[NOW YOU'RE PLAYING WITH POWER] =>AMIGA =>ATARI
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ATARI 2600 REVIEW
THE ATARI KID'S CONTROLLER
SESAME STREET GAMES
So...if you are like me, you:
a) collected the Atari Kid’s Controller games,
b) tried them out, and
c) promptly filed them away.
But how would an actual three-year-old from 2011 react, who now has access to staggeringly more advanced games in web browsers…for free?
Lucky for us, Sesame Street is still popular after all these years, and even luckier…I happen to have a willing three year old handy for just such an exercise. He has enjoyed trying out videogames here and there, but hasn’t quite mastered the hand eye coordination necessary to both move a controller and press a button, so the oversized Kid’s Controller is more his speed. Overall, he enjoyed playing the Atari Sesame Street games for a little while, as long as we took turns. Now, let’s see how each game fared.
Alpha Beam with Ernie was a hit. Matching up the alphabet boxes with the alphabet slots in the spaceship was fun for the lad, and he enjoyed the spaceship ‘reward’ animation and the little blocky man who appeared on the planet (allegedly Ernie) between rounds. Once you’ve gone through the alphabet—at least in the game variation we had the most luck with—the game loops, so there is no real ending, per se. Besides holding his interest, Alpha Beam has decent nutritional value, teaching the order of the alphabet and symbol recognition.
Big Bird’s Egg Catch entertained him for a little while. A game of “catching the falling eggs as they go down twisty chutes” is a bit too complex for my three year old on anything other than the easiest game variation. The game itself seems solid though, so for a slightly older kid it might be more fun. As far as ‘nutrition’ goes, there is the aforementioned spatial recognition required on the windy egg chutes, as well as a counting tally of the eggs between levels.
Cookie Monster Munch was the first game he liked. It’s a good game to learn how to move a character with a controller, as you navigate Cookie Monster in the simple maze, grabbing cookies and taking them back to the cookie jar. It also has the best rewards screen of all the games in the series, with a pretty fabulous full screen animation of Cookie Monster chowing down on his haul of cookies. I would not be surprised if nearly half of the cart’s memory was dedicated to this animation. My son really liked seeing it, no doubt helped by my willingness to make the “om nom nom” noises the 2600 was incapable of providing. Once you got the gist of the game though, the levels continue with more cookies, and you notice that Cookie moves awfully slowly. There is a two player option and the game does count the cookies between levels, but—all in all—his interest fades after calling up the rewards screen a few times.
Oscar’s Trash Race is the best of the bunch, as it actually teaches counting. A dump truck drops of a certain number of the same object, then the player must pick the trash can with the correct total. Then it’s a race to get the items. The Grouches are not speedy, and harder game variations add some obstacles that are welcome from a gameplay perspective, yet beyond my son’s current ability. We had the most fun with Oscar’s game, and I felt like he was actually learning something. However, I did need to explain why perfectly good televisions (and toothbrushes, et al.) are considered trash in the game!
So, the Kid’s Controller games can still be fun, even if they seem crude compared what’s freely available on the net. If you are looking for something from your childhood to share with your kids though, a tub of LEGOs will probably be more rewarding for all involved.
2011 ben langberg, all rights reserved.