Joust has always been one of my favorite Atari games on the 2600. If you are not familiar, the game is played on single screen and involves knights on flying steeds. Whoever is lower on the screen when jousting is killed. The game is played in waves and the board changes over time. Multiplayer adds a twist, as you can cooperate or decide it's every man for himself and kill each other off.
While the sprites in the 2600 version were monochrome and some of the animation was simplified, the gameplay was intact and the difficulty was toned down just a bit for home play. In the arcade version, the gravity was unusually strong, requiring the player to wail on the 'Flap' button to stay aloft. It really was designed to eat quarters.
Joust on the 7800 combines near arcade quality graphics and sound with the pitch perfect difficulty of the 2600 port. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I prefer it to the arcade perfect versions you can get on more modern systems. The fact that the cart is very common makes it even more of a "must have" for the system.
2010 ben langberg, all rights reserved.