What Video Game Did I Play Yesterday?

Summer Games (Atari 7800+)

December 15th, 2024

Yesterday, I hid inside from the ice, which gave me a lot of time for games. Luckily, I'd just gotten my preorder of an Atari 7800+ in, so I had plenty to do! My family had a slightly outdated Atari 2600 when I was little, but I'd never played the 7800 before yesterday. It's probably very skewed to judge a system like this by a souped up re-release and a modern pack-in cartridge, but it seems neat! I played Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest, which came with the system, for a little bit, and was surprised how vibrant the colors were, and by how much I liked the controller, too. The game itself seems like it'll be a bit of a "git gud" situation, but I'll give it more shots!

I was really excited to pop in the Epyx sports 2600 multicart I'd ordered, though, for California Games. I maybe took too much pride in being a better gamer at 37 than I was at 4 as I played, but even aside from that, the demo scene vibes of the title screen and the weird, puppet-ish hacky sack guy looked great plugged into an HDMI port! From here, I'm a bit determined to improve a bit at the BMX event, but it'll be a fun grind.

With the multicart popped into the system, I wanted to try the other two included games, too. I'd never played either before, but found Summer Games kind of confusing and tedious on my first play. Everything seemed to have really tricky timing, and I thought the graphics were a bit flat compared to California Games.

I had a lot more fun with Winter Games, though. The sled and luge events have a crazy sense of speed for the 2600, and biathalon was the only event I felt truly baffled by. I'm looking forward to figuring out how this game works a bit better.

Because this post really needs to go on longer, I did quite a lot of more modern gaming, too. I had enough time to devote to it, so I grabbed my study notebook and tackled some walls of text in Model Debut #nicola. I unlocked the clothing shops and got a hairstyling assignment, so the game is opening up a bit at this point. Being able to read the Japanese text is still the most satisfying bit of it, though.

I went a bit overboard with Jujutsu Kaisen: Phantom Parade as I did chores and stuff, too. It seemed like time to get my characters leveled up, so yesterday, I was mostly just grinding for materials. It wasn't super exciting, but it was fun.

Lastly, I kept on in Aquarium Land, too. This really isn't offering anything new other than the numbers going up as I move through the game, but I'm over halfway through. It doesn't seem like it'll overstay its welcome, even if it is getting a spot repetitive.