Favorite Atari 2600 Games

Break out your Atari or an emulator and have some fun.

Opinion page by Duane Alan Hahn.

Below is a list of my favorite Atari 2600 games. Some are current favorites and others I liked better when they were new back in the 1980s. There are many games I haven't had a chance to play, so this list will probably change as I discover new favorites. Each game is linked to the appropriate AtariAge.com page in case you want instruction manuals, screenshots, scans, or ROMs.

Atlantis (Imagic)

Colorful arcade-like graphics and great sound effects. It's not the best game in the world, but it's fun for a while whenever you are in the mood for that kind of game.

Beamrider (Activision)

This game is pretty good, but the screen flashes red every time you shoot an enemy, so if that kind of thing bothers you like it does me, you'll probably only play this game once every 10,000 years.

Carnival (Coleco)

This is another game that I like better than the arcade version.

Circus Atari (Atari)

Seems like just about everyone on the planet with an Atari 2600 likes this game. It would have been nice if Atari made Circus Atari 2 with better Imagic or Activision type graphics. The game is still fun as it is, even if it is a little ugly.

Communist Mutants from Space (Starpath)

I'm not sure if I like this Supercharger game as much as Demon Attack, but it is better than games such as Phoenix, Galaxian, and Megamania.

Demon Attack (Imagic)

This game felt kind of 'scary' when it was new. It was bold in the way the enemies reverse ripped onto the screen and how the sounds blew you out of your seat. It was amazing. My favorite Imagic games have a crisp, clear, colorful, arcade look (similar to the look of Defender at the arcades) and they usually have cool sound effects that seem totally original. Many games by Atari and other companies have characters that seem kind of stiff and look like they are made out of heavy cement blocks, but Imagic characters are usually looser, lighter, more colorful, more detailed, and more arcade-like. Even most homebrews with all of the tricks and tools available to programmers today seem to have a clunky look and feel. It seems that when Imagic died, so did the magic. Maybe it won't be that way forever. There still might be hope.

Below is what Rob Fulop, the programmer of Demon Attack, said about my comments on the Imagic look and sound effects:

The particular magic trick you are referring to was achieved by a less than remarkable solution ... basically Imagic was the first videogame company to bring in actual artists to do graphics for games. At Atari, we did our graphics by taking a piece of graph paper, and filling in the squares with pencil, and then coding each row of eight squares as a two digit hex value. Combine this primitive method, with the fact that most programmers sense of style is so gawd awful that many have a hard time figuring out which shoe goes with which shoe when they get dressed in the afternoon when they finally wake up, and it's no shock that game graphics looked like cement blocks.

After leaving Atari, Bob Smith and myself wrote a few simple editors that ran on the Atari 800. These tools enabled a graphic artist to author actual game graphics, changing both the graphics, and color, on each scan line. When they were happy with the way it all looked, the programmer ran some utility tool to add the appropriate hex codes to their program. Michael Becker was the first artist to use these tools, and he did such a great job on the set of demons that appear in Demon Attack that he became Imagic's first resident artist devoted exclusively to video game graphics. I think it took other companies awhile to catch on to this, which is why Imagic games were known for the distinct look they have. The sound effects were created by the programmers themselves, both Bob Smith and Dennis Koble, as well as myself had done several games on the 2600 at Atari .. so we had generated enough sound effects at that point that we knew our way around the primitive Stella sound system.

Enduro (Activision)

Wow! An Activision game where objects seem to be in random positions. Stop the presses! When something so rare happens, the whole world must be alerted! Thank God David Crane didn't make this game or the cars would have been in the same place every time you played. Enduro is the best driving game ever made for the Atari 2600 and it's also more fun than many driving games on other systems.

E.T. (Atari)

The interplanetary telephone pieces and zones are in different places every time you start a new game. Controlled Randomness gives E.T. replayability, and that means the game will be fun no matter how many times you play it. It's always fresh. And unlike Adventure and Superman, there is no flicker. In case you don't already know, I have a small section that is devoted to this game. I attempt to explain why E.T. is better than most people say.

Fantastic Voyage (20th Century Fox)

It doesn't have the beauty and pleasing sound effects of an Imagic game, but it is different every time you play and that's a good thing. When I bought the game around 1984, it didn't seem as polished as other games I played. It wasn't bad, it just felt kind of homemade. After playing the game for a day or two, I discovered that you could sometimes push your way outside of the artery when it gets smaller. It was a mistake the first time it happened. I thought it was kind of cool, but it also made me lose a little respect for the game and put in a lower class in my mind than it should be.

Fishing Derby (Activision)

Another David Crane game where things start off in the same position every time. The best little fishy always starts out on the bottom right of the screen, so if you're on the left side, you'll rarely get a chance to catch it. The only reason why I have this game on my list is that it's still kind of fun to catch the fish, for a short time anyway. I also believe that this was the second game that I saw playing on an Atari VCS at Woolco. Breakout was the first, but this fishing game means a little more to me since I used to like to go fishing back then. It was a holdover from my grandfather. I imagined buying the game and an Atari and fishing in the comfort of my own home. It never happened. I didn't get an Atari until 1982 and by then I had a desire for other more exciting games. I finally got Fishing Derby in the mid 1990s.

Frogger (Starpath) [not the Parker Brothers version]

Everything is detailed and colorful. The frog looks cool jumping horizontally, but it looks about as stupid as the Parker Brothers version going vertically. That's not such a big deal though with the whole game being so much better overall. If you have played the Parker Brothers game, you probably remember the constant flicker. There doesn't seem to be any flicker in this game. The music and sound effects are very much like the arcade game. Speaking of music, this Starpath version doesn't make you wait for the beginning tune to finish before you can start playing. If you like Frogger, and you want to play it on the Atari 2600, this is the version to play.

Golf (Atari)

Although the obstacles are always in the same place, this game is still worth playing once in a while. People talk about liking Atari bowling, but swinging the golf club in this game is more fun to me.

Laser Gates (Imagic)

This side scroller is different every time you play. It's still fun, but I liked it more when I was younger.

Lock 'N' Chase (M Network)

It's hard to get sick of this game. Trapping a cop for 2000 points never gets old. There are two treasures to get and you need to get them every time if you want their worth to double. You never know where the cops are going to go, so danger is around every corner. If you close a door to block one cop, you could find that you blocked your only way to escape from the next cop. On top of all that, there is no flicker. It's the best dot eater 'maze' game ever made for the Atari 2600.

Marauder (Tigervision)

More replayable goodness. If you think this game is easy, try it on level 4. The only flaw this game has is that you can start out in the room you are supposed to be looking for. Seems like it would have been fairly easy to leave that room out of the list of possible starting positions. Oh well, if you play on level 4 you may not mind starting out in that room sometimes.

Moonsweeper (Imagic)

I used to love this game. I don't play it as much as I used to. I think I kind of got sick of it because I played it so much, but it still belongs on this list.

Othello (Atari)

Othello is always fun no matter what game system you play it on.

Pengo (Atari)

This is another game that I don't love. It's fun enough to add to the list though. If I could have owned it when it was new, I would have more of an attachment to it. I didn't get to play the Atari 2600 version of the game until after the year 2000.

Solar Fox (CBS Electronics)

Better than the arcade version. An addictive colorful classic game.

Space Invaders (Atari)

A simple classic game with a ton of variations. I think I have played a hack or two that improved on the game, but most attempts (whether it's hack or homebrews) stink.

Spider-Man (Parker Brothers)

I love how you climb buildings in this game. Of course, Spider-Man games made in the 21st century and beyond will usually be more fun, but this Atari 2600 game gave you something that was rare at the time. You could climb and swing on a web. I could be wrong, but I think this was the only Atari 2600 game that gave you that ability.

Stargate/Defender II (Atari)

This is how I thought Defender was going to be. This game is about as close as you can get to arcade quality on an Atari 2600. I think I bought Stargate about a year after it was released and I remember being impressed, but that was around the time I was more interested in the Commodore 64, so it wasn't the jaw-dropping experience that it should have been. It's still a good game and I'd rather play this on the Atari 2600 than Defender or Chopper Command.

Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (Sega)

This game is always fun. I sometimes think that I like it better than the arcade version. As with most games that I like, it's different every time you play. Having the first person view and the overhead view is great. You can play any way you want. Only like the overhead view? Then look at that screen and ignore the first person view.

Subterranea (Imagic)

I don't like this game as much as I did in the 1980s. I used to love it. I think I have been spoiled by the side-scrolling shooters I played on more advanced systems over the years. I also don't like learning 'dance moves' so I dislike the Electro-Gates.

Tennis (Activision)

The best tennis game ever made for the Atari 2600.

Yars' Revenge (Atari)

This was one of my favorite games when it was new. It's a little too blocky looking after playing some of my favorite Imagic games though.