2022: The Year of Atari’s 50th Anniversary

Many things happened this year (as with any year), but 2022 marked a particular video game anniversary: the 50th anniversary of Atari, the company that made the home video game console a reality. Even though the original Atari Inc. officially closed its doors in 1992, the Atari name has lived on in various ways for decades, through classic game compilations, plug-and-play emulators, and the recent Atari VCS home video game console that was launched in 2021.

This post lists 10 of my favorite games from Atari’s signature console, the Atari 2600. Even though the 2600 didn’t have much power going for it—even when compared to the direct competitors of its time—some programmers found ways to make entertaining games that made the most of what the system had to offer.

Air Raiders (1982): The Atari 2600 wasn’t known for flight simulators of any type, but Air Raiders worked much better than you’d expect. In addition to shooting down enemy air craft, players also had to regularly land their fighter jet to refuel. This combination of tasks made for challenging game play, as well as creative usage of the 2600’s limited graphics.   

Combat (1977): Sometimes, a basic premise with a wide selection of available variations is enough to make for a great game. In Combat, players could play against each other using tanks, jet fighters, or World War I era biplanes, with additional options provided for each combat vehicle type. My personal favorite was the tank level with bouncing artillery shells, which added an element of pool to tank combat.

Ghost Manor (1983): The 2600 didn’t have many horror games, and those that were available were far from scary. Nevertheless, what Ghost Manor lacked in scares it made up for in mixing up game play types within the game. The game starts with a game of tag within a graveyard, followed by a bottom-up shooter to get inside of the titular manor. Inside the manor, players would spend two levels looking for crosses to help them in the fifth level, where they would fight against Dracula in a final boss battle. It was a simple battle, but it was very unique for its time because boss battles hadn’t become a video game trope yet. Furthermore, Xonox threw an extra unique feature for 2600 gamers: they could either play as a boy saving his girlfriend or a girl saving her boyfriend. 

Keystone Kapers (1983): Activision had already made a name for itself in running-and-jumping adventure games through Pitfall!, but Keystone Kapers upped the ante by giving players someone to chase. Starting from the roof, players would chase a burglar through a three-story department store before he gets away through the main floor entrance. Players had to navigate past various obstacles as part of the chase, obstacles that included toy planes, beach balls, and runaway shopping carts. It was a fun game, as well as a nifty 8-bit tribute to the classic Keystone Cops silent film comedies.   

Moonsweeper (1983): This title was made by Imagic, a publisher that made many slick 2600 titles. In Moonsweeper, players navigated through a solar system of four moons with different colors and levels of difficulty: blue (easy), green (average), yellow (hard), and red (very hard). Players landed on the moons to rescue stranded miners (up to five miners could be rescued at a time) while fighting off enemy space ships and hovercraft. To leave the moons with the rescued miners, players had to navigate their ship through acceleration rings to get back into space. By mixing up different difficulty levels to choose from during the game, Moonsweeper kept things interesting in what could otherwise be a repetitive scenario. 

Oink! (1983): The classic fairytale Three Little Pigs got an 8-bit makeover in this delightful Activision game. Gamers played as the three pigs, replacing parts of their house walls as they are destroyed by the big, bad wolf. This game was a funny and challenging variation on Atari’s classic hit Breakout, with players repairing walls instead of demolishing them. 

Solaris (1986): Of all the Atari 2600 games that I’ve played, Solaris was the console’s most ambitious. Players navigated their space ship through a labyrinthine arrangement of quadrants and sectors to find the planet Solaris. Missions to complete during the game ranged from space combat to prisoner rescues to armed space corridor runs; players also had to land on friendly planets to refuel and repair the ship to continue the game. Solaris bore some resemblance to the aforementioned Moonsweeper, but it was actually the sequel to Atari’s 1979 game Star Raiders—in fact, it was a much better game. The only problem with Solaris is that it did not have a game save feature, so players had to restart their search for Solaris from the beginning every time they started the game. 

Stargate (a.k.a. Defender II, 1984): Many arcade ports were made for the Atari 2600, with varying degrees of success. Stargate was one of the best, with graphics that came closer than usual to its arcade counterpart. The Atari 2600’s version of Stargate’s predecessor, Defender, was a solid port, but Stargate was a major leap forward in terms of what the 2600 could do with its limited power.

Starmaster (1982): Starmaster was Activision’s answer to the aforementioned Star Raiders. Like Star Raiders, players in Starmaster piloted a star fighter to destroy groups of enemy ships while defending space stations from the incoming enemies; players would also use the space stations to repair and refuel the star fighter. However, for as influential as Star Raiders was when it was released, its bland graphics and sluggish controls on the 2600 made for a disappointing experience; even the plug-in keypad that came with the Star Raiders cartridge didn’t add much to the game. In contrast, Starmaster took the core elements of Star Raiders and turned it into a smooth and compelling gaming experience that used everything the 2600 had to offer without any extra plug-ins.

Tunnel Runner (1983): Tunnel Runner was rough around edges, but it didn’t look like anything else on the 2600. It was a first-person game where players had to find their way out of a series of mazes while avoiding Pac-Man like creatures named Zots. The controls were awkward, but CBS Electronics made the most of the 2600’s limited graphics to create 3D views within the mazes. For fans of maze games like me, this was a significant step forward for the many 3D games that were on their way in the decades that followed.