15 Essential Games for Atari VCS / 2600

Photo: Evan-Amos, Wikimedia Foundation.

The Atari Video Computer System, or VCS--also called the Atari 2600--is the most ubiquitous of all the pre-NES 8-bit game consoles. While it wasn't the first console (that honour going to the Fairchild Channel F), it was the first console to sell 1,000,000 units. While I'm sure a few of you still have your dad's Atari that he got for his 8th birthday in 1982, I'm just going to assume you're like the rest of us and are running Stella on a computer.

Availability: Emulation only.

Games

1. Adventure
2. Yars' Revenge
3. Missile Command
4. Donkey Kong
5. Mario Bros.
6. Midnight Magic
7. Ikari Warriors
8. River Raid
9. Beamrider
10. Battlezone
11. Berzerk!
12. Laser Gates
13. Frogger
14. Ms. Pac-Man
15. Pitfall!

Adventure

1980, Warren Robinett (Atari)
Behold, the very first top-down adventure and exploration game and the first game to contain what we now call an Easter egg. The point of the game is to access the castles and steal a chalice, then return to the Golden Castle with it, avoiding being eaten by the roaming dragons. The player can also find a sword with which to slay the dragons, a magnet to pull objects on the screen toward the player character, and a bridge to go through walls. Or, moats. Or, whatever the solid lines are supposed to be. Hedgerows. I don't know.

Yars' Revenge

1982, Howard Scott Warshaw (Atari)
 Caution: Game screen flashes continuously.
The Yars are little bugs who just want Qotile to leave them alone. Fortunately, they have a sizable army to defeat him with. The player must break through Qotile's bunker in order to fire a missile at him. Of course, he's not defenceless--he occasionally sends an energy swirl at the player to swat them out of the sky and has a slow-moving homing missile that constantly tracks the player and cannot be shot down. Fortunately, if the heat's on, your Yar can just chill in the energy field for a while, where the missile can't hit them (of course, the player can't fire inside the field, so that's an issue). An aside, Yars' Revenge is my personal favourite VCS game. I can just imagine a kid sitting on her beanbag chair on the shag carpet playing this in the '80s while a nearby hi-fi plays Oh, No! It's Devo, but she can only play for 15 more minutes because there'll be a new episode of St. Elsewhere on tonight.

Missile Command

1981, Rob Fulop (Atari)
While games like Yars' Revenge were supposed to take you out of the politics of the time, Missile Command thrusts you right back into them. It was the height of the Cold War and everyone was convinced they were on borrowed time before mutually-assured annihilation. Missile Command is one of those pessimistic games, in that you have to hold off nuclear doomsday for as long as possible, but it will come eventually. Incidentally, this was also the game that convinced Ronny Raygun that the '80s' young people were going to make first-class fighter pilots. What a simpleton.

Donkey Kong and Mario Bros.

1982, Garry Kitchen (Coleco) / 1983, Dan Hitchens (Atari)
Before Nintendo was Nintendo, they were known for their arcade games; and the two highest-grossing ones were Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Every game console and home computer from 1982 until about 1986 had ports of these two games. While each developer tried to keep their versions unique by fucking up the controls (cough-cough-ZX Spectrum-cough), the VCS versions were actually easier to control and play than the arcade originals. Hey, don't scoff--games were made for children back in the day, not for adult male journalists. Mario Bros. has an exploit that makes it easier to rack up the points like a pro; by technical necessity, only one enemy can occupy a level at a time. If you're feeling overwhelmed, just knock an enemy over and no other enemies can drop down there until the first one is gone. Also, the flames on Donkey Kong's 75m stage cannot descend ladders, but they will reverse direction suddenly once every cycle. Anyway, what is this? GameFAQs? Moving on!

Midnight Magic

1986, Glenn Axworthy (Atari)
 Caution: Game screen flashes continuously.
The spiritual successor to Video Pinball, this game has a more traditional pinball appearance and sound effects. Also, the ball physics are handled better, making for more predictable movement than was possible in the '70s. It's a pinball simulator—what else needs to be said? Pinball is fun.

Ikari Warriors

1990, Dan Kitchen (Atari)
Another port of a popular arcade game, the fact anyone could make Ikari Warriors work on the VCS at all was a marvel. Of course, by 1990, the technology had been pretty well picked apart and understood by every game developer. Ikari has the distinction of being the final game released under license from Atari for the VCS in North America.

River Raid

1982, Carol Shaw (Activision)
River Raid, alongside the more popular Pitfall!, was the first of Activision's games for the VCS after their founders quit Atari in a huff when Ray Kassar refused to give them any royalties or even credit for their work. The point of the game is simple; fly your plane along the river, destroying the enemy gunboats and helicopters, refuelling where necessary by flying over the tankers that say FUEL.

Beamrider

1983, David Rolfe (Action Graphics)
 Caution: Game screen flashes on startup.
Following in the footsteps of Space Invaders, Beamrider takes place above the Earth's atmosphere as the player tries to shut down an alien "restrictor field" and destroy the scout ships. Instead of another "turn-off-your-brain-and-fire" style game, the player needs to be aware of what are enemy ships and what are powerups; as firing on a powerup will cause it to turn into a homing missile that targets the player.

Battlezone

1983, Mike Feinstein & Brad Rice (Atari)
 Caution: Game screen flashes on playerdeath.
Before there was Serious Sam, there was Battlezone. In the far-off, futuristic year of 1999, a council of insane military leaders break world peace by sending a battalion of robotic weapons to wage war on their own, and it's up to the player to stop as many as they can. With a storyline like that, it's only fitting that the United States Army would commission their own arcade cabinet version of Battlezone to train soldiers on the Bradley tank. Oy. So, it's like Serious Sam in that as soon as you kill a robotank, another trundles onto the field to take its place, and you're going to do a lot of driving backwards to avoid their slow-moving shells. There are blue enemy tanks, red flying saucers, and yellow destroyers for you to blow up. Of course, in a pinch, you can always drive your tank into another one to destroy it in kamikaze fashion. If I had to pick a second favourite game, after Yars' Revenge, it would be Battlezone, no question.

Berzerk!

1982, Dan Hitchens (Atari)
 Caution: Player sprite flashes on death.
Another classic! You're trapped in a maze full of laser-toting robots intent upon your destruction. Man, don't you just hate when that happens? Don't hang about too long, otherwise Evil Otto will come bouncing in... and he's invincible. All you can do at that point is just run. Be careful, though! The walls are electrified and you'll die if you touch them. So do the robots, which they'll do a lot. What do you want here? It was 1982. And, don't worry--the VCS version won't give you heart palpitations like the arcade version. (I'm serious about that, by the way.)

Laser Gates

1983, Dan Oliver (Imagic)
 Caution: Game elements colour-cycle continuously.
On the surface, it looks like just another Galaxian ripoff; but this game is more about precision flying than destroying an enemy. The Dante Dart is sent into the caves of Zevon to destroy the galactic defence synthesiser's self-destruct detonators (humourously appearing as jumbo-sized MOS 6507 chips; you know, the CPU of the Atari VCS?). The game is named after its principal mechanic of having to fly through, well, laser gates. There are other defences in the caves, as well--automated weapon platforms, homing missiles, and creatures.

Frogger

 Caution: Game elements flicker continuously.
1982, Ed English, David Lamkins (APh/Parker Brothers)
You're a frog who just wants to get home, but there's a busy motorway and a raging rapid between you and your lilypad. There are no enemies to destroy in this game, just frogs, logs, and the occasional alligator disguised as a lilypad. Also, the VCS version of the game affords the player the ability to wrap around the screen, making crossing the rapids a bit less dangerous.

Ms. Pac-Man

1983, Mike Horowitz & Josh Littlefield (Atari)
 Caution: Game elements flicker continuously.
Would you believe it? This game and the industry-breaking Pac-Man were developed concurrently and released at the same time. Somehow, Ms. Pac-Man ended up with the more arcade-faithful port, while Pac-Man chugged along at half-speed with sprite flicker to beat the band. For unclear reasons, no one remembers the VCS port of Ms. Pac-Man, but it works much better than its more notorious counterpart.

Pitfall!

1982, David Crane (Activision)
And, finally, no list of essential Atari VCS games is complete without David Crane's pioneering platforming game. Run around and try to find all the treasure before the 20-minute timer runs out. Just think--if Ray Kassar had been a little more understanding about costs of living and the need to be personally recognised for things, Activision and 3rd-party game development wouldn't have happened, and Pitfall! would have been an Atari game and Microsoft wouldn't own the rights to it today.

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