I see where you're coming from, but I still occasionally play Red Baron, Pitfall and Combat on emulators. Crystal Castles for me was another good one on Atari 2

I see where you're coming from, but I still occasionally play Red Baron, Pitfall and Combat on emulators. Crystal Castles for me was another good one on Atari 2600, but I think this was after Super Mario Bros. I agree that it's a largely subjective thing, and I would say Super Mario Bros 3 is a great game, SMB 1 is a good (and clearly game changing if you'll pardon the pun) game. Donkey Kong is another example from earlier, but I won't pretend that it was a good port to the 2600 that stands the test of time. I also see your point about games that were good then versus now, but I have to say that Pong was only good because there wasn't anything else around. Space invaders, Galaxian and co are still playable today. Still, endless examples and counterexamples abound and there'll never be a definitive conclusion for the reasons you mentioned. Still, it's good to take a trip down memory lane now and again. Out of interest, what was your favourite Mario game of all time, and how did it compare to SMB1?