@LordJohnWhorfin You memorized the pixel tire widths and car patterns in Grand Prix and meticulously played and played, trying to get your time a fraction of a second lower.
@LordJohnWhorfin One day, you missed a 'catch' in Circus Atari and you really took note that the stick person character hit the ground, it's guts smashed into a single line, and it frantically writhed in obvious agony, until it was magically whisked off the screen. It was only about 3 minutes, but you thought about how gruesome that is.
@LordJohnWhorfin You again got Indiana Jones back in the plane, jumped, opened the parachute, and tried to land on that branch on the side of the cliff so you could get inside the cave. You missed. Again.
@LordJohnWhorfin You created a map for Adventure that spanned several sheets of paper, making out various paths to the Easter egg you read about in that one magazine.
Another fine @mashcan quartet! (And trio from @stereoplex!)
My own meager contribution: You finally beat Marathon, Bungie's '90s Halo precursor, on its hardest setting, Total Carnage. Then you decide that since there's a movie-recording feature in the game that only records up until you save, that you need to get through all 30-ish levels/5+ hours of the game without saving, thereby having a movie of the complete game. Fail x100. Again. Then find out the movie engine doesn't actually record correctly once you "teleport" to another level. Continue trying anyway x100.
@Lord_John_Whorfin You convinced yourself that if you just played the Atari version of Pac Man for long enough you'd eventually learn to like it. So you kept playing and playing, hoping that developing familiarity with one or another of the eight versions of the game would bring the frisson and fascination that a scant 28 seconds of the arcade machine had.
@Lord_John_Whorfin You were sure that using the Left Hand Rule to navigate the mazes in Adventure would get you to the secret room. And that next time you just had to try a little bit harder to avoid the dragon.
Is that the guy from Too Many Cooks?
My own meager contribution: You finally beat Marathon, Bungie's '90s Halo precursor, on its hardest setting, Total Carnage. Then you decide that since there's a movie-recording feature in the game that only records up until you save, that you need to get through all 30-ish levels/5+ hours of the game without saving, thereby having a movie of the complete game. Fail x100. Again. Then find out the movie engine doesn't actually record correctly once you "teleport" to another level. Continue trying anyway x100.
How'd they get the guy from the Video Chess box into Too Many Cooks?