you can often just stand in your starting position while firing. However, if you choose to play with the cave creatures, remaining in your starting poisition (on the far right) is a sure way to get killed the instant the right-sde creature appears. It is generally best to stay near the center of the screen, where you have manuvering room, and can see the cave creatures emerging before they can get you. One very annoying thing is when the electrosauruses above you stop moving sideways. It is possible to get underneath them to kill them, but the timing is very tricky. It is also possible to shoot the electorsauruses' bullets out of the sky, but your aim and your timing have to be very precise. Shooting their bullets usually just happens by accident.

========================
Warlords
---------

Warlords is very basic in gameplay, but is fun and fast action, and also allows for a certain level of strategy. In Warlords, you have four players (always 4. If you have less than 4 human players, the rest will be computer controlled), and each player have a warlord, a castle, and a shield. This game uses the paddles instead of the joysticks. What you have to do is use your sheild to deflect the ball away from your castle & warlord, while simultaneously trying to direct it -at- your opponents' castles & warlords. The castles are a secondary line of defense, and you can lose them without losing the game. However, if your warlord is hit, you lose. Period. The castles sit in the corners of the screen, and the shields slide back and forth in front of them. One difficulty option is whether you could catch the ball by holding the button when it came in contact with your shield (then trying to launch it at one of the other players) or if you could only deflect the ball. Another difficulty option is the speed of the ball (you can choose between fast or slow). The castles completely protect the warlords at the beginning of the game, but break when struck by the ball. The shields are indestructible, but only protect one small area at a time.
One thing that can be very annoying is when you play a one or two player game, and all the human players have been eliminated. You still have to sit there and watch the remaining computer players fight each other. The game isn't over until one player wins five times, so you can't simply start a new game instead of waiting for the computer to beat itself.
Another game option is called "doubles". In "doubles", each player controls two warlords.

Really that game should have been on the Odyssey 2, it doesn't have the Atari feeling at all. I think the old console games are more popular because it is easier to run with the emulators. Sure, there are Amiga and DOS emulators but running those are many more times complex than running the NES or Atari emus. I realize most DOSbox games only require mounting them then navigating through DOS but this small amount of 'work' probably turns off quite a lot of people.

Anyway the average length of my Atari reviews is over 300

For the most part, simplistic games are limited to a specific group of systems, so you could make the rule apply to "all systems prior to 1983" or a specific list of systems. Granted, there are some simplistic games for more advanced systems, but a simplistic game on a more advanced system is very unlikely to stand out enough to warrant a review. If you do find one worthy of a review, you can just challenge yourself. :p

While I agree with almost everything you said, this won't solve the general problem. If I were to review the Advanced Lawnmower Simulator, I'd like to cover the great Spectrum version of it. Again, this is just to say again that there are simplicistic games on any system, and making a rule exception based on system alone, this'll help that specific system alone. As for doing a more general rule exception, there's the 'lure' I talked about before...


Yes, you pretty much put the fuzzy feeling I had when I started the thread into words. This is a point which (not worded as extremely in order not to piss off the fans too much ) would fit in the introductory text of the section as well.


Those are already reviews half-done Interested in expanding them a little bit and transforming them into present tense in order to take full author credit?


Great, I'll use those!


You mean like this one? Oh, wait, that's just 239 words as well. Damn. Seriously, though: It always amazes me how popular old consoles (and their games, to be more exact) are these days, especially compared to their home computer counterparts of the same time. However, bandwidth consumption will hardly be a problem, because the eternal rule 'file size' ~ 'number of downloads' still applies.

The original post makes me sad. The correct question to be asking is:

"How can we keep the Atari 2600 reviews from quadrupling bandwidth costs?"

And honestly, I wouldn't know.

Here's some pics of my 2600 system:
http://allspark.net/cypherswipe/2600-a.jpg
http://allspark.net/cypherswipe/2600-b.jpg
http://allspark.net/cypherswipe/2600-c.jpg


Here's an interesting piece of trivia you can add to the 2600's description: The joysticks use the same connector as the sega genesis/megadrive. You can take a controller from the sega genesis/megadrive, insert it into the 2600, and have it work just fine. It's even wired consistantly, the control pad works perfectly & one of the 3 buttons (I forget which, I haven't used my atari in nearly a decade) functions as the joystick button. (The other 2 buttons (5 in the case of a 6 button controller) & the start/mode buttons do nothing.) This is good news for those out there whose atari joysticks are getting worn out.
Strangely though, the atari joystick does NOT work ina a genesis/megadrive. It will connect physically, but is completely non-functional.

I think the answer is pretty straight forward, lower your standards (for review length, not game quality).
The fact is that most atari 2600 era games -can't- be reviewed in 300 words or more (not unless you include anecdotes or something). Hell, I don't think most of the manuals which came with the games contained 300 words.
I think what you need to do is make an exception to your 300 word rule, something like "all game reviews must be at least 300 words long, except for atari 2600 reviews, which must be at least 150 words".

As far as rating them, I think you have to rate them from the perspective of when they were high-tech. Rating them against modern games (even as "modern" as 8-bit nintendo) would give all of them a rating of only about 1 out of 10. The 2600 was great for it's time, but just can't begin to compare with anything newer. Normally the low quality graphic in an old game can be overlooked in favor of good, in-depth gameplay, but the 2600 just wasn't capable of anything remotely in-depth. The most in-depth game it had was pitfall, and that was the most boring game on the entire system. At least with the other games there was a sense of progression (kill 50 enemies, move to level 2 with 50 new enemies, kill them & move to level 3), but pitfall just went on & on & on.

Many nintendo-era games can be rated directly against more modern games because what they lacked in graphics they made up for in gameplay, but the 2600 games just didn't -have- anything in the realm of gameplay. They were lots of fun at the time, and I still enjoy playing them once in a while as a "coffe break game" kind of thing, but never spend more than about 20mins playing any one game (compared to often spending hours on a single game when playing newer games, or even 8-bit nintendo games).


If you want a couple of really good games from the 2600, try Space Caverns and Warlords.
Space caverns was the most complex atari game I've ever seen, with a manual 3x as thick as any other 2600 game. There were countless different difficulty levels you could choose from when starting a game, selecting from options such as whether to have 2 or 4 enemies above you, whether or not to have any enemies from the sides, whether the enemies above were large (easy targets) or small, and whether the enemies above shot straight or diagonally. All of these options were independant of one another, so you could mix & match. In all of the variations, you stood on the ground & shot up at the enemies above you, while trying to avoid their falling bullets. If you chose to have the side enemies as well, then you also had to watch out for creatures coming out of the caverns to either side of you (which is where the game got it's name). Fortunately the cave monsters didn't shoot at you, they killed you by making contact. Strangely, in order to shoot right or left, you had to move the joystick up or down (the button fired upwards, while moving the stick right & left moved your character right or left).

Warlords was very basic in gameplay, but was fun & fast action, and also allowed for a certain level of strategy. In warlords, you had 4 players (always 4. If you had less than 4 human players, the rest would be computer controlled), and each players had a warlord, a castle, and a shield. This game used the paddles instead of the joysticks. What you had to do was use your sheild to deflect the ball away from your castle & warlord, while simultaneously trying to direct it -at- your opponents' castles & warlords. The castles were a secondary line of defense, and you could lose them without losing the game. However, if your warlord was hit, you lost. Period. The castles sat in the corners of the screen, and the shields slid back & forth in front of them. One difficulty option was whether you could catch the ball by holding the button when it came in contact with your shield (then trying to launch it at one of the other players) or if you could only deflect the ball. The castles completely protected the warlords at the beginning of the game, but broke when struck by the ball. The shields were indestructible, but only protected one small area at a time.

I repeat:

You somehow have the habit of pointing out the obvious. Here's what I actually posted before:


Context

Unless you are referring to Pitfall 2, which has music that alters in character from sombre to upbeat dependant on player action, using a bankswitching technique to get more than 4K on the cart.

Thats 34 words towards the Pitfall 2 review


Getting 10 games will be easy. Here are a few suggestions for starters for their more complex gameplay and/or interesting stories...

Adventure (first ever video game Easter Egg, first ever action adventure)
Pitfall 2 (the best sound on the system by a long way(not counting modern homebrews))
Pacman (the worlds worst ever arcade conversion)
ET (the game that made the company crash)
Quadrun (one of only 2 examples of speech in a video game on the 2600)

Should get by on gameplay alone...

Solaris (easily complex enough to write a review about gameplay alone, 3 different games in one with a strategic layer, a space shmup and a planet rescue mission)
Thrust (modern homebrew by one of your kin - a guy called Thomas Jentsch(sp?), a very good conversion, plays better than the spectrum version! Gameplay should be sufficient on this one as well)
H.E.R.O.
Secret Quest

After considering your points, I guess the key lies in background information about the game, not the description of the gameplay itself. In fact, I'd rather not write much about graphics and sound for very old games, because repeating the point that blocky graphics were just normal in 1980 over and over again is tiring. I'd only mention them if they're above the norm, like I did with Atlantis.

In some cases, it might not even be completely wrong to make some little story up in the style I used in the mock-up about the lawnmower game. As long as it leads to some point later (and if it's written entertainingly), why not?

Re-thinking this all, I'm reluctant to drop or change this minimum review length, even if it might look like a pure obstacle in this case. The lure to declare a game 'extremely simple' in order to justify a short review is just too big. I'd probably write only such short reviews in no time. Sometimes, a little force for oneself just is needed.

I currently have a few other games for review in the pipeline (four to be exact), and I also have to wrap up the comics series I've started to cover, but after that, I'll give the Atari 2600 another go. Until then, fretz, could you probably take a photo of the 'typical' 2600 model (yes, we had the discussion what's 'typical' already; you choose) which I can use as category icon? Also, we need an introductory text about the system, in the style of what can be found on the index pages of the system subcategories (those vary in quality a lot, yes). A job for you, too, fretz?

In the end, this doesn't have to become the largest section of the site. Covering a good, basic number (larger than 10, smaller than 100) is already better than nothing, and then, it'll probably not be as bad reading the reviews.

I've already had problems choosing games sometimes because I can't find what to say about such simple games. Also, Atari 2600 isn't my field.

I think it was an Atari 5200 what I had as a kid, and it's games where pretty simple or confused me. What was that game of three chess boards about, and the one of superman had any point?

And the ones I still remember better, such as frogger, the other game of frogs eating flies or that smurfs one are hard to describe in more than one paragraph.

Maybe the best that can be done is looking in more detail at what can be put in a review:
- The story quickly explained (if it has any)
- The control scheme (jumping around or avoiding what falls? Moves over a board or is just pressing in the correct moment?)
- Graphic style (I'm not sure somebody would be much interested in colour blocks if he hasn't played those games as a kid, but there should be games that do something great with what they have)
- Sounds and music
- Game style (to a certain extent, related to the control scheme, but deeper. For what do you jump, what falls and how often?)
- Background (there can be interesting things related to the game)
- Influence (old games don't have little)

There should be more things that can be added to the list, or parts that can be divided in more points. They still will be hard to review, but getting a bit of many things it would be possible to write 300 words.

I'll look for a game to try to find something, but I fear reviews of these games would quickly become monotonous and simple.

Of course, because that's the kind of example I started the thread for

Your picking an extreme example. If you want to do every game then your best bet is to surf some crap like Moby. But for every extreme example like you come up with there are dozens of worthwhile examples.

Yes, I can see that:


Are you for real? That first paragraph is completely ridiculous, the second one is all made up. And it's still nowhere near 300 words. Maybe I'm just burned out, but then again, maybe you just have too much confidence in my abilities.

lol, chill out! Small acorns...mighty oaks

The point was that by talking about strategies/finer points of defeating these games, getting 300 words will be a lot easier. The strategies employed are often quite complex.