My Favorite Atari 2600 Games

Video games are a billion dollar a year industry. They have surpassed both music and movies on how much money they generate in this last part of the 2000’s. But there was a time when the home video game was a crappy version on a quarter eating arcade machine.

Remember your first home video game? Chances are, if sales numbers mean anything, it was an Atari 2600. When I finally got mine, it was a Christmas gift. It came bundled with the games Pac-Man and Combat. It was the first Christmas ever that I didn’t care about going to Grandma’s house to open more presents, I wanted to stay home and gobble ghosts! My parents were adamant, however, and so a compromise was reached: we would bring the Atari with us!

It was, of course, the hit of the day. Everyone wanted to play Atari. And everyone did. Which is worse; being away from your brand-new Atari gaming system, or watching everyone else play it but you?

As a homage to this great entertainment icon of the 1980s, I present my top ten Atari 2600 games. This list is only the games that I personally enjoyed, not the best games ever made for the system.

1. Pac-Man. Yes, a horrible game in and of itself, and about as faithful to the arcade classic as Jim Baker was to Tammy Faye. But I didn’t care, it was Pac-Man, and I didn’t have to drop a quarter into a machine every five minutes.

2. Asteroids. Much closer to the arcade game, it was one of the rare games both my parents would actually play on the system.

3. River Raid. The graphics were decent, but I remember seeing the ad for this game for months in various comic books. I just had to have it. Damn you marketing!

4. Combat. Hey, it was the first Atari 2600 game. That Christmas morning I got my Atari, the relatives about wore my shinny new faux-wood console out playing tanks and planes.

5. Yar’s Revenge. This is still a fun game. Recently, when some company re-released the Atari as a tiny mini replica with built-in games, I purchased it just to play this game again.

6
. Frogger. I played the arcade game so often that I thought owning the home version would make me a better player. Didn’t happen, but it was still fun.

7. Defender. I had a friend in school who could not watch me play this game. It would cause him to have seizures. We tested it out three times to be sure.

8. Q*bert. I saw this played at a store, and loved it. I begged and begged for my parents to get this game for me on my next birthday. They did! It turned out that the one I liked so much at the store was the ColecoVision version, which had better graphics. I felt cheated.

9. PitFall. I still have nightmares about alligators in black water. And rolling logs. And giant scorpions. But I loved the game!

10. Pole Position. You didn’t actually drive the car. In fact, the car never really moved at all. You controlled the road. Once I noticed that, months and months after enjoyed the game so much, I fell out of love. I am finicky like that.

So there it is, my top ten Atari 2600 video games. Which Atari games do you remember from the 80s? Post your list below!