What Games Defined The Atari 2600?

[racketboy]

I always played Pole Position & Space Invaders at my cousin's house when I was younger, but that was about it.

What other games really defined the first great console (in my mind).

[GagaMan]

E.T!






Joke.

Seriously though? Pitfall. That was ace.

[philipofmacedon]

Barnstorming.

I really liked "Combat" too.

[RadarScope1]

This is going back a little further than my personal experience at the time, but I know a few that I like and that many would associate with the 2600.

Pitfall - first game I ever remember playing
Combat - still a fun multi-player time
Pong - the true roots of the hardware
Yar's Revenge - simply a great little shooter, love the colorful explosion when you beat a level
KaBoom - made great use of the paddle controller
Adventure - prototypical action adventure, predates Zelda
Asteroids - Atari first-party game that was actually a solid arcade port
Space Invaders - another solid port that really moved units; the original system-seller/killer app
ET and Pac Man - GagaMan was joking, but they did help define the story of the 2600 with their total shittiness

There's bound to be a ton more

[lordofduct]

Pong - the true roots of the hardware

roots? do you mean 'anti-pong roots'... the console was developed to actually get the hell away from pong because America was burnt out on pong.

[Mozgus]

Combat is one of the very few 2600 games that is still fun, but I guess that's not what defined it. In my mind 2600 was defined as "that one machine that had nothing but vastly inferior arcade ports".

[durkada]

Combat is one of the very few 2600 games that is still fun, but I guess that's not what defined it. In my mind 2600 was defined as "that one machine that had nothing but vastly inferior arcade ports".

I'll agree that the arcade ports were vastly inferior -- except for Pong. But, at the time they were pretty cool. You didn't expect Arcade Perfect, you expected an approximation of gameplay, and it delivered (to mixed results).

So, some arcade ports looked horrible, but played well for the day and did help to define the system:

Asteroids -- shoot the rainbow colored blobs.
Defender -- Shoot the rectangles.
Centipede -- Shoot the other rectangles.
Warlords -- Genuinely a good port. Four player goodness.

There are still some good original games for the system however.

[nightwalker]

Frogger (obviously)

THE SMURFSS!!!!!! lol
hey but it was pretty fun tho

I remember playing the mario brothers original on atari also

[durkada]

This is going back a little further than my personal experience at the time, but I know a few that I like and that many would associate with the 2600.

Pitfall - first game I ever remember playing
Combat - still a fun multi-player time
Pong - the true roots of the hardware
Yar's Revenge - simply a great little shooter, love the colorful explosion when you beat a level
KaBoom - made great use of the paddle controller
Adventure - prototypical action adventure, predates Zelda
Asteroids - Atari first-party game that was actually a solid arcade port
Space Invaders - another solid port that really moved units; the original system-seller/killer app
ET and Pac Man - GagaMan was joking, but they did help define the story of the 2600 with their total shittiness

There's bound to be a ton more

This is a good list. I totally agree that ET and PacMan need to be included in any definitive 2600 list. PACMAN was ugly as sin, but still marginally enjoyable.

I'm going to try and add to the list -- some of the games may be forgotten today, but they were all, more or less, extremely popular at the time.


Circus Atari -- People still make clones of this game. Great sounds, simple graphics. Worth the price of admission just to see the flattened heads and legs still writhing when the teeter-totter misses its mark.

Breakout -- And people still make clones of this game. Has an Apple connection, if that gets your goat.

Custers Revenge -- Definitely in the shitty category, but also one of, if not the first, pornographic game.

River Raid -- Vertical shootem up. All the rage for quite a whie.

Keystone Cops -- Great little run and jump game. Looked great then, still pretty today. Wildly popular and ported to many computer systems.

Demon Attack/Atlantis/et al. -- Imagic Games. Imagic gave Activision a run for the money, and was the first software company to go public. Imagic games were extremely colorful and fash playing. Beautiful box art as well.

Coleco Vision -- Why not, they had an Atari 2600 adaptor that caused all sorts of legal bruhaha.

Star Raiders -- Another defining 2600 game of space exploration. Came with a number pad with overlays, which, if memory serves, was only used on this one game. Pretty ubiquitous at the time, but does not hold up particularly well.

Star Wars -- Empire Strikes Back. Heavily advertised, and another must-have game. Essentailly, all you do is take down AT-AT walkers.

Spider Man -- Still challenging today. Spiderman scales a hazardous building, but beware of his nemesis -- the Green Goblin.

Haunted House -- The horror adventure game, wherein you traverse a darkly ahunted house looking for three pieces of a magical urn. Pretty intense at the time.

Fishing Derby -- Another David Crane classic. Still fun as a two player romp.

Dodge 'Em -- very popular early game, and eventually became a pack-in. Great two player game requiring some quick thinking and faster reflexes.

Montezuma's Revenge -- Never quite reached the levels of popularity as many other games with better distribution and expensive licenses, but its still considered a classic of the platforming genre.

Megamania -- Incredibly popular shooter, but I never liked it.

The list of defining 2600 games is fun. Even more enjoyable will be the games on the cheap. The system still, after all these years, has a few surprises.

[GSZX1337]

H.E.R.O.