Tag Archives: Atari 2600

Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Football

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FOOTBALL! It’s time to play some FOOTBALL! YEAH!

Those of you who have been following this series for a while will be all to familiar with my general lack of experience with sports games — particularly those focusing on American sports. Despite my wife once referring to American football on camera as “shit rugby”, I hope I have at least given the impression that I am giving these games a chance!

If anything, I find the simpler, vaguer digital interpretations of sports — such as seen here in this very early American football game for Atari 2600 — a lot more palatable and understandable than the more realistic simulations we’ve had since the 16-bit era or so. So you know what? I didn’t have a terrible time playing this.

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Flag Capture

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Flag Capture is one of those games that looks laughably simple today, but there’s still some good, honest fun to be had — especially with two players.

The concept couldn’t really be much simpler — there’s a flag somewhere in a grid, and you have to find it using both directional and numerical clues. The interesting stuff this game does comes from how this simple concept is twisted in a few different ways — do you find the flag against the clock? Against another player with simultaneous movement? Against another player moving one at a time?

It’s probably not a game you’ll want to spend a lot of time with today, no, but it’s definitely worth a look for a quick bit of fun with a friend!

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Atari A to Z: MegaMania

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Activision may be a company that a lot of gamers like to steer well clear of these days thanks to issues like predatory DLC and microtransactions, but back in the days of the 8-bit micros, they were one of the finest companies out there.

They credited their programmers and designers, they put out games that pushed the boundaries of underpowered hardware such as the Atari 2600… and they just made great games, full stop.

One fantastic example is MegaMania, a thoroughly weird but extremely enjoyable fixed shooter that will get you bobbing and weaving between waves of hamburgers, engagement rings, bow ties and steam irons. No symbolism there, no sir.

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Fatal Run

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Wouldn’t you know it? A comet has hit the Earth, bathing the entire planet in deadly radiation that, apparently, we will have developed a “vaccine” against by the late 21st century.

Naturally, rather than attempting to organise some sort of large-scale relief effort to distribute this life-saving vaccine to the world’s population, the only possible solution to this disastrous situation is to send one dude in a machine gun-equipped car across the world and hope he knows how to assemble a rocket at the far end of his journey.

Oh, did I not mention the rocket? There’s a rocket to assemble, too. And launch codes to discover. But mostly a lot of driving and blasting anything unfortunate enough to get in your way on the road…

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Double Dunk

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I don’t “get” sports games at the best of times, but throw in the need to select “plays” before you can do anything and my comprehension of what is going on goes right out the window.

Enter Double Dunk, then; one of the latest games to be officially released for the Atari 2600, and a game which takes the “playbook” approach to two-on-two basketball.

I do not fare well with this game. I do not fare well at all. But I try, very hard!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Dodge ‘Em

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The dot-eating maze game formula is most readily associated with Namco’s Pac-Man — but the genre had actually been around for a while already by the time our hungry hero had made his first appearance!

Atari’s Dodge ‘Em released for Atari 2600 in 1980, providing a peculiar combination of racing, dodging and dot-eating — but this wasn’t the first one, either! Dodge ‘Em was actually a clone of a 1979 Sega arcade title called Head On.

The reasons for the Sega game’s title will become apparent very, very quickly…

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Demons to Diamonds

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Today’s Atari Flashback Classic is a one- or two-player blastathon with a couple of twists: firstly, it’s paddle-controlled, and secondly, it involves firing an extendable “beam” rather than the more common shots.

Yes, it’s Demons to Diamonds, a simple but enjoyable shoot ’em up designed for younger players — but there’s still some fun to be had for a few minutes here if you give it a chance.

It may not be the most fondly regarded of all the Atari Flashback Classics, but it’s worth a blast or two — particularly if you bring a friend along for the ride!

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Atari A to Z Flashback: Dark Cavern

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It’s always interesting to look at a very old game and see the earliest glimmer of a subgenre that became well-established much later.

Mattel’s Dark Cavern, actually an Atari 2600 port of their Intellivision title Night Stalker, is a good example. On paper, it’s a simple maze game, but in practice, you can see just a hint of what would become stealth and survival horror gameplay in there.

We’ve got a fragile protagonist; we’ve got an emphasis on outwitting enemies; we’ve got limited resources. How long can Your Man survive in the Dark Cavern?

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Crystal Castles (2600)

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Back in the ’70s and ’80s, players of home consoles weren’t looking for “arcade perfect” — mostly because the home systems of the time weren’t up to it.

Rather, they were looking for a roughly equivalent or perhaps complementary experience to that which could be had in the arcades. This meant that sometimes games underwent a few changes in the transition from the arcade to the home.

A good example of this is Crystal Castles for the Atari 2600, which provides a surprisingly authentic-feeling approximation of the arcade classic, while working within the constraints of its host hardware.

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z Flashback: Concentration

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A lot of early Atari 2600 games (or, sorry, “Atari Video Computer System”, as it was called back then) were adaptations of games that could be played on the tabletop.

The convenience of playing them on the television was, of course, that you didn’t have to worry about physical components getting scattered all over the place, setup time and the like — if you just wanted a quick game of something with someone, all you had to do was slap in the cartridge, pick up a controller and you were away.

One example of this early brand of tabletop adaptation comes in the form of Concentration; perhaps not the most interesting game to play today, but kind of fun for two players, a good showcase of the Keyboard Controllers and a game with a certain amount of educational value, too.

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