Agreed, Custer's Revenge and Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em trounce anything the NES had.

Most of the better Atari 2600 games were arcade ports which got also ported to the NES. So you had access to the "insert next coin" arcade classics AND the new generation of games with different game mechanics and more/better storytelling. So the NES had the better variety.

But if I had to choose my choice falls on the C64

The average game is irrelevant unless you're literally picking out random games to play. What matter is how many games there are that you would still enjoy playing today, and how much you'd enjoy them.

If I think of the Atari games that have held up, they are mostly ports of games that are actually better in the arcade. Space Invaders is good on the Atari, but the arcade version is better. And then there are other games like Pac Man and Donkey Kong where the arcade version is far far better than the Atari 2600 version. If a person really likes 2600 games, then my guess would be that what they really want is to play the classic arcade games.

I definitely can't agree with the OP.  Not even a little bit.  If we're talking about shovelware, the Atari 2600 was so plagued with bad games that it infamously helped to cause the Video Game Crash of 1983.

The NES was leaps and bounds ahead of the Atari in terms of power as well as gaming vision on the part of the designers and programmers.  The leap represented a huge change in game design, and definitely for the better. Its games contained a level of refinement in both graphics and gameplay that just wasn't seen on the 2600.  By today's standards, it's a little rough.  But the good games hold up extremely well today.

Wait, what?  First of all, you're playing the wrong games if you can't find NES games with snappy controls.

Second, the controls have little to do with hardware limitations and everything to do with how the game was programmed.

The OP clearly don't know video game industry. Most of Atari 2600 games were bad, and the so called "worst game of all time" aka E.T. was released on the Atari 2600.

Atari 2600 was the first sucessful home console, but that's its only achievement, being first doesn't make its game good or better than NES classics

There are only a handful of 2600 games I'd care to revisit: Yars' Revenge, Pitfall, and River Raid are the only ones that come to mind, in fact. Almost all the good games from that time were arcade games, and arcade ports sucked on the 2600. Most 2600 games are fun for 3 minutes.

And while not everything on the NES held up well, the Mario games, the Zeldas, Dragon Quest 1-4, and quite a few other NES games still hold up well.

So no, I would disagree. 2nd generation did not hold up well at all. The NES has games that are still awesome today.

I like the arcade games of 2nd gen, but have no use for their respective console ports. 3rd gen, specifically the NES, was a nice bridge between the old timey arcade sensibilities of 2nd gen and the more traditional depth 3rd gen titles are known for.

THAT IS a fact!!
INDEED
Thanks FOR spreading the TRUTH !

congratulations

The truth? Really?