Best of Atari 2600


Prometheus

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I just figured I'd start one of these for the venerable old Atari 2600. :)


Cosmic Ark - Shooting and Rescuing - Believed to be the first sequel to a home video game, Cosmic Ark is the follow-up to Imagic's Atlantis. The survivors of Atlantis (who could be seen escaping when you lost at the original game) have travelled to the Alpha Ro solar system, with the intent of saving as many creatures as possible from a fiery fate, because the sun there is about to burn out. You get to travel between planets, braving meteor storms along the way (these are defended against simply by pushing the controller in the direction that the meteor you want to hit is coming from - the Ark will then shoot that way; It's slightly unusual, but you get used to it quickly), and, once through those, you have to rescue two animals from the surface of each planet you visit, using a neat little shuttleship with a tractor-beam. You have to be quick, though, because those meteors don't stay gone for long!


Freeway - Crossing the Road - A good game for trying to beat personal bests, in Freeway you have to try to get as many chickens across a busy road during a set period of time as you can. Flipping the Atari 2600's difficulty switches changes how much traffic is on-screen, and how the traffic moves (in the manual, each of these patterns are named after busy US freeways, at different times of day and night). How many chickens can you get across the road?


Keystone Kapers - Policing - Play as a police officer who has to chase down and recapture an escaped robber who's running loose inside a shopping mall. You have to retrieve items, and catch the burglar before he gets to the roof. This is actually more challenging than it first appears, especially once harmful obstacles start appearing as the game progresses, and it strongly has that "Just one more go!" factor.


Pitfall! - Treasure-hunting - Play as Pitfall Harry - gaming's legendary equivalent to Indiana Jones - as he searches for treasure in a dense and dangerous jungle. There are 256 different screens, each connected to the other, and you have twenty real-world minutes in which to try to find every piece of treasure. You can tackle the game from whatever direction you choose, which was fairly unique at the time. Travelling underground will skip a few screens at a time, so you can use this to your advantage in order to traverse through the jungle more quickly in search of your goal.


Pitfall II: Lost Caverns - Treasure-hunting and Rescuing - Pitfall Harry returns, this time with his niece Rhonda, and pet Quickclaw (a cowardly mountain lion). He needs to find the valuable Raj Diamond, and rescue Rhonda and Quickclaw from the places they're stranded in, all whilst picking up any treasure he can find along the way. This game goes far beyond the original Pitfall!, and could even be viewed as something of a predecessor to games such as Metroid. The lost caverns from the title are far vaster than the jungle from the original game, and Harry can now even take a swim in an underground river that lies at the bottom of the caverns. It also has a soundtrack which changes depending on certain in-game events, which was way ahead of its time.
 
I think the only real atari 2600 game i remember was called dogfight, if my mind serves me, I played it at a friends house and was completely taken with it.
 
I'm going to go for Jungle Hunt. I never had a 2600, but used to play this at a friends house quite a bit. Jumping logs, swinging from vines, swimming with crocodiles: it's great fun :)
 
Pitfall and Pitfall II are pretty much IT as far as Atari 2600 games that I would still want to play today.


The Frogger port is pretty good, but you can play Frogger on any number of better platforms. Ms. Pacman on the 2600 is also decent... at least it isn't the failure that plain old Pacman was on the platform! You might also check out California Games for an example of how far the limits of the system can be pushed, graphically.
 
I love H.E.R.O. - I can't believe I forgot to add that one! :lol:


I've heard a lot of good things about Montezuma's Revenge, so I must look into that, too.
 
Kaboom! was a personal favorite, hard to play emulated, so I picked up an old Atari with Paddles in trade for an Ipod.


The only downside to Kaboom! was that it's difficulty ramped up so fast games rarely lasted long, which ultimately hurt replay value.
 
Pressure Cooker: Build hamburgers to order as the ingredients come down a conveyor, then bring the completed burgers to the bottom of the screen to complete the order. You can only waste a certain number of ingredients off the conveyor belt before you get fired.


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I think the only real atari 2600 game i remember was called dogfight, if my mind serves me, I played it at a friends house and was completely taken with it.

Could you describe this game? I don't remember one called Dogfight, and Google isn't helping. I wonder if "Combat" might be the one you remember? Edit: No Game called that in Atari Age's 2600 database. Now if "Combat" isn't it I'm really curious. :D


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My favourites (not yet mentioned here):


Yar's Revenge, Venture, Q*Bert, Spike's Peak, Fathom.
 
Laser Gates:


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Kung Fu Master:


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Dragster:


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H.E.R.O and Cosmic Arc are already mentioned above, so thats five of my favourites not including decathlon and Activision Boxing which are only great with a second player.
 
What about Pong? That's always fun.
There was not actually a straight Atari 2600 version of Pong. ;) There was Video Olympics (sold as "Pong Sports" by Sears in the US), though.
 
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Hey look, Halo on the Pandora!


500x_halo2600.jpg



It's called Halo 2600, made by Ed Fries.


Was a limited time release at a classic gaming expo recently.


You can now pick up the rom here: Halo 2600


Pretty funny actually, though I guess it doesn't count as an official retro Atari game :p
 
To be fair the thread does read "Best of Atari 2600" which doesn't even have to mean carts. Supercharger, hacks, and post system demise releases inducing the impressively fun Halo 2600 should count.
 
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Absolute favorite for the 2600 is Dragonfire. Other good ones are Yar's Revenge, Fishing Derby, Mousetrap, Phoenix, Gorf, Berzerk, Desert Falcon, Joust (I actually like this version more than the NES one), Atlantis, and Kangaroo. I loved my parents' 2600.
 
The ones I remember most are: Asteroids, Missile Command, Warlords, Yars Revenge, Millipede, Circus, Combat, Pitfall, Donkey Kong.


There are of course more versions of some of these that are more faithful to the arcade versions on other systems. But Millipede on the 2600 was very good, and Yars Revenge was 2600 only (as was I think Pitfall). Warlords was fun for multiplayer, but it benefited most from the paddle controller.
 
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