10 Atari 5200 Games in 10 Minutes

Atari's second console for the 2nd generation of home game consoles.The Atari 5200 released in 1982 for $270($880 adjusted for inflation). It was intended to compete with the Intellivision however competed with the colecovision shortly after release. It featured a controller joystick with a non centering analog stick, numberpad, start, pause, and reset buttons, along with 2 side buttons mounted on each side. The system used a MOS 6502C CPU at 1.79 MHz, 16 KB of ram, color palette of 256 color with variable resolution dependent on the color mode. 80 x 192 for 16 color, 160 x192 for 4 color, and 320 x 192 for 2 color modes. The system had the ability through an addon to play 2600 games and use 2600 controllers, and released 69 games on its own. However, the system only sold roughly a million units, minuscule compared to the 30 million the 2600 sold and considered a commercial failure, thus no PAL version was released although prototypes exist.

Personally I like the system but the games are fairly limited and mostly just visual improvement over 2600 games. The 8 bit computers were similar but in my opinion done right. I may be biased as my 800 and 600xl have been flawless where as my 5200 required new controllers, new 4052 mux chips, pokey adjustment, and controller rebuilds.

Games played in order

1. Berzerk
2. Montezuma's Revenge
3. Tempest
4. Pac-Man
5. Zaxxon
6. Centipede
7. H.E.R.O.
8. Galaxian
9. Gyruss
10. River Raid

#retro #atari #retrogaming #5200