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19 days agoI had an Atari ST and a relative was in the 80’s ST piracy scene so I’d get massive stacks of pirated cracked games on floppies, which was AMAZEBALLS, but the basic level design on those games was almost universally with a few, mostly, late exceptions UNMITIGATED ASS. I totally had your thing where I never actually questioned if James Pond or whatever was “good” but I still intuitively knew the design on the console games was better and there was no social cache or ability to multiplayer with your bros on a normal gamepad (I maintain every Atari joystick ever was ass).
I agree it was impossible in the computer space, but I feel like publications of the time reflected that in the computer space. I forget the name of the publication, but I used to get an Atari ST magazine that came with a demo disk every issue in a bag with the magazine, and its focus was less “here’s what to buy” but you actually got demos of most games they covered, and it was more like, “here’s what’s going on in Atari ST stuff” idk that they even had numerical ratings. I also don’t remember there being a print media space around DOS games in the same way to begin with. On the other side, console gaming magazines were like “THIS IS THE HOT SHIT BUY IT NOW 5/5!!!” And then the game was a scam.