The Atari 2600 conversion of tank battle game Battle Zone (aka Battlezone) is considered to be a decent port of the classic 1980 arcade game, but I’m not entirely convinced…
Category Archives: Atari, Inc.
Space Invaders, Atari 2600
This conversion of Taito‘s classic arcade game to the Atari VCS/2600 was first released in 1980, and – boy – did it shift some units…
Pong Quest, PC
This modern take on a retro classic sees you take control of a “brave young paddle” on a quest to unlock the mystery of “The Spooky Door”.
Pong Quest is of course a re-imagining of the classic Atari arcade game, Pong, with cute, colourful graphics, a large variety of different Pong balls, and single and multiplayer play modes.
Crystal Castles, Arcade
Crystal Castles is a legendary arcade maze game developed and published by Atari, Inc. in 1983. What made the game so good were: the trackball and jump button controls (which gave a good degree of freedom to make headway at pace) and the unusual isometric graphics (which drew on-screen in an unusual and interesting way).
Yars’ Revenge, Atari 2600
Written by Howard Scott Warshaw and published by Atari, Inc. in 1982, Yars’ Revenge is one of those old video games that plays a lot better than it looks, and is much more subtle that you might think upon first inspection.
In fact, it took me decades to actually ‘click’ with the game and finally be bothered to learn how to play it properly.
Pole Position, Arcade
This 1982 arcade racer from Namco is a hugely influential video game. Possibly the most influential driving game ever made.
Basketball, Arcade
This is the 1979, black and white arcade game, Basketball, as developed and manufactured by Atari Inc. It had two trackballs on the cabinet – one for each player.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Atari 2600
This notorious 1982 release for the Atari 2600 was – at the time – the most expensive movie license ever acquired by a video game company ($35 million dollars it apparently cost), and it also undoubtedly hastened the demise of Atari Inc. (as it was back then), and was also a major contributing factor to the video game market crash of 1983.
Star Raiders, Atari 8-bit
Doug Neubauer‘s 1979 release, Star Raiders, is a very important game indeed. Predominantly because it was so hugely influential on many other games that followed it. Some people even point to it being the spark that started the first-person shooter market, but that is probably going a little too far…
Combat, Atari 2600
Combat was designed by Atari, Inc. and first released for the Atari 2600 in 1977 and was the pack-in game for the system until 1982 (meaning: you got a Combat cartridge with the console, upon purchase).
It was one of the first home video games I ever played (probably the same for millions of others) and it enthralled me. Yes, Combat is very simple by today’s standards, but in 1977 it was a revelation and was much cloned by other developers.
The King of Grabs 