Favorite Atari 2600 Games

[yotsuya]

The recent E.T. threads got me thinking about the Atari 2600. So many of my childhood memories revolve around that console. I'm curious - what were some of your favorite 2600 games:

Mine-

Battlezone
Vanguard
Moon Patrol
Atlantis
Asteroids
Space Invaders
Pitfall
Starmaster
Defender
Star Raiders

[pbj]

River Raid was the only one I really cared for.  Combat's fun with two players.

[yotsuya]

Combat's fun with two players.

Agreed. Especially Tank Pong.

[ChadTower]

Enduro
H.E.R.O.
Pole Position
Berzerk
Pitfall
Pitfall II
Frogs and Flies
Baseball
Boxing (Activision)
Empire Strikes Back

[yotsuya]

Enduro
H.E.R.O.
Pole Position
Berzerk
Pitfall
Pitfall II
Frogs and Flies
Baseball
Boxing (Activision)
Empire Strikes Back

Berzerk was a great port, and Frogs and Flies was also a favorite of mine. Never played Pole Position on the 2600. What were the graphics like?

[Louis Tully]

.

[wp34]

Adventure
Pitfall
River Raid
Tennis (Activision)
Video Pinball
Boxing (Activision)
Freeway
Kaboom

Seeing these games listed reminds me of why I loved my Atari 800 so much.  It had similar games and used the same controller but had much improved graphics.

[Vigo]

Let's hear some love for WAAAAARLORDS!   

Robot tank was ahead of its time...really cool looking 1st person view.

And Riddle of the Sphinx was darn clever for an atari game.

[yotsuya]

Kaboom - #1 favorite
Circus Atari
Asteroids
River Raid
Pong
Demon Attack
Pitfall
I remember trying to play some Kool Aid game but it was crap

Agreed on these. Especially Circus Atari.

[yotsuya]

Adventure
Pitfall
River Raid
Tennis (Activision)
Video Pinball
Boxing (Activision)
Freeway
Kaboom

This was another one I loved. Could play it for hours.

[yotsuya]

Let's hear some love for WAAAAARLORDS!   

Robot tank was ahead of its time...really cool looking 1st person view.

And Riddle of the Sphinx was darn clever for an atari game.

Warlords was a good one, especially when using 4 paddles.

Never played Riddle of the Sphinx. What was it like?

[ChadTower]

Berzerk was a great port, and Frogs and Flies was also a favorite of mine. Never played Pole Position on the 2600. What were the graphics like?

The graphics are pretty decent if you don't mind everything being large blocks like Minecraft.  It played well.  Up to shift, button for the pedal, you did lose any variability on the steering speed.  Not much to be done about that.

The games I gave were just the ones off of the top of my head.  I totally forgot Breakout, Super Breakout, and Casino.  I spent so much time on Casino.

[BadMouth]

Demon Attack.

It's the only game I'll actually play for a while when I fire up the 2600 emulator.
I don't know why.

With the rest of them, I feel about 30 seconds of nostalgia then get bored and stop.

[ark_ader]

Demon Attack.

It's the only game I'll actually play for a while when I fire up the 2600 emulator.
I don't know why.

With the rest of them, I feel about 30 seconds of nostalgia then get bored and stop.

+1 

[yotsuya]

With the rest of them, I feel about 30 seconds of nostalgia then get bored and stop.

I find that I'm a lot better on them as an adult than I was as a kid, so a game of Asteroids that might have taken me 10 minutes to play and enjoy can last a lot, lot longer.

Via emulation, I still enjoy playing Atlantis on a regular basis.

[Ginsu Victim]

Journey
Berzerk
Warlords
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Megamania
Demon Attack
Fast Eddie

[DeLuSioNal29]

My top list:

1 - Cosmic Ark (Activision)
2 - Kaboom!  - Never did like how the paddles were emulated though.  They were never fast enough.  If anyone knows of a better way to come close to the original paddles let me know
3 - Warlords
4 - Space Invaders
5 - Boxing (Activision)
6 - Mountain King - My favorite version of all systems
7 - Ms. Pacman - Light years ahead of the original Pacman
8 - Pitfall - I would cheat and start by running to the left.  That way if you died you would appear on the left and pass the screen that made you die
9 - Centipede
10 - Combat - 2 players of course.  My fav mode were:  Tanks with bouncing bullet, jet airplanes and triple bi-planes

DeLuSioNaL29

[opt2not]

I'm not going to name the arcade ports I enjoyed on this system, but as for actual Atari exclusives my favourites were:

Adventure
Frostbite
Yars’ Revenge
Pitfall

[ChadTower]

I'll +1 Yars' Revenge and Kaboom.  Big +1.

[Vigo]

Never played Riddle of the Sphinx. What was it like?

It was an early adventure quest game. You basically go through the desert fighting thieves and scorpions, but you dig for treasures and solve a puzzles through offering items in temples to get further in the quest. Overall, the game was a little monotonous, but I always thought it was clever because it had a health and thirst meter, and toggling the Color / B&W switch would flip between inventory/score and health/thirst status.  Your thirst affected how far you could throw rocks to attack enemies.  You had different items like shields and the chariot that would allow you to sprint. Thieves would steal your treasures and items, and there were goddesses and other friendly characters. Another cool feature was that depending on the game mode you selected, you could either play it as the quest, or simply play it as a simple collect treasure and shoot bad guys game to go for a high score.

It just felt like a darn clever game for its time. Even if it ended up a bit boring in implementation.

[yotsuya]

My top list:

1 - Cosmic Ark (Activision)
2 - Kaboom!  - Never did like how the paddles were emulated though.  They were never fast enough.  If anyone knows of a better way to come close to the original paddles let me know
3 - Warlords
4 - Space Invaders
5 - Boxing (Activision)
6 - Mountain King - My favorite version of all systems
7 - Ms. Pacman - Light years ahead of the original Pacman
8 - Pitfall - I would cheat and start by running to the left.  That way if you died you would appear on the left and pass the screen that made you die
9 - Centipede
10 - Combat - 2 players of course.  My fav mode were:  Tanks with bouncing bullet, jet airplanes and triple bi-planes

DeLuSioNaL29

I used to do that Pitfall "trick" too. I never learned how to play Pitfall the right way. I thought I "beat" the game by running out the clock. I never realized there was a certain way to play the game.

I'm not going to name the arcade ports I enjoyed on this system, but as for actual Atari exclusives my favourites were:

Adventure
Frostbite
Yars’ Revenge
Pitfall

I loved Yars too, but in retrospect, some variety to the levels might be nice (different shaped barrier, etc).

[Malenko]

Barnstorming for days.

[Well Fed Games]

Top five are probably

River Raid
Warlords
Yars Revenge
Frostbite
Berzerk

[stu33]

Most of those already listed, plus Turmoil and Commando Raid.

Played a ton of Moonsweeper too.

[DaveMMR]

Keystone Kapers
Kaboom
Pressure Cooker
River Raid
Super Breakout
Berzerk
Pitfall
Yars Revenge

Yeah there are a bunch that have already been mentioned.  But I also list as a guilty pleasure Kool Aid Man.  It's a terrible game but for some reason I get some enjoyment out of playing it.

[Slippyblade]

Yar's Revenge was my #1 game back in the day.  Would play it for hours.

[markc74]

This also. Flippin love that game - especially the whoooosh noise when the aliens appear.

And also stargate.

Demon Attack.

It's the only game I'll actually play for a while when I fire up the 2600 emulator.
I don't know why.

With the rest of them, I feel about 30 seconds of nostalgia then get bored and stop.

+1 

[jdbailey1206]

Did anyone mention Pitall cuz that was my fave!   

[Generic Eric]

Pac Man for the 2600.  I played it after I got home from walking through the snow up and down the hill from school.

Also, Phoenix, Moon Patrol, wizard of wor and Empire strikes back.

[dgame]

Armor Ambush

[RandyT]

Yar's Revenge
Turmoil
Cosmic Ark
Demon Attack
MegaMania
Barnstorming
Pitfall
David's Midnight Magic
Combat

It's hard to include arcade licenses in the play list nowadays, but several of those were also given a large amount of time back in the day.

[pbj]

Since so many of you were creaming your panties about Demon Attack, I decided to try that one out last night.  That's actually a damn good game as far as the 2600 is concerned.

 

[Hoopz]

Since so many of you were creaming your panties about Demon Attack, I decided to try that one out last night.  That's actually a damn good game as far as the 2600 is concerned.

 

It was better on Intellivision.      I still play it from time to time.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Agreed. Intellivision is much better than the 2600 version.

Does anyone remember the "Supercharger"?  It was basically a huge cartridge with an audio connector on the end of it. The games came on cassettes which you would load using a tape recorder.

I LOVED a game called Dragon Stomper.

Does anyone know if the Supercharger is emulated?

D

[RandyT]

Agreed. Intellivision is much better than the 2600 version.

I seem to recall a controversy surrounding the Intellivision version.  Something about a lawsuit, due to the mothership sequence (not in the 2600 version) being almost identical to the one in Phoenix.     Still, for it's day, I'm with PBJ on the 2600 version.  I still play that game once in a while.

Does anyone remember the "Supercharger"?  It was basically a huge cartridge with an audio connector on the end of it. The games came on cassettes which you would load using a tape recorder.

Does anyone know if the Supercharger is emulated?

I remember it.  First saw it in one of the magazines, but it was a pricey piece, so I never had one.  I was also concerned about there being a lack of software support, which eventually turned out to be the case.  Still wanted one badly, as the games looked really nice.  Stella seems to have support:

SuperCharger/AR ROMs now ignore the 'ramrandom' setting, and start with RAM containing all zeroes. This seems to fix issues with Dragonstomper always starting in exactly the same state.

The XONOX double carts were another great oddity.  Two game sharing the same memory, so the cost per game was lower.  Not fantastic games, but Artillery Duel was fun.

[danny_galaga]

Combat has a spot in my heart. recently I played Indy 500, which I never played back in the day. That is pretty cool (",)

[ChadTower]

The Supercharger ended up having way more value as a homebrew tool than as a consumer item. 

[Generic Eric]

What was that game with the keypad?  It was a space shooter game.  Maybe it was starfighter.  I remember it had a comic.

Star Raiders.  I liked that too.

[ChadTower]

Going the other way...

...did anybody enjoy the Swordquest games?  They had the seriously awesome looking commercials, actual prizes that were enough to make a ten year old boy start puberty early, comic books, four games (as marketed)...

...and then you tried to play one and were like "what the hell this is terrible.  Can we bring this back and get Pitfall II?"

[BadMouth]

What was that game with the keypad?

Donkey Kong on Colecovision
(notice the guy playing it not with the joystick, but by poking at the keypad)